And the story changes!

Well hello!
      We are way overdue for an update. The most incredible thing happened and this blog will be changing very soon. on August 24th 2018 Ava Mae Dodge gave birth to 10 very healthy puppies that are the full grand babies of Anna. Ava was such a good mama. She got so huge while she was pregnant and suffered some health complications. I made a promise to Ava that I would spend any amount of money and do anything I could to keep her healthy and comfortable. She definitely took me up on that offer for sure. Once she finally started to go into labor my mother and family was able to get here to help. We knew because of X-Rays that we were looking at a lot of babies to deliver and some complications could arise. The first baby born was a big black male Labrador puppy who was named Gunner jr after his dad. Gunner senior is a huge black male Labrador who looks like a giant version of his mama Anna. I will attach several pictures on this blog for you to enjoy. The puppies were all so big we had to assist in delivering some of them. We only ended up having 2 black puppies and 8 yellow puppies. The other black was a female named Raven Rose. All of the puppies had homes picked out for them before they were even born. Thanks to a labrador program in Las Vegas Nevada named Hughes Family Labradors. They work with service dogs and other programs to make sure the puppies go to great homes. 2 of my siblings gave Anna's grandbabies homes. My brother Ashton kept a yellow female named Nova Dodge. My sister Emily kept Raven Rose. This blog started with my sweet Anna. Now her boy Gunner has helped me with Ava to keep the line going. The posts will now be posted about Anna's grand babies. As the 1 year anniversary approaches of the loss of my baby Anna I am still struggling if I am being honest. Struggling with a lot of things that my mind won't let go of. Ava has been so good for me and I am glad to have her as the holidays approach. I will always look for my friend Bart when I go outside. I will always see my Anna smiling at me in all of her favorite places. Now her babies live on and carry that legacy. I have been able to keep in touch with so many of the new puppy owners. Some of my friends now carry Anna and Ava's torch for me. I have so many to thank for this. Mostly my parents. I mentally almost didn't make it through all of that. What an incredible opportunity it was for me to be able to deliver these puppies in my home, raise them, work with them, and find their new homes. My mother was here delivering puppies with me. Thanks to the Lloyd family for being so willing with Gunner to help us make this happen. It really was our only chance to save this line and its a miracle that it worked. Thanks to my friends and siblings for giving these puppies such loving homes. Thanks to Amber from Hughes Family Labradors for all her help. Unfortunately and very sadly one of my sweet yellow female puppies name SAvaAnna passed away. She ate a peach off my peach tree without us knowing and the pit got stuck in her intestines and ended up killing her. I will always be crushed because of this. It was so sad and so hard. We have 9 more puppies still out there writing the next chapter of Anna's puppies. I hope some of them do big things and I hope some of them carry on registered babies for all time and eternity of my dear Anna and Ava. See the pictures below as well as some facebook posts.
Thank you
Eric
https://www.facebook.com/hughesfamilylabradors/

                                                       (RIP sweet baby SAvAnna)

Facebook Post October 10th 2018

     This day was harder than I thought it would be. As hard as these little kids were to take care of it’s so bittersweet letting them go. My entire heart and soul was in this labor of love since I lost Anna in December. I spent countless hours and many thousands of dollars to get these babies here. I have got less sleep then I have in years. I put all my other dreams and aspirations on the back burner and learned and changed so much in the process. In a way I brought Anna back to life with the birth of her grand babies and let her go all over again today. I am so glad to see the joy they will bring to so many others and now I can focus on my Ava. She has given almost her life to help me and I will give her the best life I can. She was an incredible mama and is an incredible companion to me. My parents were so amazing to help me through several almost melt downs trying to keep these babies safe even staying at my house to help deliver and watch the babies around the clock. My mom single handedly saved the life of a few of these babies during the delivery. I just cleaned up our puppy pen, the bird of prey nets we put up, the feeders, all the yard blocks. It’s almost as if it never happened. I feel like a parent when I say it feels like they were just born yesterday and now they are all gone 😂. There’s no way I could go through that with a child for 18 years. What an amazing ride this has been. It started the week Anna died and I knew there might be a chance to find a living puppy of hers that could have babies still. There’s just no way I can describe all the emotions as I watch these families take these angel dogs to their homes. Anna forever :)

From the Ashes we Rise!

         We finally had our puppies. Everything is going so well. Here is the rest of the story. I hope you enjoy. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/from-ashes-we-rise-eric-dodge/?published=t

 This is a full circle priceless pedigree below.

8/12/2018 update:
    I have big news. My new sweet girl Ava is pregnant with Anna’s grand babies. She’s at 50 days along and kind of having a little bit of a rough go. We don’t know how many babies she has yet but she’s due in 2 weeks. I have to admit I’ve been a nervous wreck. Lack of sleep, overly anxious, lots of worrying, and etc. Since losing Anna I’ve realized some things. The most important is I have changed a lot. My mental state is very different. Maybe not for the best. When Anna was pregnant a decade ago I really didn’t worry much. I didn’t have the vet on speed dial.
I didn’t even know what an animal hospital was. I literally was in Hawaii vacationing the week before she gave birth. Anna was very tough and not affected by being pregnant. Maybe Ava is the same but I’m watching her every move. This is a very high stakes pregnancy. Yes I worry. I’m super excited that she is so close. I remain very cautiously optimistic. I really want to see everything go well. We spent hours and days tracking down Anna’s very elderly puppies in the hopes of finding one that can carry on her legacy. We only found one and it has been no easy task getting even tonrjia point. Fingers crossed in 2 weeks I have good news for you. Until then I will endure more sleepless nights, anxious days, and lovingly worried for my sweet girl. She’s a real trooper.
Eric

Get in the truck Anna!!!

