Sunday 23rd Of September.
We arrived in Las Vegas last night and will be here until Wednesday night. I have tagged along as Mark has a conference so I will be dog free for five days , I have already rang home a couple of times to make sure the dogs are ok.
Raiza is booked in to my friends new boarding kennels, he is the only resident and will be receiving lots of one to one attention. I will be in contact with Karen by e mail daily and although he cried a little after I left on Friday, I have been told that he has settled in well. I do believe It will be good for him as he is very "clingy" towards me and hopefully this experience will foster some independence.
Kasidi is still with Rachel and we will be reunited next Friday and I have to say we have all missed her greatly and will be relieved to be have her back .
My daughter Olivia has told me on the phone that Motsi caught a rabbit this morning and half ate It before It was taken away from her. My only comment was, we are hoping to cultivate our rabbit population, as at the moment our numbers are dreadfully low, for our falconry purposes. I hope to go out trapping for a passage Redtail Hawk when we return from Vegas and I don't want the dogs depleting our rabbit population, the Coyotes have already successfully done that.
Finally, we have caught on to an ad that is very successful in the UK right now and no.1 on You Tube! It is just fantastic. Some of us will remember the original version. Phil Collins has not aged gracefully.
Click here to watch. Its worth it!
Sunday, September 23, 2007
Sunday, September 16, 2007
Coccydia
Sunday 16th September.
I am not a "techy" person and blogs are a new phenomenon to me but my assumption is, they are designed to educate, inform and amuse.
Last week I learned all about Coccidia and hopefully I can pass on a little of what I learned here.
Last Tuesday I received a phone call from Jim who had bought the puppy Neville from me the week before. He told me that Neville had been experiencing diarrhoea so he had taken him to the vets. A test on a stool specimen had revealed that he had coccidia, I had vaguely heard of this as birds of prey can harbour It but I needed to google It before I fully understood what coccidia was. My first response was to let all of my puppy people know that this had happened and to take their puppy to the vet to be tested. I then got in touch with my vet to ask for his advice about testing my dogs.
I will add a link to this page about coccidia but basically it is a protozoa that can live in the gut of dogs without ever showing symptoms, the mother can pass It on to her pups and then at times of stress such as weaning and leaving the nest the puppy will develop symptoms such as mucous in the stool, diarrhoea and blood in the stool. The advice from my vet was to bring a stool specimen from Ruby and the last remaining puppy, Posh for testing.
The next morning It was fairly straight forward obtaining a specimen from Posh and her stool looked completely normal, Ruby, however was a little challenging. Ruby is very discreet when she goes to toilet, she likes to run into the woods for privacy (she would never contemplate the garden). I had an old jam jar for my spec bottle. Every time Ruby made a dash for the woods I would call her back and bless her she came back every time and I could tell she was getting exasperated with me. Eventually we reached the meadow and ruby decided she would provide me with a sample. Once again her specimen looked completely normal. As soon as I got back from the walk I rushed off to Oneonta with my specimens. I had to wait about half an hour for the result and as I did so I contemplated the idea of treating all of my dogs, at least Jim had told had told the treatment cost about $8.
When I was called to the treatment room I was told that Both Ruby and Posh were negative which left me very confused as I really had not expected this. I then asked the vet if the fact that I had free range chickens and a couple of pigs that sometimes associated with the dogs could in anyway have been responsible and he replied most probably not. He advised that the rest of the puppies from the litter be sent stool specs for testing to the lab. I have read in the link that dead mice can harbour coccidia and I do have 3 cats that hunt during the summer and leave dead mice lying around so maybe that is a possible explanation. We all know dogs and we also know they will attempt to eat absolutely anything.
I cannot express how stressful I found the whole experience. I pride myself on my high standards of cleanliness and I worried that I would be seen as some sloppy breeder with dubious practices. I still do not properly understand how this all happened but three puppies showed symptoms of coccidia. Neville, Gerrard and Keane, the rest of the litter have had no symptoms and what makes it confusing is that Ruby was negative. I will re- submit a further specimen to be tested in the near future.
For more information on coccidia go here.
All of the dogs are looking really good right now and Ruby is quickly regaining her shape after her puppies.
I have changed their diet to Evo which I believe is what Nadia and Steve feed their dogs . (They have a sister to Lela and Beckham from this last litter.) Evo is a revolutionary new type of dog food that closely emulates a dogs natural diet ie all meat, no carbs and a little roughage. It is more expensive than Nutro and other premium brands but less food is required so I will be interested to see how they all manage on It. Since the food scare I am now easily persuaded to seek better alternative ways of feeding my dogs.
