28-12-2008 and Vaglie is well into her season and she thought it time to be with Mint.

Mint, the to be father, is staying with my other brother Erik and his wife Dora till its safe for him to come home. Kiwi is in season too so we really don’t want any miss matings there.
Dora brought Mint to us and Vaglie was more than delighted to see him. But after a few half hearted attempts at a mating Mint wasn’t really interested anymore. He laid down recovering from the heat while Vaglie kept on pestering him. But he really wasn’t interested in her. He must like the other gender more we decided LOL.

29-12-2009 24 hours later…..
11.40 Dora arrives with Mint for another attempt for a mating. They are greeted by escaped dogs Tree, Rowi, Saki and Vaglie. This time Mint only had eyes for Vaglie and I quickly called the others inside, looked back to the love birds and with in a couple of blinks of the eye Vaglie and Mint mated!!!!
Mint did the deed as if he had done this all his life and in a flash he took his position of turning and standing bottom to bottom with Vaglie until they would unlock.
This is my 7th litter and I can honestly say I never saw such expert action by a stud dog, and this was his first time!!! Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. He sure proved me wrong about my comments the day before.
While sitting with Vaglie and Mint during this successful mating Dora whispered “its all due to the 4 leafed clover Minty”.
????? “What” I asked.
And then Dora tells me this incredible story.
Early morning, and Dora took Tiki and Mint for a walk in the park they usually frequent. While leisurely on their way to her huge surprise Dora sees a 4 leafed clover! She picked it and right away Mint, who never misses a beat, came running up looking as if to say “can I have it???” She looked down to the ground and saw another!!! But at that moment Tiki came rushing up and ate the one on the ground. So she held her precious 4 leafed clover high from Mint when she saw yet another!
Never in my life have I seen a 4 leafed clover and Dora found 3. She couldn’t believe it either. She kindly gave the 4 leafed clover in her hand to hungry Minty who gobbled it up in a rush while she quickly picked the 3rd leaf and put it in her pocket before either boy got wind of it. “That’s for your puppies’ album” she told Minty.

Perhaps we will have to call all the pups “Lucky” …. Lucky1, Lucky2, Lucky3 etc… ;-)

Hmmm You look nice today...


The start of something wonderful... beyond this no one free to take photos :-p


Untill 21 minuts later and the two love birds played and kissed and Vaglie was making happy squeeky noises of delight :-)))

This is a Saki Christmas update email I sent to the dog sanctuary were he came from. I would like to share it with you as it is also for the whole world that helped Saki get to us

Hi Sue, Chirs and all other Saki supporters

Sorry we are a little late for the Christmas update.

Hope you all had a great Christmas.

I am wishing for you that it did not get busier for you at the dog sanctuary with the Christmas holidays. I have a friend that works at the SPCA here in NZ and they are unfortunately overrun at this time of year. Grrr makes me so angry people think so little of their pets.

I thank you all that you do such a wonderful and commendable job. I have so much respect for you all. It is something I do not think I would be able to do.

I am just pleased I could help you with re-homing Saki the Estrela.

Saki is doing so well!

One has to take pity on him sometimes having to live with so many adoring females (dog and human type) LOL.

A couple of weeks ago we had our last “school day” and were asked to dress up to the Christmas spirit. As you see in the photo Saki “tinseled up” rather well don’t you think hahaha. We humans also dressed up so what you cant see in the photo is that I wore a lovely pair of antlers and small Christmas hat.

Saki and I did a “good canine citizenship” coarse that we passed! He is generally a very lovely social boy so my only worry was one husky dog I knew I had to keep him away from. I guess those perky husky looks don’t agree with a lot of dogs so Saki isn’t so special in his ways. Other than that he did excellent and charmed the 2 examinators right from the start. “oh you want to pat me? Cool Ill lean against you so you can do a better job”.

Next 2 photos you can see butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth…. But ummm yes well he will help the Lagotti break open a rubbish bag.

The first time Saki entered our house I saw how he quickly looked at door handles and I commented “this dogs knows how to open doors”. Well all our handles are round so no chance for him there ;-).

But he soon proved that there are other doors much more interesting that he could open. The first time I naively thought I must have accidently left the door of the fridge slightly open so that he could break in and share 4 kilos of goat meat and bones with all the other dogs!

But then a few weeks later when he did this trick again eating 3 kilos of mince meat on his own, least I think he did as it wasn’t that easy for others to steal this bounty, and he lay looking like a big fat male seal elephant and I knew he was opening fridges himself.

After that we saw how he lay on the ground and from the underside he would flick open the door with his paw. He is very sneaky and you got to be quick to see him do such things. We now have a lock on the fridge door and live in hope he doesn’t follow his mother and sister in knowing how to chew off such things. Yes after telling my story to the Estrela community his breeder shyly spoke up and said it must be a hereditary thing hahaha.

He also used his brains and paws to open gates knowing how to pull it down, up or over and get out to be with me. Now my brother has put in little rods and different locks, lowering other gates etc all to defy the escape artist LOL.

Saki really is one very cleaver boy!!! When he didn’t think you were looking it was a joy to watch him work things out. Now he has pretty much given up as he knows when he is defeated. But I saw him give the ranch slider a quick once over this week ;-).

As you can see his coat is nearly all grown back! His head looks in proportion now LOL.

EVERYONE that meets him loves him. (except husky owners… ops)

Last photo is of our complete dog family.

So I can only end this email with yet again THANK YOU ALL SO MUCH!!!

Happy new year to you all!

Love

Saki and Suzanne

We wish you all a Merry Christmas and a wonderfull New Year!!!