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.