Four
years ago I'd never heard of this breed inspite of being a great
dog lover & buying two or three dog magazines a month.
I already had a german shepherd & a newfoundland cross, &
I wanted another dog, but this time a male. I had originally
intended to get a Tibetan Mastiff another large & imposing dog
so a Sarplaninac wasn't "too far" away from the original idea.
The first time I saw a photo of a Sarplaninac I fell in love, not
only was it beautiful, but the photo looked just like my newfoundland
cross !!!
Not knowing
anything about the breed. I searched through my old magazines
for anything I could find on the breed. Well there weren't
any articles only a few photos in the breeders section. So
I ordered old copies of any magazine with an article ( 4 articles
in 3 different magazines over a 10 year period - i.e not a
lot) Well things are starting to improve in the last few years but
the Sarplaninac is still an unknown race in most countries.
We contacted a breeder & arranged to see the "mother to be"
& his other Sars. Seeing them for the first time in the
flesh was quite an experience. We immediately fell in love
with Pagans mother a 3 year old cream coloured Sar called
‘Melba’. She was much bigger than the 30-40kgs written in the books
& was very gentle & friendly towards us. When I was
inside the house she kept coming to the open window to give
me her paw, Well she was already in the family way & we
couldn’t wait for ‘our’ pup to arrive. I’ve never had
to wait for a dog before & every day seemed like forever BUT
I certainly don’t regret it !!!!!
Pagan is now 3 years old , big & beautiful - I guess you
can tell from the photos :0) He is full of character &
such a big softy with us. He loves nothing more than a big
cuddle & he’s always ‘aiming’ his feet in my direction for yet
another stroke. I think I’m going to buy a book on dog massage
(Yes they exist !!) because he really seems to love it.
I’ve just read this page & realised its suppose to be Pagan
& Me but, as usual its just pagan.
Me well: I love dogs !!!
Since January
2002, Pagan & the others have been on the barf diet ‘full time’
mainly because pagan had recurring health/skin problems. I
also found he had numerous allergies including insect bites &
vaccinosis (reactions to vaccinations).
In Mai 2002 he had a skin biopsy & was diagnosed with
an Auto-immune skin disease called ‘Sebaceous Adenitis’.
He is as far as I know the 1st Sarplaninac with this disease.
Looking back, his first symptoms appeared about 2 years ago &
I believe his natural diet which includes EFA (essential fatty acid)
supplements contribute to his lack of severe symptoms compared with
other affected dogs. In fact apart from a pretty bald tail,
(because of a bad case of mange) you wouldn’t know he had anything
wrong with him.
Inspite of this he is looking better than ever, he’s put on a few
‘needed’ kilos, his fur is long, brilliant & silky smooth &
thanks to the rampak treatment even the hair on his tail is
starting to regrow !!!!
He also has a new playmate, a 8 ½ year old Chihuahua called tiggy,
she loves barf & playing with pagan (she won’t touch a
tin of dog food now & somebody forgot to tell her that pagan’s
25 times her weight) But he doesn’t seem to mind.
Pagan’s
Page - New Update 2004
Sadly since the end of July 2003 nothing has been updated on this
site due to the fact that I left France & returned to my native
UK. Unfortunately Pagan & the others remain in France with my
ex-partner because of quarantine rules & my having no place
to keep them in the UK.
Pagan is still
being treated with olive oil baths & doing well although he
no longer has any undercoat. But he is now more healthy than he
has ever been having had only 1 visit to the vet in the last year
compared with the 6 or 7 visits a year in previous years.
Unfortunately
while Pagans health has dramatically improved 2 of our other dogs
have not been so lucky. Tiggy our 9 ½ year old Chihuahua
died from her heart condition in October 2003. Although she only
spent 18 months of her life with us we will never forget her. She
became well known to many fellow Chihuahua owners on the net &
touched them as much as she did us. Pagan was her special friend
together they looked comical but they were best friends who enjoyed
playing together in spite of their huge size difference. I know
he misses her as much as we do! Gem our 7 year old German shepherd
was recently diagnosed with Cushing’s disease although I worry about
her she is currently doing well on medication & has even started
to lose a little weight something which she seemed unable to do
before regardless of what we fed her.
I will be
adding a page to this site for Gem since she doesn’t currently have
one & I think she deserves one to let you know how her health
progresses.
I will also
try as best I can to update this site regularly with new photos
& news of both my wonderful dogs & the very important research
into the skin disease ‘Sebaceous Adenitis’ which affects Pagan and
many other dogs especially in the USA.
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