I am absolutely certain she doesn't have a litter hidden crystalgirl. She is very young...no physical signs of having had pups. In fact I wouldn't be surprised if she hasn't had her first season yet....something I was going to check out with the vet before having her spayed...if I can catch her.

Still no sign of her this evening. I'm hoping that she may venture close enough to be fed at least

Hi I'll keep my fingers crossed,because a stray bitch seems to have it worse wthout our protection and care crystalgirl

Oh you are so right there. Still no sign of her 24 hours later.

My husband searched the village last night, and I had no sleep all night because every time I heard a dog bark nearby I kept popping out to see if it was her.

Even if she wants to stay on the streets, I would like to keep feeding her and know that she is OK

I've never experienced anything negative with spaying or neutering. My present dog, a staffie, was neutered after her first season, I was going to get her done before but she came into season the day before she was due to be done, and she has a fantastic positively glossy coat...and no weight issues. She only started to put on weight when we had children and they feed her titbits ...so I cut her food down.

Thankyou catrinsparkles. That's very reassuring

Just an update about Blondie.

Late last night I could hear Sammy and Megan barking down the road. Somehow they had managed to find a way out of the garden (these dogs would put Houdini to shame!).

They were playing with Blondie. When they saw me they came rushing back and I opened the gate for them to come in. Not Blondie though. She stayed put. I took down some food for her, then returned to to the house.

After a short while she gradually came up and settled outside the gate. I opened the gate to encourage her in but she was having none of it.

This morning there was no sign of her again. But at least she had food last night and hopefully will keep returning to be fed.

It seems like all three will play happily together outside, but not in the garden, so we'll just have to wait patiently and hope that things will change.

'''''''''''''''''''''''''''

Edited to add: 2 hours since writing the above, Blondie is back in the garden with Megan and Sammy. Who knows how long it will last? It's all trial and error at the moment...but at least if I can keep them together until Friday, all three will have their ops, which will be a relief.

Hi I am pleased to hear that Blondie is back,maybe she is just wary of being trapped,Faye is like that she will not go in the sun room if door into the house is shut.When I spoke to her breeder,about this fear,she was told that the french mastiff used to block her with her body.But now the hall is getting verygrubby,we were hoping to use the sun room as a place they could go after a walk.crystalgirl

Thanks crystalgirl. You're probably right about her feeling trapped.

Megan seems to be the one with the most issues. She is territorial, and she has a big thing about food. We feed them apart, but even so, Megan will try to eat everything. Even Sammy backs down sometimes with her.

We are going to start bringing Megan into the main garden to feed completely separately, so the other two can eat in peace.

She is also very jealous when we make a fuss of the other two, although we always treat them equally.

I wonder if perhaps she has had to fight harder than the other two. I don't know how many litters she has had, but she must have found it so difficult to find food and also feed them.

We have also decided to back off a bit as far as human physical contact is concerned. We are leaving them in their enclosed area to get used to each other without interference from us.

In spite of her challenging behaviour, I adore Megan. I've never attempted to rescue 3 dogs in one go before, so I'm not expecting it to be easy, but I won't give up on them.

Hi
Our last dog Fido came from Greece. We lived there for a while and he came back with us to the UK under the Pet Passport Scheme.
It was nearly impossible to get a good vet in the area of Greece where we were but a charity run by expats on the island had vets come from the UK on a voluntary basis who carried out mass spaying on all the dogs. We had Fido done by them which we paid for and helped round up strays (mainly cats) which were spayed on our kitchen table. I don't know the name of the charity but google Worldwide Vets, they may be able to help.
Most of the islanders were massively against the mass spaying, saying it was against their religion, but did not care for them and could quite easily kill kittens and pups - we found a pup stuffed into an empty tin can in a bin and many of our friends animals were poisoned.
Good luck, I know how you feel seeing animals so hungry and uncared for.

Hi Holey Moley. Well done you for what you did for Fido and other animals. In some areas, where the local authority neutering scheme works effectively, they have designated days for rounding up dogs and neutering. Other than that, we do get trainee vets from other countries such as Germany, who volunteer to come over here to neuter as many dogs as possible. It all helps of course.

I do get quite angry about people here using their faith as a reason for not euthanising for example, as they believe that Allah says no-one should take a life. My response is usually...well does Allah think it's ok then to abuse and starve animals? My husband is Muslim. I am not religious. He finds it hard to deal with euthanasia and I respect that, but then he would never badly treat any animal. When I finally managed to get a vet to euthanise my dog Beki last year, after more than 4 weeks of extreme suffering, my husband stood back and let me make the decision. And I would be the one facing this decision if I had to make it again in the future.

Vets are usually male here. It's a male dominated society, and women are not usually listened to. However, my husband supports me in cases where my opinion is important and will always tell them that they must do as I say.