I am not a "techy" person and blogs are a new phenomenon to me but my assumption is, they are designed to educate, inform and amuse.
Last week I learned all about Coccidia and hopefully I can pass on a little of what I learned here.
Last Tuesday I received a phone call from Jim who had bought the puppy Neville from me the week before. He told me that Neville had been experiencing diarrhoea so he had taken him to the vets. A test on a stool specimen had revealed that he had coccidia, I had vaguely heard of this as birds of prey can harbour It but I needed to google It before I fully understood what coccidia was. My first response was to let all of my puppy people know that this had happened and to take their puppy to the vet to be tested. I then got in touch with my vet to ask for his advice about testing my dogs.
I will add a link to this page about coccidia but basically it is a protozoa that can live in the gut of dogs without ever showing symptoms, the mother can pass It on to her pups and then at times of stress such as weaning and leaving the nest the puppy will develop symptoms such as mucous in the stool, diarrhoea and blood in the stool. The advice from my vet was to bring a stool specimen from Ruby and the last remaining puppy, Posh for testing.
The next morning It was fairly straight forward obtaining a specimen from Posh and her stool looked completely normal, Ruby, however was a little challenging. Ruby is very discreet when she goes to toilet, she likes to run into the woods for privacy (she would never contemplate the garden). I had an old jam jar for my spec bottle. Every time Ruby made a dash for the woods I would call her back and bless her she came back every time and I could tell she was getting exasperated with me. Eventually we reached the meadow and ruby decided she would provide me with a sample. Once again her specimen looked completely normal. As soon as I got back from the walk I rushed off to Oneonta with my specimens. I had to wait about half an hour for the result and as I did so I contemplated the idea of treating all of my dogs, at least Jim had told had told the treatment cost about $8.
When I was called to the treatment room I was told that Both Ruby and Posh were negative which left me very confused as I really had not expected this. I then asked the vet if the fact that I had free range chickens and a couple of pigs that sometimes associated with the dogs could in anyway have been responsible and he replied most probably not. He advised that the rest of the puppies from the litter be sent stool specs for testing to the lab. I have read in the link that dead mice can harbour coccidia and I do have 3 cats that hunt during the summer and leave dead mice lying around so maybe that is a possible explanation. We all know dogs and we also know they will attempt to eat absolutely anything.
I cannot express how stressful I found the whole experience. I pride myself on my high standards of cleanliness and I worried that I would be seen as some sloppy breeder with dubious practices. I still do not properly understand how this all happened but three puppies showed symptoms of coccidia. Neville, Gerrard and Keane, the rest of the litter have had no symptoms and what makes it confusing is that Ruby was negative. I will re- submit a further specimen to be tested in the near future.
For more information on coccidia go here.
All of the dogs are looking really good right now and Ruby is quickly regaining her shape after her puppies.
I have changed their diet to Evo which I believe is what Nadia and Steve feed their dogs . (They have a sister to Lela and Beckham from this last litter.) Evo is a revolutionary new type of dog food that closely emulates a dogs natural diet ie all meat, no carbs and a little roughage. It is more expensive than Nutro and other premium brands but less food is required so I will be interested to see how they all manage on It. Since the food scare I am now easily persuaded to seek better alternative ways of feeding my dogs.
Tuesday, September 11, 2007
Ruby's Puppies
Tuesday 11th of September.
Oh Dear!!!!!!!!!!! Where has the time gone. The pups all did well at the vets and they are all away except for Posh who was a last minute cancellation.
I dont know what it is about people who are attracted to Rhodesian Ridgebacks but we are an incredible bunch of people. My puppies have gone to amazing homes, Rooney is just roughly 75 miles away and is going to be shown which is very exciting.
Neville has gone to a lovely family in CT, Gerrard has gone to PA, Ronaldo is in the Finger Lakes, Venus is in NH,Pandora has gone to Manhattan and Posh will be visited by a family from CT later in the week.
This litter was very wormy this time round and I can only put this down to the puppies being outside for much of the time. Ruby was wormed prior to her mating with Raiza but sometimes It is so hard to keep on top. I wormed Posh for the 5th time yesterday with my favourite preparation, Drontal and this morning I spent nearly $300 on Drontal for the big dogs.
I pick Mark up from Albany Airport tomorrow evening and even though I know he is absolutely swamped with work I am hoping he will update my website as I have taken some beautiful pictures of the dogs and of course my little Motsi is yet to get her own page.
Motsi is not a huge girl, she stands around 25 inches at the shoulder right now but she is very substantial and is a clone of her mother Kasidi, in temperament. Rock solid, mischievous, stubborn, very loving, characteristics we associate with this breed.
