Hail the Conquering Hero!!

Our Lucy, yes, our gorgeous, aged, rickety Lucy is a hero!

We had just moved into our new (temporary home - the building didn't get finished in record time over Xmas, sadly!).  I was upstairs trying to have a nap, and Ali was in the kitchen, getting something to drink.  Lucy came to the back door and was turning around and around, and barking at him.  She then walked off towards the garden, so Ali followed to see what was wrong.  He looked out of the window at her, and next thing she leapt into the fish pond!  A revolting pond scum of a pond.  Now Lucy, despite being a retriever x Labrador DOES NOT SWIM!  She tried once in our pool and sank like a stone - Carl had to rescue her.  So for her to willingly jump into a pond was more than a little unusual!

Ali raced to open a door so he could get to her and pull her out.  We did not realise that the pond is actually rather deep (thigh height in the middle, with sloping sides) so there was no way she could get purchase with her back legs to haul herself out.  So Ali grabbed her by the collar and yanked her out. 

Then in the corner of his eye, he spotted Gemma, also in the pond, but in a part that was hidden by some bush.  She had fallen in and couldn't get out, so Ali rushed around and hauled her out too.

So Lucy, our hero, fetched Ali, put her fear aside, and her own life at risk, and Gemma was saved!

Our own true life Lassie story.

Our new pet

Oh I WISH all pets could be this wonderful and easy to take care of. She stays outside, doesn't poop, pee, eat or bark. And she helps to keep our grass short.

Her name is Wilma.....

Here she is grazing with Trixie and Gemma.

Not for the faint hearted!

Last post I told you about Gemma's dog fight. And told you about the incredible fact that there were no wounds to be seen!

On Thursday, Carl got home from work and pointed out that Gemma had a very swollen face, and on inspection, we could feel that there was a great big abscess under the skin where she had been bitten. So on Friday, I took her off to the Vet. On the way there, her abscess popped (fortunately she was in her crate, so it was quite contained!). And there for the world to see were two HUGE gaping holes!! I was mortified and kept telling the Vet that I had checked her so carefully and there were no wounds and what a terrible owner I am, blah blah. She listened to my confessions (Forgive me Dr. for I have sinned!), shaved the area, cleaned out the holes, gave her an antibiotic and anti-inflammatory and then told me what she thought.

Turns out, she believed me about the wounds story, but the bruising from the bite must have been so severe that the skin died, and an infection set in underneath, creating an abscess. Which created a whole lot of pressure, and so it popped through the weak points - the two bite wounds.

Hah! Vindicated!

I have to put in this picture, but my apologies for those of you with sensitive stomachs!!!

Deja vu

Now that we have only one puppy to watch, we are noticing some alarming similarities between Trixie and Gemma.

One of Trixie's most characteristic poses has always been lying on top of Lucy. We are pretty used to seeing it now, but whenever we have new guests, they are always amazed!

So, blow me down if young Gemma does not do EXACTLY the same thing... lie on Lucy as if she were her own portable rug. Incredible! Other than that, Gemma is settling down well without her siblings around. She went to her first puppy training lesson this week, and I'm not sure who was more in control - Megs or Gemma?

While I'm on the subject of pets, I have GREAT news about Grumpy Jack! He has been adopted by my VERY WONDERFUL friend Lesley and her kids, Cayley and Matthew. He was driving us so crazy that we couldn't handle him any more. Les has an aviary and agreed to give it a try having Grumpy in there. Well, that jolly old codger has weaseled his way into the cage of their inside cockatiels, and has taken a particular shine to one of them! Les assures me that all is well - I hope it stays that way! In a weird way, I miss him (after all, look at how much trouble I went to to catch him that time he escaped!) but I think he, and us, are much better off now. I'm not so sure about Les? I hope its not the end of the friendship!!!

and then there was one

They are gone! My babies have flown the coop and gone to their separate homes, and all we have left is little Gemma, Megan's baby. Here they are yesterday having a quick last drink before heading out into the big wide world!
Tracker went to Megan's friend Marco, and his sister Gabby.








Thato (now Scamp) and Ntombi (now Rosie) went to Ryan and Bryn.

Today, Mary Anne (a friend of Heidi's) came with her family to fetch Jigsaw (now Bolt) for her son Daniel.

So, while we are so thrilled with their new homes, and are so lucky to have found such good homes for all of them, I am feeling very heart-sore. These babies completely took over our lives (mostly mine!) for 2 months and now I think I have empty nest issues.

Admittedly, one puppy is a whole lot more manageable than 5, but somehow the house seems so quiet.

To answer those who are wondering - NO, I will not do this again. I am taking Trixie to be spayed in the next month or so. However, I have promised Megan that when Gemma is around 3, she can have a litter of puppies with her (I think I will have recovered by then!!).

