This page has been created in the memory of Dolly Daydream who gave all she could to produce four bouncing babies.

She is now waiting patiently at Rainbow Bridge to give them the love and kisses she was unable to give them when they were born.

We'd been trying very hard over the summer to mate Merlin Junior and Savanah to no avail. There was a double reason for this, the first to progress forward with our breeding plan and secondly to keep the link with our Superstar Merlin.

As the summer progressed, we became sure that MJ was firing blanks.

Time ran out with Savanah and, as were were getting desperate to keep the link with Merlin, we had one last chance.

Alison had given us little Dolly D, a beautiful, blue agouti dumbo and Merlin's granddaughter.Alison was kind enough to give us permission to mate Dolly D but we had to be quick because time was running out for her.

As soon as she came into season, she spent the night with MJ.

Sunday 28th Novenber.

Dolly D gave birth to 4 little babaies, one of which appeared to have pink eyes.Although it was a small litter Dolly seemed fine so I decided to leave her alone.

Monday 22nd November 2004

Really bad day today, from the euphoric high of birth to depth of despair that is losing a lovely loving rattie.

We both got up early only to find Dolly D bleeding, a sure sign that there was something wrong, most likely still babies inside her.

A number of hectic phone calls, thanks to Alison, Gill, Clare, and our worst fears were confirmed.

Clare spoke to Helen (Moggs) (Orion's Haven) who had a couple of young litters on the go, and she was kind enough to offer support in the form of a surrogate mother.

Aura wasn't sure at all, going to the lengths of continually moving her own kittens so she didn't have to deal with 4 extra little squeakers. However, after half hour on her own with them she buried them in bedding, then about half hour later they were nursing.

HUGE THANKS TO HELEN AND AURA!!!!!! Big Dipper time was to follow with a plummet to the depths. At 1200 we got a call from the vet to say that 3 big babies were still inside and despite the use of drugs he had to operate, 10 minutes later we got another call asking permission to spey her as her womb was in pieces.

Another call at 3 was greeted with bad news, she wasn't responding.Dolly D passes away at 15.55

A very sad trip to the vet followed to bring my baby home.

Thanks again to one and all, especially Aura. Hopefully, I'll soon have better news over the next few days and weeks. Hopefully reporting on 4 little Merlins or Dolly's.

Tuesday 23rd November 2004

Finally good news to report, Aura has done the business and is doing a fantastic job of looking after her unexpected additions, on her birthday too.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY AURA xxx

Hopefully things will carry on going up and 4 bouncing babies will soon be returning home.

Needless to say, if everything goes ok, all the babies will be staying on here and will not be going to new homes.