Monday, August 23, 2010

Achy Gums

I went to Vegas this past weekend with my family. Kevin went as well, so we left Mika with his mom. On the drive back I was talking to him about how Mika hasn't lost any of her needle sharp puppy teeth yet. I voiced my concern about her being a late bloomer and being so tiny compared to other shibas around her age. Well after being gone for the weekend, Mika jumped all over me, I could tell she missed me. I could also tell that she was being a bit mouthier than usual. I sat down for a bit and played tug & fetch with her. That's when I noticed one of her puppy teeth on her bottom row was missing! Dead center! It was gone! I thought I was seeing things. I told Kevin and he looked at it and yup, it was gone. I also notice that her top ones are getting a bit loose now as well. Needless to say, she is in super teething mode and is mouthing at me and chewing at anything she can get her mouth on. I tried giving her a frozen washcloth, but she does not seem interested in it. Time to break out the kong and frozen yogurt again! I wish I could use peanut butter, but Mika still despises the taste of peanut butter.

Wish us luck that all of her teeth come out properly so we won't have to get them pulled.

This picture you can see that she is missing a tooth dead center!

Friday, August 13, 2010

Staring through the Window

Each time I go to the mall, I tell myself not to go into the puppy/dog stores. But what do I end up doing? Going into those stores. Then I leave the store feeling sad and having my heart break knowing those pups behind the windows are most likely from puppy mills. I walk in feeling so disgusted and wanting to see if there are any shibas behind those windows and a sigh of relief comes over me when I don't see any, but still I cry a bit inside seeing the other puppies who are there. I get angry when I hear people wanting to purchase these pups. I want to pull them aside and educate them on puppy mills and where most of those pups probably came from. I want to save them the heartache of possibly having an ill puppy down the line.

In the past 6 months I've seen at least six shiba inu puppies in the pet stores. Every time I've seen one, they looked so lethargic. Today, I went to go pickup a bag of free Natura pet food from a coupon that's going around on the internet. I didn't realize the store I was going to, to pick up the food also sold puppies there. I felt relieved because I didn't see any shiba pups there, or so I thought, until I walked towards the back. There were "new arrivals" who couldn't come out to play just yet. In one cage was a red female shiba pup cuddling next to a female pug. After a while the pug woke up and tried to get the shiba to wake up. The shiba had a plastic tag around it's neck for identification and the pug was tugging at it. Lifting the shiba up from a sleeping position to a sitting position. Still the shiba just opened her eyes, looked at the pug and plopped back down to sleep. I walked out of the store, not looking back, because if I did I would have wanted to take that little girl home with me. I knew I couldn't, because then I'd be supporting the one thing I want to get rid of, the puppy mills.

I pray that one day, everyone will be educated on purchasing puppies, so they can learn where their companions come from and put an end to the puppy mills, so we can have healthier and happier puppies.