1 week to go!

Cedar 9 wks old - can't wait to bring him home!

so the pups are 9 weeks old today! since my last blog we visited them again when they were 7 weeks and after much thought we chose our guy.. Luke! we are going to call him Cedar but he's still known as Luke at the moment. we love him so much already!

we're just back from a third and final visit (before pick up) today with the pups at 9 weeks - they've grown so much from when we first saw them. a lot has happened in the last few weeks.. our friends Simon and Priscilla have been to visit, it was so much fun to show them around and hang out (not
long enough though!). and then my mom, sister and mike arrived last week for a 4 week stay out here, it's been great being able to spend time hanging out and catching up with them. i am due to finish my job this Wednesday so have been training up my replacement at work AND then we get our new little guy 1 week today!

we're almost all set for his arrival, we have his (huge) crate and some toys, but we still need a few more items.. stainless steel bowls (ones that are made in Canada or Europe seem hard to come by), a collar (flat, martingale & halti) and leash (flexi & regular) and a 'snoozy' or 2 (cozy beds). we also need to stock our freezer with some raw meat oh yes and get a digital scale. I am planning to get all of these things on Thursday once i am footloose and fancy free (can't wait for that). i've been researching for weeks and scouting out the best pet shops to buy everything - we got our crate on sale at Boselys which was awesome!

it was great going to see the pups today - we took jess, mam and mike and they loved seeing the pups too, jess wanted to take the ridgeless pup home (pinky) - she is a very sweet pup! it's going to be quite life changing and we're prepared for a lot of hard work.. but of course we know that nothing that comes easy without hard work and sacrifice is really worth having!

auntie Jess chillin' with 9 wk old Cedar

Cedar at 7 weeks old

ol & rach meet the pups!

little Luke sleeping on his siblings

so finally! we got to go see the 5 week old pups this past weekend! we had spent the Friday eve, Saturday and Sunday morning in Whistler celebrating our 5th wedding anniversary, we'd had a great time chilling out up there, our kind Voss family friends had let us stay in their cool place up there and it was nice to feel like we did something special. so then to top it off with a cherry on top it was cool to go and visit the pups for the first time on Sunday afternoon.

we were due to turn up at Avril's around 3pm and mooched home via a pumpkin muffin and americano misto at zephyr cafe in Squamish (our new favorite weekend haunt). On arrival home we unpacked a few things and put on clean clothes and old shoes (as instructed by Avril). We were making good time, we didn't want to be late for this important event and appear irresponsible! I had the directions all ready as I'd prepared well and checked out gmaps before leaving Whistler... or so i thought! When I successfully directed us to 164th St we soon realized we were on the wrong 164th Street and this did not look anything like the place we originally visited! After frantically pulling the map out and having to call Avril we rolled up about 40mins late.. anyway that's just life - Ol says i learnt a lesson by not actually typing the house # into gmaps, my excuse is that i'm still getting used to this numbered streets malarkey, windy streets with real names are much simpler! ;)

to the important info! we were greeted by Avril and some of the older dogs, she lead us to the bleach dip for our shoes and sanitizer for our hands then through the house to the pup run/pen outside, and they were... 11 bundles of cuteness! They were all snuggled up together and snoozing, one of Avril's friends from Washington was also there visiting and she promptly handed me a pup which just as promptly snuggled up on my lap.. wow! i was a bit worried at first that i might hurt them or something but soon saw how Avril handled them and she encouraged us to pick any of them up we wanted so we just started waking them all up. They sporadically got a bunch of energy and started playing and exploring around then moments later they'd be passed out sleeping again! They grow so much right now that they sleep a lot, their eyes are now open but they still can't see or hear 100%.

