Struan Farm

On Dogs Named Clifford and Boo

Some months ago now we lost our beloved dog Clifford here at Struan Farm. His back legs failed him one day, at age 18. He just couldn't stand up. The local vet came out to put him to sleep, but first time around he wasn't having any of that, resisting her attempts. This was a dog who didn't want to go. She came back out later that day. John stayed with Clifford and I went for a walk, coming back later to say goodbye. I was pretty much a sobbing mess. We buried him out past the tawa groves looking out on Mt. Taranaki. I can talk to him there while I'm picking figs.

It takes time to recover from the loss of a beloved pet. At least for me it does. I still miss Clifford. We also hadn't given much thought to which breed of dog we might want next, although we knew we needed a breed that wouldn't cause problems with the ewes or lambs. So farm dog stock more or less. 

I tend to keep an eye on the FB posts of our local animal control officer, both in terms of coming across people's lost pets as well as those in need of new homes. A few months after we lost Clifford I saw a post about a wee Huntaway puppy who had been picked up along a remote rural roadside. She had big brown mournful eyes that spoke to me. I commented that if no one claimed her we would be interested in adopting her. I followed up a week later only to learn she was being turned over to a dog rescue charity that works with the pound so that abandoned animals don't get euthanised. They did say I could get in touch with the charity directly to adopt her. Here the plot took some twists and turns. The rescue charity, which truly does good work rehoming animals, insisted that the dog must be kept inside with people and sleep in the house. This is not something that works well on farms, and definitely doesn't work for my husband John. The organisation had its rules and thus deemed we were unfit parents, something I found very hard to accept. I decided to let the animal control officer know what happened, and he intervened on our behalf. You see Huntaways are farm dogs and this little puppy is going to grow into a HUGE dog. This was not an inside dog by any stretch. Turns out he still had the puppy at the local kennel and spoke to the charity.

And so I went and picked up "Boo." That afternoon we went directly to the vet for a check up and micro chip. Also got her registered and she's had her jabs. Neutering happens a bit down the road.

Boo is high energy and needs to go for big runs with John when he's out on the quad bike. I've stocked up on tennis balls, which she chases and plays with until she loses them somewhere. She retrieves but doesn't really "fetch" them back. It's all about high speed racing around with Boo. Once she has a good run she settles down in her kennel and keeps an eye on things.

It seems Boo is happy at Struan Farm. I'm glad for her she didn't end up inside in some house up in Auckland!

 

 

 

The Class of 2021

Yep, trying to get back into the blogging groove here at Struan Farm, we'll see how I go. Thought it made sense to start with where we are on the pet lamb front this season. We have four happy, healthy lambs in the pet mob this year: "Poopy Pete," "Houdini," "Ronaldo," and "Clover." Two ewes, two rams. They are a lovely foursome. No scrums at bottle times, everyone gets along.

We had two other ewe lambs briefly. "Georgie," a big brown lamb who was adopted by a family wanting a pet for a local school pet day, and "Ruffles," who rather miraculously we were able to "re-mother" to former pet lamb Rosie.

Rosie lost both of her twins this year, one was too big for her it seemed. John found her in the paddock beside the dead lambs seriously upset, being a very good mum. We decided to try to convince her that little Ruffles was one of her lambs. Sheep operate according to scent, so John smeared some from one of the dead twins onto Ruffles. (This may be a bit too farm-y for some, but the old school way of doing this is to take the fleece/skin of the dead lamb and put it onto the potential adoptee. John decided to try rubbing Ruffles with the scent instead.) We also helped Ruffles, who had been drinking bottles for almost a week by then, to drink from Rosie in the woolshed yards.  It was an experiment to say the least.

Yes, there was a happy ending, they walked off together into the sunset! We suspect that while Rosie had figured out what we were up to, she decided to cooperate seeing it as a "win-win." And I agree with her on that.