Elsa's Home Page

Hi, I'm Elsa, the good looking, fun loving one. If you want a game then I am your girl. The above picture of me was taken when I was on a recent holiday to Dartmoor. As you can see I have completely recovered from the ordeal of having a litter of ten puppies, well almost completely recovered, I still droop a bit in the milk department.

Earlier this year Sabah and I had a really lovely time staying at the home of our friend Fern (she's a Border Collie) and her owners. Sabah and I helped Fern with a garden makeover. Her back lawn was a bit flat and I'm sure you could have rolled a ball from one end to the other in a straight line. It now has several holes in it which makes it very much more interesting. We got the idea from something we saw on the television where humans were knocking little white balls across the lawn and aiming for holes in the ground. One of Fern's owners had to drive miles to go and play that game. Now he can stay at home and do it.

I love all kinds of water except bath water! On most days you will find me either in the sea, in a river or, if the other two aren't available, the nearest puddle (the muddier the better). Some of the pictures on this web site were taken on one of my holidays in Dartmoor, there are actually quite a few good muddy spots there. When Sabah was much younger she stepped into a puddle on Dartmoor that was somewhat deeper than she was tall. When she bobbed back up to the surface you should have seen the look on her face.

When I'm not getting wet I can often be found at home watching TV or trying to keep Sabah in order. My favourite channel is Animal Planet.

Normally when it comes to food I'm not choosy I just like to take my time and savour a good meal. When I recently had my litter of puppies I had to throw goods manners out of the window and eat as much as I could whenever I could. I have to admit that I even ate some of my people's food when they were not watching. I'm sorry but I was absolutely starving.

Friday 15th June 2007

Yesterday was the big day, or should I say, the day I became less big? Having spent the last ten days waddling around with my belly getting bigger and bigger, and with all of those puppies playing five-a-side with my insides, I finally produced a fine litter of puppies. When I said five-a-side I really meant it as I gave birth to five boys and five girls.

The total weight of my litter was over 3 Kilos, that's bigger than some human babies too! My first puppy, a little girl, arrived just before midday and the last one, a rather large boy, came just after 5.00 pm. Before you start praising me for producing my babies during the daytime and therefore not keeping my owners away from their beds, I should perhaps point out that I did keep them awake during the previous night.

As I had gone off my food and was busily looking for somewhere very inaccessible to have my pups, my owners thought that I was going to give birth on Thursday night. One of them kindly stayed downstairs with me. It was quite an adventure really. Every time he tried to nod off on the sofa I crept up to him and started panting in his ear and woke him up. I suppose that I could have barked, but then he is a light sleeper anyway so why waste the effort?

I got a bit bored doing this and decided to take him a ball to play with. We did catch for a while but then I got bored with that too. I climbed onto the sofa where he was laying and went to sleep as well.

Tuesday 19th June 2007

I think that I gave my owners a bit of a scare over the weekend. I didn't mean to. I was just very confused. On Saturday morning I got very upset and was whining and squealing quite a lot. They thought that I was rejecting my puppies; well I probably was, for a moment. Not having done this before I wasn't sure what I should be doing. I was also very tired. All night long I lay in my box with ten mouths clamped to my undersides. And if that wasn't bad enough I was being baked by a big heat lamp hanging over the box. Apparently little pups cannot keep their proper temperature for the first 10 to 14 days. It's funny but I have never seen those lamps being used in any of the wildlife documentaries I have watched on Animal Planet.

What I really wanted to do was to get out of the house and go for a long walk like I did every day before the puppies arrived. My owners seemed reluctant to take me out. They seemed to think that I was going to run off or something stupid like that. As if I would.... I could probably have found somewhere cooler to go though. For the time being I had to make do with the back garden.

When I first came to this house the owners had their garden full of plants. You couldn't see from one end to the other. It was very lucky that I came along when I did because one of them could have got lost forever out there. I soon set about chomping those plants down to size. Some of them were actually quite tasty and its a shame that they don't grow there anymore.

Just before the pups were born I had this plan that I would build my very own den in the garden. I had even started digging the foundations. After the Big Event I continued with the project. You should have heard them, my owners, it was as if I had trashed their new leather sofa (that's an idea I might pass on to the pups!!). I got shouted at and hauled back indoors quick time. They even filled in my handiwork.

Anyway, on Saturday afternoon they took me down to the beach. you wouldn't believe what a blessed relief it was to wade out into that nice cool water. Too much puppy feeding can make you quite uncomfortable you know.

When I got back home I felt quite refreshed and was more than ready to give the pups their tea. In fact I stayed in the box for the rest of the evening and most of the night. My master came down to look at me in the middle of the night. I had been snoozing soundly and didn't bother to move when he looked down on me. He seemed quite upset by this and was calling for me to get up. No chance. You know how it is when you are so relaxed.

The next thing I know is that he is taking all of the pups out of the box and putting them in the heated basket. Then he is actually trying to lift me up and out of bed. No chance. He gave up after the third attempt and made himself a drink. Sabah came down and went into the kitchen and made those doe eyes of hers at him. Blow me if he didn't offer her a Bonio. At three o'clock in the flippin morning would you believe? Well that was too much. If Sabah was going to get fed then so was I.

Well that was the end of my little ruse. You would have thought that he would have been grateful that I got up under my own steam. No. He sent me packing out into the back garden. And it had been raining. Still, it did make it easier to make my hole deeper!

I went to the beach again this evening. It was quite fun really. I found another ball on the beach. Sabah found another of those cuttlefish things that she likes chewing. Was she a budgerigar in a previous life do you think?

Sunday 15th July 2007

We have had a constant stream of visitors here over the weekend; all of them seemed to be far more interested in the puppies than they were of me and Sabah. Some of them even brought their own dogs with them. Apparently our owners and the visitors inspect each other but I didn't see them do it, in fact I have never seen them sniff around anyone so how can they inspect them?

They were doing it, apparently, to see if those visitors were suitable people to have my puppies. They could have saved themselves a lot of time and simply asked me and Sabah, we would have then gone and had a chat with their dogs and sorted the problem out in no time.