Thank you to all of you who have shared in the development of these little guys - the highs and the lows.

Now I guess I'm going to have to get a life!

time marches on....

I cannot believe that we have only a week and a half left with our babies! What ever am I going to write in my blog????

They are now 6 and a half weeks old. I know many breeders sell their puppies at this age, but we really feel that 8 weeks is a much better option (beside, we couldn't bear to get rid of them now!).

Needless to say, they just get cuter and cuter!! The pen (as mentioned earlier) is working like a charm! They love being in there! And now, instead of carrying them all to the pen, we call them, and we have 5 little brown and whites with waggly tails following us! We are also letting them cruise around the back yard and in the house a bit more which, while wonderful, is a good indication of how far they really are from being house trained! I think it will be a relief when we have only one little one's poos and wees to clean up. 5 is pretty hectic!

The only time they are ever still is when they are asleep!

(Right) Megan's little Gemma having fun with my camera strap (hence slightly out of focus!!)

TOO MUCH POOP!!!

Yes, Trixie is officially no longer our very handy poop scoop! I am! However, after an innocent conversation with my friend Katy about her mom's puppies being in a pen in the garden, a light bulb went on in my head, and yesterday, it was action stations at our house! Megan and I went to fetch a spare kennel from my folks, and some mesh from the Hardware store, while Carl and Ali went to buy some ready-to-lay grass. We then converted one of my future vegetable garden patches into an outdoor playpen for puppies! Hurray! They seem to be getting the hang of this pooping on the grass thing! We do bring them in over night, but it has halved the mess!

Puppies are now 4 weeks!

After our very sad week last week, I have to report to you that our 5 remaining puppies are just getting CUTER and CUTER!! It is incredible that in just one week, each pup is now mobile, starting to eat solids (hurrah, I can hear Trixie cry!), and getting a personality (or is it doganality???) of their own! Poor Trixie is no longer just a feeding/poop cleaning machine anymore, she is now officially a TOY! With many nice bits to chew on - ears, teats, legs etc. Not to mention all the chewing/play fighting amongst the puppies themselves. There is no respect for the sleeping - if one wants to play, they all play! However, there is a great flurry for about 5 minutes, and then they all crash!

Of course, there are down sides to this stage... Trixie is simply not keeping up with all the mess created by these growing 5, and so much cleaning/replacing of newspaper is required by us!

Our biggest baby, Thatu, now weighs 1.24kg! Well done Trixie!

I am also happy to report that we are over-subscribed for homes for them (us being one of them - Megan has chosen Gemma for her own)!

A very sad day

As you should know by now, if you've been following our blog recently, Trixie had 6 of the most beautiful puppies ever born.

Tragically, one little girl, Wesidudla, died yesterday, after falling off my niece's lap. It was very traumatic for everyone - I was by myself with the kids so had to load all 4 kids into car, plus puppy and race to the vet. Unfortunately, she was already dead by the time we got there. As to the exact details, it's hard to say, but it is just one of those awful, unexplainable accidents. I am torturing myself with 'if only I had' or 'if only I hadn't', which is no real help to anyone, as it doesn't change anything.
As you can see from this photo, she was really deserving of her name 'hey fatty'!!

Anyway, we are still blessed to still have our 5, who are growing and thriving!

An update....

The arrival of our babies has taken over our lives! Not that they are any work for us yet (Trixie does everything, for now!), but we find ourselves sitting and staring for ages on end, just not able to tear ourselves away and actually do anything useful! The timing couldn't be better, because the children are on holiday, so whiling away the time watching puppies is a great holiday activity!
You may not think that anything else exciting has happened in our lives, but actually, we are enjoying a visit from my sister and her kids from Abu Dhabi, but you know, that does pale somewhat in comparison to our babies (sorry Heidi!!!).

They've arrived!

For those of you who have been waiting with baited breath for Trixie's puppies to arrive, and even for those of you who haven't, they all arrived safely from 12:30am onwards, on Wed 29 July. We woke the kids up for the great event (well, it wasn't so great for Trixie, I don't think!), and we all watched, agog, with the wonder of mother nature, and the miracle of life that unfolded before us! Trixie was the consummate mother and did everything just perfectly, as did her pups. And they didn't even have a hand book/website/gyne/paediatrician to consult. It does make one pause to wonder, if, with all our information and modernisation, we humans have completely lost the natural instinct of having children?

The two boys (Carl and Ali) faded after pup number 2, as there was nearly a 2 hr wait between #2 and #3, and I think the boys just ran out of enthusiasm! Megan and I sat patiently waiting it out. # 3 and #4 arrived only 7 minutes apart, and, on seeing how peaceful Trixie was, we declared 'show over' and went to bed (about 3:30am). Only to wake up the next morning to not 4 but 6 beautiful and perfect little pups!! Well done Trixie!

