Motsi's puppies.

Sunday 2nd may.

The last few days have been very busy, Mark back from Europe, my son back from Uni, acres of grass screaming to be cut etc etc, 8 dogs to look after and of course the pups.

Motsi's puppies have taken a huge leap in terms of their development, they can stand, their eyes are fully opened, they are making funny little growling sounds and they are beginning to hear. We put them outside with their mum for a short while yesterday, something which I will do increasingly now the warmer weather is here.

Today they will be wormed and tomorrow I will start introducing them to raw ground beef. Motsi is not a big bitch and although I am feeding her copious amounts of food the demands of feeding 10 puppies is now taking Its toll on her. This is the peak of milk output for Motsi. I am pleased to say she is happy to leave the box for longer periods of time now and the puppies can go a good few hours between feeds.

I am very happy that Motsi and Lela have continued their good relationship while they both have puppies. They are very laid back with each other and they share a natural curiosity for each others babies.

We have 2 puppies in Motsi's litter that are almost identical twins. They are Porsche and Lincoln and they are the 2 lighter wheaten pups . What is interesting is, they tend to hang out with each other too.I know we all have our preferences but I am drawn to these two puppies. Of course It is silly to start looking seriously at the pups at this stage but they are very eye catching.

They still spend much of their time sleeping and eating with small periods of wakefulness in between.

My copy of the Ridgeback Register arrived on Friday and I would recommend this quarterly magazine to everyone. In this spring edition there was a very interesting article on dewclaws and whether they should be removed. Back home we have never, as a rule removed them, infact this issue had never been brought to my attention until we moved here to the US. The conclusion was that the US is the only country in the world that routinely removes them but some big kennels are now leaving well alone. To quote Dennis Boyd from Ireland,'If over the millennia nature saw fit to retain dewclaws on canines," he muses" then is not arrogant of humans to think they know better"?

People who know me will know I am against any part of a dog being removed, be It tail docking, clipping of ears or removal of dewclaws. Using my own dogs as an example and my dogs run for miles everyday through sometimes rough terrain, I have never had an injury to their tail or dewclaw and I am in my 25th year of keeping Ridgebacks. The only recurring injury in my pack is torn toe nails.