Sue Craigie's training manual has been very warmly received by all of my puppy owners, my hope is that the manual will be kept for as long is needed and then returned to me for future puppy owners, but I have no problem if they are kept for reference.
I picked up my copy of Stig Carlsons The Rhodesian Ridgeback Today yesterday and it reminded me of just how good this book is. I highly recommend this book to everyone who either owns or is considering owning a Rhodesian Ridgeback and what was obvious to me was all of the beautiful dogs featured have bone and substance unlike some of the greyhoundy dogs that can be found here in the US.
We had a real crisis here a couple of weeks ago. My neighbour decided to do some target shooting at 7.30 in the morning over labour day weekend. I quickly retrieved Lela as she does not like loud gunfire and has tendency to run into the woods. Just as I put her into the mudroom, a car came up my drive to take my son to work and the rest of the dogs were running out to meet and greet. I went out to organise the other dogs and when I got back Lela was gone. At first I was not concerned as she knows the woods well and they do, after all, start on my garden. By evening I was so distressed as she was not home and I had by this time put out alerts for her. What made it most disressing for me was that Lela out of all of my dogs is very baby like and needy and thought of her out in the woods with Coyotes was unthinkable to me.
I went to bed crying and then around 02.30 I heard a dog barking and quickly realised the dog was outside, I quickly jumped out of bed, ran to the door and called out her name. When I saw the light coming on underneath the garage I knew It was Lela and It was. She came to bed with me and the next morning I fed her appetite, she was very hungry and very thirsty. I was so relieved that she managed to find her way home. We have miles and miles of woods and I do not know where she went but she had the good sense to find her way home, thank goodness.
So we are back to normal almost which is a relief as the summer was very hectic.
Oh Dear!!!!!!!!!!! Where has the time gone. The pups all did well at the vets and they are all away except for Posh who was a last minute cancellation.
I dont know what it is about people who are attracted to Rhodesian Ridgebacks but we are an incredible bunch of people. My puppies have gone to amazing homes, Rooney is just roughly 75 miles away and is going to be shown which is very exciting.
Neville has gone to a lovely family in CT, Gerrard has gone to PA, Ronaldo is in the Finger Lakes, Venus is in NH,Pandora has gone to Manhattan and Posh will be visited by a family from CT later in the week.
This litter was very wormy this time round and I can only put this down to the puppies being outside for much of the time. Ruby was wormed prior to her mating with Raiza but sometimes It is so hard to keep on top. I wormed Posh for the 5th time yesterday with my favourite preparation, Drontal and this morning I spent nearly $300 on Drontal for the big dogs.
I pick Mark up from Albany Airport tomorrow evening and even though I know he is absolutely swamped with work I am hoping he will update my website as I have taken some beautiful pictures of the dogs and of course my little Motsi is yet to get her own page.
Motsi is not a huge girl, she stands around 25 inches at the shoulder right now but she is very substantial and is a clone of her mother Kasidi, in temperament. Rock solid, mischievous, stubborn, very loving, characteristics we associate with this breed.
Sue Craigie's training manual has been very warmly received by all of my puppy owners, my hope is that the manual will be kept for as long is needed and then returned to me for future puppy owners, but I have no problem if they are kept for reference.
I picked up my copy of Stig Carlsons The Rhodesian Ridgeback Today yesterday and it reminded me of just how good this book is. I highly recommend this book to everyone who either owns or is considering owning a Rhodesian Ridgeback and what was obvious to me was all of the beautiful dogs featured have bone and substance unlike some of the greyhoundy dogs that can be found here in the US.
We had a real crisis here a couple of weeks ago. My neighbour decided to do some target shooting at 7.30 in the morning over labour day weekend. I quickly retrieved Lela as she does not like loud gunfire and has tendency to run into the woods. Just as I put her into the mudroom, a car came up my drive to take my son to work and the rest of the dogs were running out to meet and greet. I went out to organise the other dogs and when I got back Lela was gone. At first I was not concerned as she knows the woods well and they do, after all, start on my garden. By evening I was so distressed as she was not home and I had by this time put out alerts for her. What made it most disressing for me was that Lela out of all of my dogs is very baby like and needy and thought of her out in the woods with Coyotes was unthinkable to me.
I went to bed crying and then around 02.30 I heard a dog barking and quickly realised the dog was outside, I quickly jumped out of bed, ran to the door and called out her name. When I saw the light coming on underneath the garage I knew It was Lela and It was. She came to bed with me and the next morning I fed her appetite, she was very hungry and very thirsty. I was so relieved that she managed to find her way home. We have miles and miles of woods and I do not know where she went but she had the good sense to find her way home, thank goodness.
So we are back to normal almost which is a relief as the summer was very hectic.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