           Anna was the first and only Labrador I have ever had that was vertically challenged like her owner. She just didn’t know how to jump. I never could get her to jump very well. Every single dog I have ever owned or worked with one of the first things I have taught them was to “get in” and “get out” of the truck. When the temperatures were good they all have loved to ride in the back of the truck, just like me. I always teach them that when the tailgate is closed that are to stay in the truck, even if I go into the gas station of the grocery store on the way to a camping trip. Well Anna was a little more of a challenge. She would not jump up in the truck. I worked and worked even putting the truck in ditches and offering treats to get her to jump. No matter what I did she would not do it. Then I started to run and jump in the truck and she would follow me and eventually after a very long time she jumped in. Wow it was a task to teach this. I never thought jumping out would become an issue. 

            One day after I had got Anna to jump in the truck by backing in my ditch I took her up the road with my friend Glen to one of our favorite hiking trails. Glen was always helping me work with Anna. She pretty much thought he was the coolest. So when Glen and I got out of the truck we opened the tailgate and invited Anna to join us. She threw us one of those looks and planted her butt right on the bottom of the bed of the truck. She was protesting getting out. So I told her that I was not going to lift her anymore. I said “fine, you wont get out then we will just leave you here and when you get lonely you will eventually come running. So we walked away. As we got further and further I could see her just sitting there looking at me. I was getting angrier by the minute. This dog was more stubborn than I was. I met my match in this yellow Labrador. She wasn’t about to jump. We made it half way up the mountain before she finally decided to jump out and come follow us. That was the last time I had a problem getting her out of the truck. 

            Every now and then she would decide to not “get in” the truck though. I was having a hard time with this because I had to keep lifting her. Never in all my years had I had a dog that would not be excited to jump in and go with me. My previous lab Molly, and the one before that, Tippy, would jump in the truck from several hundred yards away. I would just say go get in the truck and they would run and jump in and wait for me to get there. They just wanted to go with me not matter what. Molly was funny. I would just get in the truck to move it and she would panic thinking I was going to leave her. I would get out and open the tailgate and pet her and tell her to settle down and she would jump in. She would get so upset if she thought I was leaving her. So naturally one time when Glen and I were up exploring the black ridge when Anna decided to not get in the truck I would pretend to leave her and she would panic and jump in, right? Nope!! This is not how it went. Yeah I thought for sure as I told her to get in the truck and she just looked at me and turned away is all I had to do was get in and act like I was leaving her and she would panic and come running, after all it worked great for molly. Ha did I get a lesson in humble pie this day. I told her “fine, I will just leave you here.” I got in the truck, Glen got it, we turned the key and to my shock and dismay Anna turned her nose at me and began to walk in the opposite direction with a proud high walk. She didn't even look back or act slightly nervous that I was going to leave her. I honked my horn and by now I was steaming mad. I put it in drive and yelled “your going to regret this, I really am going to leave you.” She kept walking away. Oh I was not going to let her win. So I put the truck in drive and away I sped. I knew as I was looking in that rearview mirror that she would turn and come running at any second. I sped around the corner and stopped. I waited for her to show up. She never came running like I expected. Now I had a choice to make. She had won. She beat me this time. I looked at Glen and finally I laughed. I admitted my defeat and said I guess I really have met my match this time. We flipped around and drove back up the road and there she was sitting and smiling at me on the side of the road. Part of me just knew that she knew she had won. She knew from this day forward she would have me wrapped around her paw for the rest of my life. We had very few disagreements from that day forward. She was a very special girl and I needed her She taught me so many lessons. This was just one of those lessons and this was when she was still less than a year old. Miss the old gal!! 

The whole story! Very Important

         
                   This is probably the most important post you can read about our sweet Anna and her cat Bart. Thousands of people have read and share this from our linkedin page. Anna was very special and this will let you know how it all came to be and the full story. Anna's legacy is living on. Please follow this link to our Linkedin Blog. Share and comment if this story touches your heart. Miss ya Anna and Bart!
Bart and Anna
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/who-saved-black-barts-babies-eric-dodge/
Thanks
Eric

Part of the family!

                   Anna became a very large part of our family. It was hard to imagine life without her. The shock of her untimely loss was felt by many. I will share her full story soon as well as many other stories. She was a very special girl for sure. Her puppies and her grand puppies have brought joy to so many people all around the United States. After Anna passed away I began to search the world with the help of my mother for some of her or as many of her puppies as I could find. We mailed letters, used social media, we called people, we called animal clinics, we worked with the AKC, it was a very long tedious process. The responses began to come in slowly. We tracked down most of her puppies. The part that helped me heal the most was knowing that everyone I was able to contact had kept their dogs from the day they got them as 8 week old pups and has loved them so much. They all became parts of their families just like Anna had ours. The pups are all older now. They are close to 10 years of age in the older litter. So unfortunately a few of the puppies had passed away. That kind of broke my heart. I have a lot more to share later. Here is a family picture at our ranch with Sweet Anna!!!

Updates on the way!

We are excited to announce a new beginning for "Anna's Puppies" blog. This blog will be used to share and document the life, legacy, and lineage of our sweet Anna. The blog is currently under construction so you will only see the old posts for now. Watch for new posts in the near future. In the meantime, add your email to receive notifications of new posts!

5/22/09

4 weeks (5/15/09)

3 weeks old (5/8/09)

17 days old (5/3/09)

12 days old (4/28/09)