Back to the start of his life. August 19, 2009.

I worked at the local vet in town for nearly a year, helping with the animals, operations and receptionist duties. It was great. One day we had a bloke drop off his pregnant Kelpie bitch, she was due a couple days before and hadn’t had the pups. So Rob, one of the vets, performed a caesarian on her. Being a maiden bitch (her first litter) and because she wasn’t supposed to have been mated, therefore the owners didn’t know and feed her appropriately, she didn’t have much milk for the puppies and so she was pretty skinny.

11 puppies born to her, two of which were still born, 9 live puppies of which there was 3 bitches and 6 dogs. Told the owner, who would have to supplement the puppies feeds because the bitch was in poor condition and had very little milk, he decided to keep the 3 bitches, and only 2 of the dogs. So there were 4 male pups to be knocked on the head. Without letting the owner know, Rob asked me and the other receptionist if we wanted a pup. I immediately said yes, and so did Shelly. We each picked out our boy, and took them home that night.

And so started the two hourly feeds, for two weeks, then the four hourly feeds for two weeks, then down to 4 feeds a day. My cat was very interested in this little toad of a puppy, it squarked and mewled and crawled and rolled around in a box. This nameless little pup was the joy of my life. He remained nameless for the first two weeks of his life, I created a list about a page long, double columned, of names and their meanings in many different languages, looking for that ‘perfect’ name that would suit him to a T. I finally decided on ‘Zorion’ which means happiness or good luck in a language that I had no idea even existed, called Basque.

I had so much fun with him as a puppy, teaching him to play, to lap food instead of just suckling on the bottle, house-training – THAT was great fun and involved MANY accidents 🙂 – and above all else, socialising him with my friends dogs and cats, the horses, the car, and random people. He grew very used to the cages at the vet, considering he was there every day for about 15 weeks, until he was big enough that he could be left at home alone while I worked. The first day I left him home alone, I worried the entire time I was at work. I had left him with his toys, bones, chewies, hopefully enough to keep him occupied for 4 hours, as I was only working half days at that time. He was fine, of course, when I got home. Had destroyed one of his toys, and started gnawing on his bed instead of his chewies, but hey, he’s a puppy. That’s to be expected.

And now, he’s nearly a year old, he is adapting quite well to not being an only child with the arrival of Jenny, he is slowly learning to be obedient 🙂 but he’s still my baby boy, no matter what.

Wall-E and Zorion

My car broke down when he was about 2 months old, and he found something tasty to eat…horse poo, of course.

There are SO many photos I could put up of him, I think I took photos every day of him. They also show how he grows, and how his ears still don’t fit his head 🙂 but one day, I’m sure they will.

Paws and Hugs

Amy, Zorion and Jenny