Dogs

Friday 9th November.

Oh dear where has the time gone! This is the time of year that I dread, the approach of hunting season and I just hope It will be a quiet one.Soon the dogs will be wearing their bright orange collars and in some cases their orange jackets. Last year the boys wore the jackets as they tended to be more adventurous but this year I am not so sure and will most probably buy them for the girls also.

Ranger continues to be as good as gold, he is no trouble whatsoever but when Mark comes back next week we will endeavour to find a new home for him. This will be very hard for me and the children as we have become very fond of him but we simply cannot keep him.

Keeping males with females can be quite complicated sometimes especially when one of the girls comes into season. I suspect Lela maybe coming into season quite soon as we had an incident between Brewster and Raiza the other day which was quite unpleasant. Mark and I were in the barn feeding the cows when I heard grumbling. By the time I had reached the dogs It was too late and Brewster and Raiza were involved in a spat. They have had their set too's in the past but this one was particularly loud and I thought quite serious. Jimmy, the man digging up my entire garden with his bulldozer (we have serious flooding and need new drains) watched as mark and I tried to separate them.Raiza was clearly the one in a position of dominance as he had Brewster by the throat and for the first time ever Brewster was crying out. It really was very unsettling and as we managed to seperate them I feared that Brewster would have extensive wounds. To my amazement, on examination, not one mark could be found on Brewster, not even a toothmark. Jimmy shouted to me he half expected Brewsters throat to be missing but apart from saliva, there was nothing.

Later that morning as I was thinking of the whole incident I felt very pleased with how Raiza had reacted. Brewster, although castrated, still behaves as if he is not and is always grumbling at Raiza. Raiza, on the whole ignores him but obviously on this day Raiza decided to show him who was boss. There is no doubt that Raiza could have inflicted serious wounds on Brewster and judging by the noise they were making thats what we thought he was doing, but he didn't. He had him in a hold and was demanding submission without causing injury and I can only be pleased with his restraint.

The amazing thing that I have learned after such incidents is not to seperate them as this only makes the situation worse. They were both put in the utility room and a little while later we went shopping and It was as if nothing had happened at all when we returned and this is always the case.

Someone has asked about beautiful Caesar. When It became clear to me that the American breed standard is unforgiving about the amount of white on the toes, I realised I could not keep him as I have a commitment to breed to the standard , I could have produced puppies with too much white. Soon after making that decision, I received a phone call from a lovely lady called April from Connecticut. She had just lost her old Ridgeback and was looking for a puppy, I suggested she may want to consider Caesar so she made the journey to visit us with her husband and son and after spending a couple of hours with him they decided to take him home. It was a perfect match and he adored her little boy. My last update of him was April may well show him as he has continued to develop beautifully.