Four years ago today, our beautiful Oonah was born at kennel
Amal Hayati in Belgium. I found this kennel sometime in June. I contacted Sven,
the breeder, and showed my interest in a female puppy. She was the only one
that was not spoken for. After some days I told Sven that I can’t have her as I
was close to loosing my job. It hurt a lot but there was nothing to do about it.
I continued to follow Oonah on Facebook and I did loose my job.
In the end of September, Oonah was still available. I am very emotional person and I was weak for this little girl no one wanted so I talked with my husband. Even if I didn’t know so much about my future when it came to job, I did knew that I wanted Oonah in my life so very much that I was prepared to take a risk. With the support of my loving husband she moved to us in the end of October. This little “left over” girl grow up into the sweetest, gentle, calm and very beautiful saluki female. I can’t imagine my life without her. And in less than a week she will become mother herself. <3
Today, 16th May 2019, our first ever sighthound, the grand lady of the house, the mother of our two first litters, beautiful Anja, is celebrating her 13th birthday. The love she gives us and the love we feel for her could move the mountains. We hope that we will be able to spend together many more years to come as we can’t imagine our lives without her.
We are very grateful to Nini and Peter who let their beautiful Chili meet with Oonah <3 Big thanks also to all of you who are supporting us in various ways – you know who you are. <3
Well inside the house Oonah is calm. Very calm. The view on the picture is what we usually see when she is resting. When she is sleeping she is sleeping and something huge must happen to wake her up. At least something huge according to her. Sometime it is enough to say “let’s go” and she jumps up in a second ready for a walk. On the other hand Tesla is completely opposite. The most of the time she is doing what she was made for – guarding the property against the intruders. She rests only when humans can take over the guarding part.
Having an Azawakh is a lifestyle. You get a dog like no other. Once you gain their trust they will love you like no other dog does. But sometimes it can take longer time than you think before they give you their heart. To be exact, it took Tesla one year to accept my sister and her husband, my parents and my parents in law. I hope they feel that it was worth waiting for her love. 🙂
The youngest member of our pack, the wild, crazy and beautiful Beverly Glitzerflitzer, aka Heidi, is turning one year today! We are so happy that we have her in our lifes and hope that she will continue to make us laugh for many years to come.
Follow the pregnancy in our pregnancy journal that can be found HERE
Oonah met with Chili today and everything went very well. Together they were the kindest and the sweetest couple I could wish for. No hurry, no force, just love them between. And it is fantastic as none of them has done this ever before. They just knew what was the right thing to do.
We will let them meet a couple more times during next week just to increase the chance of puppies.
Her questions were followed by a simple answer that Oonah is not ready yet and that she would just get angry at Chili if he tried to do anything at this point. We need to wait until she gets ready.
Below is a more facts based explanation of a dogs heat:
The canine heat cycle is also called estrous or season and it has four stages:
Proestrus. The signs of the first phase are bloody vaginal discharge from your female and somewhat enlarged vulva. This discharge is often bright red coloured. Males will be attracted to your female but she will be unwilling to mate. This phase can last for 4 to 20 days with an average length of 9 days.
Estrus. Not to be mixed with the entire cycle name estrous. During this time your female’s vulva will get even more enlarged and the vaginal discharge will change it’s colour from bright red to pink-yellowish. It is during the estrus that mating occurs. This second phase can last for 3 to 20 days with an average of 9 days. It is during this period that eggs are released. After they have been released the eggs need 2-3 days to mature. It is generally more difficult to find the right day for mating if a female has long lasting estrus.
Diestrus. This is the time after estrus or mating. It can last for 60 to 90 days. If the mating was successful the pregnancy lasts around 60 +- 5 days.
Anestrus. This is the period of resting and is characterised by sexual and hormonal inactivity. It lasts for 2 to 3 months or as long as up to 9 months.
The above description of the canine heat cycle is a profoundly simplified one. There are several other factors that are affecting the heat cycle such as several hormones and environment female is living in just to name a few.
So where in the cycle is Oonah now?
We are now in day seven of Oonah’s heat which means that she is still in the proestrus period. Her discharge is clear red and she is not ready to meet with Chili. So for now we can’t do much but wait for her to get into estrus. It is first then she will allow Chili to try to mate with her.
If I go back to Oonah’s previous heats I would say that she will come into estrus around 27th of March. This means that we have one more week to go before any big news can be shared.
This post is for you who never had a saluki and are waiting for one now or who just want to learn more about the breed. Below you can see a picture of Oonah when she was around 6 months.
One interesting and at the same time funny thing was that at this point in her development she had so much puppy-fur that she was looking more like an afghan puppy than like a saluki puppy. This is how most feathered salukis look like at that age but it can be somewhat confusing for a first-time saluki owner. It for sure was confusing for me. I wondered if she would ever look as nice as her mother or her father do.
The most important thing to remember is that you should not try to remove this puppy-fur. It will fall off by itself, you just have to have patience.
Finally, after 7 months and 13 days, Oonah decided that time has come to get in season. I can’t describe how happy I am for this. I will contact each and one of you who is on our list during the day today, but I thought that if you are reading this page I could make you happy already now.
