“JYNX”
Born 30/1/2003
RIP 26/9/2014
Handled and trained
by Le Hammer
SELTSAM DIE ANOTHER DAY
ADM ADO JDM JDO SDM GDM SPDM
SIRE: FENRIK NEVER SAY NEVER ADM JDM SD GD CDX FDX ET
(S: Ch Fenrik You’re a Wag x D: Fenrik Dream Lady)
DAM: CH SELTSAM THATS LIFE
(S: Ch Trupoint Classic Act x Ch Seltsam Lets Party)
Jynx was one of the sweetest souls you have ever met. But she was, in her own way, a sweet girl with many contradictions. She is the perfect example of why we have to take our dogs out to meet and greet everyone and everything, BUT we must also protect them from any unpleasant experiences.
You see, Jynx was given very bad frights by another dog (twice) when she was a pup. Perhaps we were not careful enough but both times they were difficult circumstances. But I feel responsible for some of Jynx’s little contradictions.
One of her little contradictions: when she met other dogs she gave very mixed signals. A play bow to show them she wanted to be friendly combined with very threatening bark to tell them she was nervous. Many dogs were confused by her approach but once she was more formally introduced to them she was fine.
She was also nervous at trials, always aware of all the other dogs as potential threats. At home she was a always very quick, but at trials, she was slower, because she was concentrating on two things at once. But every so often she would forget where she was, more often than not when I had had the chance to have a 10minute cuddle with her before we went in the ring. We would have one of those magic runs. Quick and responsive as though we were the only ones that were there.
She certainly enjoyed speed. She was usually out in the lead when running with the Fenrik dogs. Her most favourite thing in life was to run with the “Feral Farts” who were a bunch of working dogs owned by some fellow agility triallers. They were a bit of a motley crew, who ran flat chat chasing each other. And Jynx joined in the game chasing them flat chat, keeping pace with the kelpies and coolies. Mind you – the other dogs were just ignoring her. They were unaware that she was part of the game. But as far as Jynx felt – she was one of them. Actually, it was probably because they pretty much ignored her that she felt she could join in. She did not feel intimidated by them.
Our dogs do not have much to do with kids (although we always encourage friends with kids to visit to socialise our puppies). But whenever there was a child around Jynx would be there, gently putting herself in the picture. Although she could often be boisterous, whenever kids were around Jynx was just there, four feet on the ground, putting herself somewhere that pretty much guaranteed she would get a pat and a cuddle, with her little tail wagging. Heaven knows where she learnt how to behave with kids. It obviously just came naturally to her.
She was a brilliant mother and just loved having puppies. She gave us six litters, which I would generally consider to be more than enough for any bitch. But she enjoyed her puppies so much. As a breeder, I wonder about the ethics of breeding – how many litters should you allow a bitch to have? Well, with Jynx, I almost wondered the opposite – was I being mean to her by not mating her! I was depriving her of the opportunity to nurse and look after some puppies.
The pups included the
HI LITTER
UP LITTER
BOARD GAMES LITTER
FYRE LITTER
BURRNING LITTER
PINK FLOYD LITTER
litters. By chance, nearly all were desexed and I thought at one point that her genes would not go on to further generations. But there are a couple to pass on her genes. We kept two pups from her very last litter, the Pink Floyders: Momentary Lapse oReason and Obscured by Clouds. So those beautiful, sooky, gentle genes will be passed on to further generations.
A few more quirky little facts about our Jynx:
She is named Jynx after the character played by Hali Berri in the James Bond movie “Die Another Day”. I think Jynx is the canine version of that character, in both looks and personality.
She had several nicknames including
➡ EISO (Ears InSide Out) because of the way she could crinkle up her ears;
➡ Heat Seeking Missile because of the speed with which she launched herself under the doona when she was allowed up on the bed;
➡ Water Baby because of her love of swimming and her love of chasing the water from the hose (something she inherited from her father and definitely passed on to the Pink Floyders!)
She had been a little unwell – nothing specific, just not joining in hoons around the yard, and perhaps a little reserved; nothing that could not be explained by the fact that she was getting older. But it was enough to make me do a more thorough examination, only to find a mass in her abdomen. She was soon up at our vets: radiographed, ultra-sounded and then onto the surgery table to remove her spleen that contained a large tumour. Splenic tumours often have a poor prognosis, but during surgery I became a little hopeful because we were able to cleanly remove the spleen, there were no other visible tumours seeded through the abdomen. With a bit of luck we had removed it before secondary tumours had seeded. But our hope was very short lived. It had been a long surgery. It was apparent as she woke up from surgery she had had a very severe stroke, she had totally lost her sense of balance and was apparently blind. We nursed her for 24 hours. She was responsive and recognized us, but she was very distressed and considering her poor chances of a good recovery, we chose euthanasia.
It all happened very quickly, which left us a little devastated . . . but in other ways, we saw it happening over about six months – a day when we thought she had a sore back was probably when she had a bleed within her spleen. And she had been just that little bit quieter, preferring to potter around by herself instead of joining in with the other dogs hooning.
I will not forget her gentleness, her cheekiness, her love a running at full speed (when she felt safe) and those deep dark brown eyes that just watched you full of trust, love and empathy.
