Heathview Irish Wolfhounds

Featuring: Nellie and Janey

There were just the two in the litter. Meet Heathview Janey Canuck and Heathview Nellie Belle. We were looking for names of great Canadian women so Janey was Emily Murphy’s pen name, and at the time she was destined for the US, Nellie was supposed to be named after Nellie McClung, a great social activist and politician. We decided to go with something more cutesy and went with Nellie Belle instead.

Sire: US Ch. Mungo of Nutstown

Dam: Heathview Dear Prudence

Cdn. Ch. Heathview Nellie Belle

Heathview Nellie Belle was entered in the IWCC Regional and National Specialties over September 15 to 17, 2017 in the baby puppy classes.

At the BC Regional Show under Sweeps Judge Sid Wood, Nellie took Best in Sweeps. She was a handful given this was my 2nd time in the ring with her, but her lovely conformation speaks for itself.

At the IWCC National Show under sweeps Judge Lis Henry, Nellie was awarded a 3rd placement. The Judges comments were extremely favourable but she had to make a decision based on her bite on the day. Since then Nellie’s lower canines have corrected as her adult teeth have come in.

We have trialed her in Lure coursing and she has the talent for sure. Once COVID isn’t as big a risk, we hope to get her out again.

Heathview Janey Canuck

Please note: graphic images

Lagertha developed canine influenza around the same time and after 5 days in hospital, did recover, praise the Lord.

Recently we endured an episode of some sort of necrotizing disease process with our matriarch Heathview Sophie Tucker.  The effect resulted in two very large necrotic areas on either side of her left rear leg.  With the help of our vet the process was arrested and we are now into a very long healing phase that will take weeks with daily dressing changes.  Sophie has proven to be very strong through this whole ordeal.

Within 5 days after Sophie’s ordeal, our bitch Mamma Mia went lame.  We rushed her to the vet as the disease process was very similar to Sophie – her leg swelled and a small necrotic wound appeared over her left hock that started to drain purulent fluid.  With Mamma things progressed much quicker and we became very worried when her rear leg swelled became hot and reddened and started to break down, draining Sero-sanguineous fluid.  We started to see involvement of her right front paw which swelled up within 4 hours of arrival at the vet.  Her heart developed a murmur and her blood work showed early stages of DIC (disseminated intravascular coagulation).  Emergency vet care could only do so much.  We were devastated by the loss of Mamma in the early hours of December 28th.

To date we are unsure what hit our kennel.  The swab for C&S on Sophie was inconclusive showing “no growth”.  We are awaiting results on Mamma Mia’s wound.

Both lived in the kennel building for short periods.  So had Eachna, Lagertha and Rosie and for a lot longer.  We researched spiders on the intranet thinking perhaps it might be the brown recluse spider, but they are not typical in our area and after cleaning the garage there was no evidence of spiders.  Our vet isn’t convinced it was spiders either but more likely some necrotizing disease process.  We also thought  about snakes (it’s possible I suppose) but again, we saw no evidence in the garage.  The only other possible thing is the kennel doors that are firm and potentially could cause blunt force injury as the dogs pass through if they swing back.  Perhaps a break in the skin could get infected??

We have no one in the garage at the moment.  We are playing things very safe.  The kennel building has been cleaned, vacuumed and will be disinfected before it is used again.

We are still staggering with the loss of our dear Mamma.  The stress of loosing one of the family without the “why” being answered is overwhelming.

We hope 2017 is a much better year for one and all