Nanako has turned 15 this November. She is sure getting older month by month. Since it has become so hard for her to stand still while scissoring, I clipped most of her body. Now she can lie down most of the time when being groomed.
Due to the old age, her heart is getting weaker too but I think she has been doing OK somehow except two troubles - bloat and injury.

One day in summer, she bloated again. Her last bloat incident occurred in September 2003. She had an operation then and her condition had been very good since then. So, her sudden bloat really upset me. Fortunately I could bring her to the nearest vet in 3 minutes and she has been alright after that.

Her second trouble came in mid October. Since she is loosing her physical strength and ability, going down stairs has become the biggest problem to her.

One morning, she fell off the stairs. It shouldn't have been a big deal if she was young because there were only three steps left. She couldn't help herself and hit her head and neck. This made her almost a handicapped old dog. Since then, she couldn't stand nor walk. All of her feet and body got so stiff and she couldn't even sit straight.

I brought her to the vet and had checked her through X-rays. There were some problems in her cervical and I decided to try hot compress on her. For the first few days, I made a very hot wet towel with microwave and later, I used a herbal pack. (The photo on below left)

To my surprise, this REALLY worked! She spent the first week almost bedridden, but has completely recovered in about 10 days and came back to life. It was an amazing recovery.

As I wrote in the first page, Leanne has become a mother of two pups in the end of May. Before they were born, Leanne didn't eat well and though she was pregnant, she had lost her weight! She has been a very bad eater; she seems she doesn't have interests in eating.

A month after breeding, I took her to the vet to have checked with ultrasonography to see how many pups she had. We could see at least three puppies then, but the result was only two.
I suspect that the third one couldn't grow and had been lost because Leanne didn't eat well.

I had to have busy days after their birth but since the number of puppies was so small and Leanne nursed them very well, I didn't need to bottle feed them at all. This was a good point.
We say "a baby who sleeps well grows well" in Japan. Two puppies grew quickly, minute by minute, hour by hour and day by day. All of us enjoyed them so much.