I went to NY, USA to pick up BHRR’s Ava Marie today(I am calling her Ava Marie!) and so much to update yet it is time to get all dogs settled in, fed and other chores plus responsiblities to be taken care of first. Sean took some pictures for me of her today and thanks so much to Theresa for some crates including 2 HUGE collosal ones. We have set one up for Ava Marie. She let me manually give her her Deramaxx and Sean is going to take some video of her on his BB for me to upload and I hope that people will begin to make a connection wtih her and then want to help her! SHE is a dream of a girl. She just melted my soul when I first met her and as per the revised blog I made earlier; she is just over 2 years of age. A mere pup of a Great Dane and I have her last recorded weight of 191.80 pounds. While she is most assuredly a big boned girl; she needs to seriously lose a good 40 -50 pounds to start. It is a rare dog indeed that makes our own 206 pound English Mastiff Guinness look small!!!! I was also given her X-Rays from February 5th and have taken a good look at them myself. While she is mobile, that right leg is definitely the worst and will need to be repaired first. For those wanting to help BHRR’s Ava Action Assistance Fundraiser yet feel that their $5 or $10 might be too small, it ISN’T! Yours will add to another kind person and then with another and so on and together we can all make the biggest difference to Ava Marie so that she is not living in chronic pain and can be the puppy she is again, playing and romping! I also wish to say that it is a rare person that I want to comfort and hug when there is an o/s of a dog to our program yet in saying good-bye to my friend from Animal Control; I hugged the young man who was surrendering Ava Marie to us and told him how sorry I was. He was truly heartbroken to see her leave and I wish that owning a Giant Breed Dog was not so expensive; yet unfortunately; it is not and the costs can run up extremely high when they are sick or injured.  My heart was heavy. I told him to please stay in touch, ensured he had our website information and that there would be tons of pictures plus updates on our site. Small comfort I know in this situation to him. 😥 The love he feels for her is so much that he wanted better for her and let her go to us instead of keeping her untreated with him or having her put to sleep. That is the ultimate in love and Ava Marie is a ‘dream’ of a Dane! Not just in looks yet I am loving what I am seeing to date of her personality! She is already integrated with BHRR’s Albert and BHRR’s Potter plus Guinness. When the other dogs went filing past her crate in the sunroom; all was great. Dana was her usually ‘mischief’ self and went right up to her crate and did her ‘bluff’ routine of ‘I am queen.’ 😛 I am completely not worried about full integration with Ava Marie and just want the younger ones to be careful/mindful of her back legs yet they do great with PPPSS(with his one hip and then the knee on the other back leg) plus Guinness with his own knees and Kona plus BHRR’s Hamilton the Newf with their HD etc. The look on Potter’s face in seeing her though was priceless. He was in ‘girly heaven’! OMG! LOL I will do a HWT on her for I did not see one and I have yet to find the paperwork for her Thyroid testing yet shall look more closely. My only issue bringing her back across the border was that her HC was not in my/BHRR’s name and I had to pull on to the side of the road after getting her to be sure that I had all supporting documentation with me from BHRR with registration number, CRA paperwork etc. so that things would run smoothly at Customs as the HC was not in our name. I am going to add two pictures below from after her arrival to BHRR today and also to her slideshow. She shall be seeing Dr. Liston on Wednesday March 10th, 2010 and we still have $255.00 to raise for a deposit to put down for her surgeries, of which the right one will need to be done first and then we shall see about the left one within 4-8 weeks after that if necessary. You can donate by PayPal (account is gwen@birchhaven.org) or email transfer to gwen@birchhaven.org or even mail a check witten out to ‘Liston Animal Hospital’ or ‘Birch Haven Rescue & Rehabilitation Services’ and mail it. I will also have Dr. Liston take a look at what appears to be some of rash under both of her underarms. Not sure if it is a reaction to a possible harness yet we shall have that looked into. I will post a picture below where you can clearly see the one side of this – almost looks like a ‘brand’ it is so red, bumpy and rasied on the left side. I have added slides #2 – 15 to her slideshow. WELCOME TO BHRR AVA MARIE!

BHRR’s Ava Marie – March 7th, 2010 – Day of Arrival to BHRR – 2 years of age

BHRR’s Ava Marie – March 7th, 2010 – You can see the ‘rectangle’ of redness under her arm