Say Hello to Whiskey!
Whiskey is my girlfriend's old dog. She's is a pomeranian and turned 10 years old this December. I've grown quite attached to her ever since I moved to Thailand, because she is the first dog I've ever looked after. We did have dogs when I was a kid, but only for a short while - one of them got stolen and the other one, we had to return because we couldn't look after no more. Even then though I was just a kid, not knowing what a responsibility it is to have a pet, not sure even my parents knew back then. Now that I have 5 of these 4 legged friends around the house (Cherry sadly passed away on the 1st of Jan this year), I know how much work it is for sure!
Today though I want to introduce you to Whiskey and share some stories and photos of her from when she was little, up to this date. As I mentioned earlier she is 10 years old, so naturally some of the photos will be that old as well and the quality probably isn't gonna be the best. Hope her small cute face makes up for it!
Whiskey as a puppy
She is fairly small now - only 2.5kg, but when I see photos of her from when she was little it looks unreal how tiny she was. Her fur color has changed ever since then as well but that is something normal for pomeranians. When they first shed their puppy haircoat, they usually change their colors slightly. Her face patches are a lot more golden now than they were when she was smaller.
She's a sleepyhead now but it seems it was her thing ever since she was younger.
In these photos she is about a year old I believe. Her grown-up fur coat is already there. To this day that is one of her favorite poses to sleep in.
Nat also likes to buy her costumes from time to time. Whiskey is pretty funny in them and usually just stays still once you put it on, not knowing what to do next. Makes it easy enough to take photos. :)
Whiskey's weird sleeping positions
Looking through my phone for photos for this post, I quickly realized that more than half of the photos I have of Whiskey are of her sleeping in the weirdest positions ever. Laying on her back is a favorite pose but she often just presses her head against her bed in the most unusual way and ends up like this photo above.
Shower Time
Most dogs don't like showers at all, some hate even getting wet. Whiskey is just indifferent. She just stays still until the deed is done. We are quite lucky with that because she recently had a hormonal problem which made her hair fall off and her skin to become very dry. We had to bathe her regularly and leave her with a special moisturizing shapoo for about 10 min each time before we wash it off. It's nice to have a dog that just stays there for the time period.
And here she is just waiting for the time to pass and the shower to be over. She completely disappears once she gets wet.
The one thing that she hates about the whole ordeal is the blow drier. She hates it so much that even similar sounds make her angry - cleaning with the hoover usually is acompanied by a lot of barking.
Whiskey's recent surgery
It is a common surgery for dogs to remove their ovaries. That way they cannot give birth or have complications when they get older without having puppies. The thing is we didn't really know much about it and when I first moved to Thailand, I saw her hair not growing in certain places. It looked weird for a pom so I asked Nat to take her to the vets. We went there and the doctor checked her blood and did a few other tests. In the end he told us she has a hormonal disbalance, since she haven't given birth and she's getting old. With that he prescribed us some hormone pills that we had to give her every day for the rest of her life basically. Not knowing better we started doing that and we did see an effect. She was being a lot more playful than before, she was running outside, even her coat started growing a little after a few months. We went for regular blood checks to see if her hormones are in balance. The only problem was she was getting bloated and became a bit fat. And the fat wasn't around her belly but above on the sides. She'd get moody and not eat much sometimes and we'd run to the doctors quite often.
This October all of a sudden she became even more bloated. Started walking slower and had less energy. Took her to the vets straight away and they scanned her. Gave us some meds and told us to monitor her but they didn't really know what the problem was. The doctor went to consult with another specialist while we wait.
Whiskey didn't get better.. on the contraty. She would even stop midway on a walkie and would wait for me to carry her home because she couldn't walk.
That day I went straight to the vets and they told us we need to do a surgery and fast. Turns out it was her ovaries, because of the hormones they became enormous and were in the way. Took her blood for a test, everything seemed fine and we had to leave her there for a surgery on the next day. This all happened on the same week we were moving out of our house so it was a total dissaster.
Fortunately for Whiskey she pulled through and all went well. She is full of energy now and her hair is finally growing back normally without giving her any pills. If only we knew that we could do this surgery in the first place, we could've saved her so much trouble.
Whiskey in the present
Whiskey is a pretty happy doggie. A lot less active than the younger ones in the house but she still has her moments of running madly around the first floor for no reason. She likes belly rubs and snacks but most of all, she likes her time with her humans. She's often laying on top of me when I'm on the computer with a smile on her face.
We sometimes take her to the office with us as well. She does bark a lot at people though, so it isn't a common occurance
And here she is from below my desk.