Hello and welcome to Pink Saturday hosted by Beverly of How Sweet the Sound. If you go to visit her you can get a list of all the other participants.Sunday October the 4th was the Feast of Saint Francis of Assisi, patron Saint of peace and all God's Creations from the tiniest insect to the tallest tree.St Francis has been my patron Saint for as long as I can remember. Living a life of peace has always been first in my life and my love of nature and animals led me to an interest in studying him. This past Sunday in church they announced that animals could be brought to the church yard for a blessing. Since I have two dogs and 8 cats I opted not to bring my menagerie in town but said a prayer to Saint Francis asking him to please bless my pets.When we got home from church we found our precious Newfoundland Molly laying in the backyard in pain and not able to walk and her breathing was erratic. We rushed her into the Emergency Veterinarian Hospital. We were so scared because we lost 3 dogs to liver cancer and they had the same symptoms. They took her right in did xrays and found that her stomach was still full from the night before and nothing was moving, her intestines, colon were all shut down due to large pockets of gas all over her abdomen.They had to do emergency exploratory surgery. They had to call in a second Dr. due to her size.She is 171 pounds and too large for one Dr. to handle. Anyway the surgery showed that she had a very bad infection in her stomach causing everything to shutdown. Our poor girl made it through, she has a 20 inch incision in her belly.She will be on meds for a few weeks. We are not sure how she got this infection, we feed her good food and keep her bowls and water very clean.There were other dogs in there with the same thing and I'm suspicious of dog food being contaminated.My son took his cat to another vet last night to be spayed and there was another dog in there with the same thing. Those people could not afford the surgery for their dog and had to have it put down. How sad that must have been. My heart would just ache! The vet told my son he has had several dogs this week with the same thing. Scary isn't it? Anyway Saint Francis sure did bless our baby girl this week. We have her back home with us and she should be OK in time.We will continue to pray for her and Saint Francis will continue to be my Patron Saint. I have this pretty cross stitch shown above of Saint Francis in my bedroom and it's the first thing I see when I get up in the morning. I'm also looking for a Saint Francis statue for my cottage garden. I say this prayer when I get up and when I go to bed at night.
My husband and I have rescued dogs and cats our entire married life of 38 years but there was a dog that I had always wanted, was not sure what kind of dog it was. I would describe her to my husband and he was not sure what type of dog I was talking about.Then one day the L.L. Bean catalog came and there was the dog on the cover. I showed my husband and said "there's the dog I want" He then told me that was a Newfoundland so I set out to find my dog. I lived in Newfoundland for 5 years when I was young and perhaps I knew one there. Don't know but the picture of that dog just tugged at my heart.
We reseached and studied the breed for three years, not wanting to contribute to any puppy mill, we found a responisble breeder in Connecticut.
While waiting for the big day that we could go and pick her up, I cross stitched this little banner and another one with her name. Crocheted her blankets in pink of course.
Molly is from a wonderful blood line called Nashau-Auke, her father and mother were both champion dogs. Her father was 181 pounds and her Mother was 169. Molly has grown to a hefty 171 pounds. We don't show her but she has done water rescue. She can pull a boat in, take a tube to a drowning person, or even pull a person into the shore. We don't have her in a rescue group right now. She's just our sweet house pet.
Here's Molly the day we brought her home from Connecticut. My friends from NJ drove up to the New England states with us to pick her up. They were the Grandparents. LOL. Molly is our empty nester dog. So you can just imagine how spoiled she is. She is like a baby sister to my kids and grandkids. She slept all the way home in her basket. She missed her Newf family and when she would wake she would cry terribly. 
Here she is at her first Birthday Party.
She's such a sweet girl, she shared her bed with her brother Elvis. He died 3 years ago, they were good buddies!Molly loves to go to the beach with us. She loves to swim, she just glides through the water. No splashing when she swims.
She always has an eye on my grandson's, she even surfed on their boards a few times. Wish I had gotten that on film!
Here's she's kissing the fish that Mikey caught.
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