chershar.htmFall of 1990, CHERYL SHARES DREAMS THAT WERE DASHED and ends with a message for all of us, that becoming a 'breeder' is not automatically 'fun and games':

A Bay Berner since 1979, Cheryl shared many fun gatherings with Calamity Bear v Sajan as one of our square dancing couples for several years.

Calamity
-----was American Temperament Test Society Berner #1....
-----had OFA #255....
-----made a promising start in Search & Rescue work....
-----was one of the early diagnosed elbow cases....
-----was bred through two seasons to a dog who also had fragmented elbows and finally produced 4 puppies. (Two lived (Nadi and Cessi) and were released as a formal 'test litter' to contribute significant information to Dr. Wind's study of the elbow disease).
-----developed lymphosarcoma and died in 1985.

In the next 5 years, there was a collage of happy and unhappy events involving family and dogs. Finally, Petzl (Morgen v Speicher) was old enough to be considered for breeding. She was the first Berner to be registered with the new GDC the summer of 1990. After both hips and elbows were evaluated normal, Cheryl did her homework to find out how long-lived Petzl's relatives had been and decided she carried genes that she wanted to reproduce. She then chose Jack to be the mate and took Petzl to him for two successful breedings.
Eight weeks from the day of the first breeding, Cheryl was ready for a full litter by the looks of Petzl. The next 3 days seemed like an eternity. Cheryl had read what to expect and did not feel that things were going right, though repeated calls to the veterinarian's office she had been using, assured her it was normal
--to have the water from one puppy's sack come before the puppy?
--to have a green discharge?
--to have a dead puppy? then a live puppy? a second dead puppy? a second live one?
--a third dead one? then an overnite delay??
When Cheryl decided to follow her own concerns for Petzl who was exhausted, as well as for the pups, she called the owner of the sire. Arrangements were quickly made to take Petzl in for a C-section. Sadly, altogether 6 fully formed pups were dead.
When the two surviving pups were about one month of age, complications at home made Cheryl decide to accept the offer by the owners of the sire to take Petzl and raise and place her puppies.
As Cheryl looks back, she knows her instinct to insist that something needed to be done was hampered by a veterinarian who took an authoritative posture while making Cheryl feel that her concern was uncalled for. She would urge all owners to have the self confidence to recognize when their dog appears in trouble and openly request a consultation and second opinion without a feeling of guilt. In this case, the second opinion was a vet on emergency call who concurred with the first opinion. She had to go out of town to get the intervention that was needed. At these times one needs one of the many veterinarians who believe that the owner of a dog is the first one to notice development of unusual symptoms and to rely on this observation to help their professional decision-making.