Zina, one of our foundation’s breeding females, gave birth to 10 puppies at the beginning of September and during that time she was travelling a bit by car. The puppies are one week old now and they are growing nicely. We call them ’D’ litter so their names will start with ’D’. Since we have more breeding females so most of our trained guide dogs are born in our breeding programme.

According to Gizella Ménesi, the volunteer of Baráthegyi Guide Dog School (who gives home to Zina): “Zina gives birth to her puppies with clockwork precision but this time she behaved in a strange way compared to her previous three litters. Two days before the birth, she started giving signs of having puppies. At night she was hysteric, she was walking round and round, scratching more.”

Adventurous driving

Piroska Komondi, the breeding programme leader of our foundation, immediately rushed to Törökbálint, to see the dog and she decided to take her to a vet in the early afternoon.

“Halfway there, one puppy was born and we heard the cat-like voice of the puppy. When we arrived at the vet Zina took the puppy to her mouth to show it to the vet. It was an unbelievable experience. Finally, she trusted me and I could hold the puppy in my hand” –  said Gizella.

The ultrasound examination proved that the puppy was healthy just like the siblings in the womb. “If we are a bit more patient, the first puppy would have been born at home but it is really difficult to forecast what will happen. In these cases we have to listen to an inner voice because there might be a big problem if the first puppy cannot come out endangering the life of the other puppies, too. In this case I travelled in the boot of the car keeping an eye on the dogs so as to prevent problems. There was no problem and on the way home the second puppy was born” – said Gizella smiling.

The versatile mother

By six p.m. all the ten puppies had been born. Zina is smiling all the time and she is very happy. She hardly leaves the puppies for a minute; when it is time to toilet we have to send her to the yard.
She is a perfect mother. Gizella’s only task is to change the linen under the puppies; all the other tasks are solved by the mother.

The members of the “D” litter are growing beautifully, their weights are similar and they are round-headed and they resemble their father, Vektor. We are proud of him, too, because Vektor’s mother is Winnipeg, another bitch of ours.

Zina was born in 2017, she came to our foundation from the Guide Dog School of Prague. This is her fourth litter, she has given us 38 puppies so far. From each litter 11, 8, 9, 10 puppies were born.

Zina’s hobby is print tracking and demonstrating guide dog’s work, which means that interested, blindfolded people can try walking with a guide dog. Our foundation has more demo dogs as we have a lot of events and lots of people interested in trying them out.