27^th June 2008 - Unfortunately we lost our brave little girl Jorka, on Sunday evening. She had a stomach ulcer which ruptured causing peritonitis. Although the Vet did everything he could, he was unable to save her. The condition had nothing to do with the amputation of her leg. When we spoke to the Vet in Edinburgh who carried out the amputation, she was like us, devastated. Up until Saturday she had made remarkable progress adapting to life on three legs, she was able to get outside ok, life was looking good for her, she was constantly wagging her tail from the moment she came home after her operation and even was walking with speed when she went out the back door for her short exercise periods. One day soon we will have something nice to write about. 

15th June 2008 -  Jorka is fine.  She has only been home two days, but the improvement in such a short time is amazing.  We have two steps at the back door which she has to negotiate to get outside, when she first came home she struggled to co-ordinate herself, but now she almosts runs outside!  Its incredible how dogs just seem to cope and get on with it.  She is spending a lot of time resting, as a trip outside for just 5 minutes really tires her. 

13th June 2008  -  Ian went to fetch Jorka home today. We weren't quite sure what to expect, but we are both heartbroken.  Jorka is fine in herself, although she tires very easily.  We have to keep the other dogs away from her in case they knock her over.  Fortunately we have the puppy room and we have made her a nice bed up in there where she can be on her own away from the gang.  We have also made a bed up for Ian to sleep in there with her.  The Vet was very happy with her progress, she thought that she was managing extremely well in such a short time  since the operation.  She does not have to go back to Edinburgh unless we are worried about her, our own vets will be able to take the stitches out, there must be a 100. She has a course of antibiotics to take along with a daily dose of Metacalm.  She is restricted to lead exercise of no more than 5 minutes at a time.  It will take some months for her to build up the muscles in her legs to enable her to resume more normal exercise.  We will update this page with her progress.  Thanks to everybody for their concern and best wishes for a speedy recovery.

11th June 2008    -  The news that Geilo is a father again to a litter of 7, 3 males and 4 females has somewhat been overshadowed by the devastating news that Jorka, Staubach Forever and Always, has had to have her left hind leg amputated.  We noticed a small lump on her foot about 2 weeks before we went on holiday.  Ian took her to the vets and he said to take her in and he would remove it.  When we went to collect her, he said that he had decided not to remove it as he would like to refer us to a specialist in Edinburgh.  Ian took her for a consultation on the Bank holiday Monday, she was given a full body scan and an appointment to take her back for removal of the lump which was a Mast Cell Tumour.  Having given us the options available to us, we decided that for the long term best interests of Jorka a full amputation was the only course to take.  The vet said that this was the best thing to do.  She had the amputation last Friday and to date she is still in the Hospital at Edinburgh.  They telephone us daily with progress reports and they are very happy with her progress, they can't believe how well she is doing.  Hopefully she will be coming home on Friday.  We will let you know how she is doing.

3rd June 2008 

A landmark today 3rd June 2008 Madi is 9 years old!  Madi is the last surviving puppy from our 1st litter of Bernese(8) bred from Tascha -Glanzberg Blue Topaz at Staubach and Heiko Von Scheimatthof of Glanzberg.