CAMANO'S SEPTEMBER SUN
("September")
CKC Reg# HJ535720
born 09 May 1998 to 21 March 2010 (she left us peacefully at 18:30
after watching the evening activity
around the house)
The story of IRIS, mother of September
and the missing gene:
IRIS was a princess. She didn't mind getting pregnant and she enjoyed being pregnant. During the last
week of her pregnancy she would stop in front of a 1/8 inch high door threshold and then leap over it
to clear the threshold and prevent the belly from touching the threshold. The irony was that Mother's Day
was the whelping day. Iris had absolute no motherly instincts. It appeared that the boxer female Iris was
missing a gene, the gene to care for her puppies. I understand that the experiment of knocking out one gene
in the mouse, the gene fos-B, caused the mouse, an otherwise entirely normal mouse, to ignore her offsprings.
On the whelping day of her eleven puppies Iris would wait until I turn my eyes away from the whelping box
holding back the puppy - it was after all a sixteen hour event with additional 12 hours of absolute no sleep
for myself - and then drop a puppy, dive for it, pick it up in her mouth and start swinging it around while
charging in circles around the whelping box. I had no way of getting the puppy out of her mouth or even catch
her. There were a few survivors. Iris had plenty of milk. But she had better things in mind then nursing puppies.
The following day she escaped and headed out the 200 feet long driveway to leave home. From then on we were
nursing puppies with a shoe in my hands, ready and willing to toss it at her when she escaped out of the whelping box.
I discontinued the breeding line behind Iris. Both, September and Scarlet had a good and well moving structure passed
down from Misha, their father. However, because of their mother Iris, I am still searching for the mode of inheritance is on this gene?
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CAMANO'S SHATELLE SCARLET
CKC Reg# HJ535713
09 May 1998 - 04 December 2008
pictured at 10 years with her face turning grey
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