Ranger

Thursday 18th October.

I am very pleased with how Ranger has adapted to his new surroundings, more importantly I do believe he is very happy. I worried that he would miss his previous family but I think there is so much happening around him and he is never alone, so he does not have space in his life to pine. He now spends all of his time with the dogs and is getting much better at responding positively when he is called.

I experienced a scary moment this morning. We were all outside for our walk, (non of the dogs were on their leads). As I walked towards my chicken shed to open them up for the day I noticed a large back Labrador stood on the edge of our garden by the woods. The dogs spotted him immediately and chased him into the woods. My heart was racing as the dogs have never been faced with a strange dog on their property before and I was a little nervous as to how they would respond. I quickly regained my composure as there were no loud barking noises or any sounds of aggressive behaviour. I whistled with my fingers half believing they would ignore me but to my great surprise Kasidi returned promptly followed in relatively slow succession by the rest of the dogs. Ranger came behind Kasidi which pleased me enormously and Brewster was the last to come back, but, they all came back and no nastiness was involved. We did not see the dog on our walk, so, I don't know where he came from and I don't know where he disappeared to but I doubt we will see him again. More importantly, I was very pleased with how my dogs behaved.

We are having a deck put up at long last and the builders were very bemused by the Labrador incident. They commented on how amazed they were that yesterday I gave seven bones to seven dogs with no falling out as their experience with their own dogs suggest that this is not possible. I just gave them a look that said oh dear.

I think Ranger has lost a little weight, Its all the playing he is doing with his new playmate Motsi, they really are inseparable at the moment.