They have now all been named and are weighed on a daily basis. Two have already put on 50% of their birth weights. Their names, in birth order, are: Tracker (male); Wesidudla (female - meaning 'hey, fatty' in Zulu! Carl calls me that, he's dead!!); Thathu (male - meaning three, as he was born third, and happens to have 3 spots on his back!); Jigsaw (male - named after a jigsaw shaped spot on him); Ntombi (female, meaning 'girl' in Zulu) and lastly Gemma (female, after a diamond shaped spot on her head).
Aren't we the luckiest family?

Good news!

If you recall a few articles ago, I mentioned that we were hoping to have a litter of puppies with our Jack Russell, Trixie. I'm pleased to announce that Trixie is with child(ren). We returned home from our half-term break, and discovered a very chubby, slightly subdued little Trixie! We're thrilled, but I'm not sure she knows what she's in for! However, she's getting lots of love and attention from us, and I don't hear her complaining!
Will keep you posted - due date is about the 28th July!

Ahhh, Rats!

My little girl has turned 10. You may suspect that at her age she may have asked for ..... a PlayStation? brat's doll? Ipod? Wii? No, no, no and no.

She asked for (and got!) A RAT!!!!

We now have a 6 week old white rat with pink eyes who goes by the lovely name of Penny. My apologies to all the Penny's out there that I know - I had nothing to do with choosing the name!

Megan is besotted, and even I am forced to admit that she is quite sweet, for now! I dread her getting big! My biggest concern is that 'Penny' may actually be 'Percy' and if anyone has ever seen a boy rat, you will know that it is not a pretty sight! Problem is that we can't exactly kill it off it when we see some 'you know what's' starting to appear!

Next problem is that Ali also wants a rat, and in a way, I agree as little Penny must be pretty lonely. However, if we end up with two of opposite sex, we all know where that will end up!

Oh dear, the things we let ourselves in for!

The Great Escape

I suppose it is less 'the Great Escape' and more 'Taking the Opportunity'....
Grumpy Jack, our pet cockatiel flew away today. How, you might ask? Well, actually he was sitting on my shoulder and I went outside with him. On seeing the painter, he took fright, and took off. Terribly irresponsible of me, I know. Especially when he escaped only last week, but I managed to rescue him, AND the fact that my father found him in his garden and gave him to us, so he had obviously escaped from his previous owner. All that considered, I am clearly a slow learner!!! And Carl even managed to not say 'I told you so' - I was impressed!!!.
So, all that aside, he was gone!!! Much distress on my part (how was I going to explain to the kids that I had lost him???), and if the truth be known, I'm actually quite fond of the old codger, even though he drives me quite mad (you do all know I'm talking about the bird, not Carl?). I called and called and called, but after a while he stopped responding. So, I did all the things a responsible pet owner would do - contact the community via email, buzz on neighbour's gates in garden's where I thought he may have flown to, write signs on the community notice board, and trawl the streets calling 'Grumpy, Grumpy'. I shamed myself!
I had quite given up hope when I went outside to greet an electrician who had arrived to do a job. Grumpy was obviously close enough to hear my voice and started cheeping to me. So, every time I called, he responded! We managed to pin point him to the house diagonally behind us. Unfortunately they were not there, so I couldn't get in the conventional method....
which led to some creativity. I had the painter's ladder leaning against the wall/barbed wire fence, precariously close to the other neighbour's electric fence, and from there I could actually see Grumpy and I called and called and called and called. Well, let me say, that the phrase 'bird brain' did not come about for nothing!!! Eventually, I was on the verge of climbing into the next door garden, braving said fencing, when another electrician, who had come to do another job, and fortunately for me, is a consummate gentleman, persuaded me down the ladder and he bravely took on the fencing! Perhaps, being an electrician, he has a certain immunity to electric fencing? I'm not sure, but luckily (for him!), we never got to test that little theory of mine. Anyway, once he got near Grumpy, Grumpy took off again, by which time I was back up the ladder, and he flew to me. Amazing!
I forgot to tell you that the whole event was witnessed by my domestic worker, the gardener, 2 painters, 2 electricians and their assistants! Did I mention that I shamed myself?
Do I even need to tell you that I was at the vet's this afternoon having his wings clipped?

Here's hoping....

We decided that we would like to have a litter of puppies with our Jack Russell, Trixie (she gets no say in the matter!), so we had her covered - which is the polite word in the doggy world for raped and violated!!! The lucky young man, Tintin, came to stay from Thursday to Saturday and much activity was enjoyed by him (can't speak for her!)! It is a 60 day gestation, so we'll probably find out in a month or so, when she starts showing. We did it once before, last October, but it was unsuccessful, so we're trying not to get our hopes up. Having said that, though, we already have 3 potential owners lined up (us being one of them!).

Here's hoping....