Avril told us that the pup's Mum, Beau has now had just about enough of them attacking her for feeding and doesn't spend much time around the demanding little blighters any more - she said they get a feed from her twice a day now and Beau isn't too keen on even this! I don't blame her to be honest - ouch! The pups are now having 4 meals of raw food each day too which so far has been ground chicken/turkey, some herbs (including slippery elm), cod liver oil and egg (shells included), they also tried some yummy tripe the other day and get to chew on a chicken carcass everyday to get them started on eating bone - tasty! i've done quite a bit of reading on raw feeding and it's really interesting, strange as it might sound i'm looking forward to feeding it (I must not be a squeemish soul!). So anyway, while we were there she dished some out for them, there were 3 bowls and we put the 3 smallest round one bowl and then 4 around each of the other 2 bowls, they 'wolfed' it down and then one by one became super charged with energy (and also poop!) they were so cute as they're just starting to play with each other now too.

Bandit the pup's dad came over to say hello and Avril said that he was very gentle around them, one of the biggest male pups (named Bruiser right now!) was jumping up at the fence to say hello so Avril took him out to Bandit - this was the cutest thing cos they were trying to play with each other, Bandit is quite young himself so he was so excited - adorable!

little Bruiser taking his dad Bandit on!

as there are 11 of them it's hard to tell them apart that well so we kept asking Avril every 5 mins which one is this? which one is that? we did get a good basis of an idea of which ones we are interested in though so now we need to make a decision over the next few weeks as to which pup we'd like.. this is not going to be easy. We have decided we like a black nosed dog for our first (as oppose to liver nosed) and initially we were thinking a male but i think now we'd probably go for a girl too. we have managed to narrowed it down to 3 male possibles and 3 girl possibles, some of these have show potential so Avril may be some of them - i guess when we know which ones she's going for we will know which are left. She said she'd probably know by 7 weeks and we're planning to go back in 2 weeks so we should get a better idea then.

in the meantime we can start purchasing our essential pup items! along with preparing/getting excited for my mom, sis and mike to come for their 4 week visit in Aug (yes they can help with the pup too!) and to our friends Si and Priscilla coming at the end of July AND also thinking about moving to Squamish.. exciting times indeed.

the 5 year anni shot up on Whistler peak

new life, new season

beautiful Beau and her 11 perfect pups

so! my first blog! i had the idea to start this blog/diary as a way to capture life with our first dog (dogblog) and also to muse about life in general, Oliver and i have recently gained residency in Canada (although i think of it more gaining residency in beautiful B.C. as the province is like a country to me in itself being 3 x bigger than England, plus i don't really have a desire to go anywhere else in Canada at the moment!) and i really feel like right now we're approaching a time of change in our lives, a time that i feel would be good to document.

i've ALWAYS wanted a dog, i believe right since i was born, but it's never happened.. as a kid there was no-one around at home enough, i got a guinea pig, then a cat, then another cat (all of which i tried to make act as dogs by dragging them round on leashes), THEN i got a horse which was very awesome and definitely as good as a dog but i guess it's still not the same as having a buddy like a great dog. I've been around dogs a lot - i used to learn all the breeds off by heart, take neighbors dogs for walks and even pretend to be a dog a lot in my childhood (don't laugh).

so finally we've reached a time in our life when things are in place to make it work, i think also as we're both getting to a certain age when one starts to think 'what the heck - let's just do it' we decided to make the life altering comitment and sacrifice to get a pup. we decided this probably about 6 months ago now and it was actually whilst we'd been out camping and hiking about in the woods of squamish we really felt there was something missing.. something that would really enhance our experience (and possibly also protect us from bears). that next week Oliver came to me and said that he thought we should get a pup and with me being more of the 'go for it' character and him being the 'careful consideration' character i didn't take much/any persuading.. although, in saying that and wanting to jump right in, i did want definitely make sure we do this thing right.

doing it right meant researching a breed first of all.. i'd liked weimeraners and vizlas for a while but had started to go off them a bit as they seemed too flighty and daft, Oliver was looking at hairy breeds which just don't do it for me.. we'd also both kinda liked the clever little parsons jack russell for a while as it seemed like a great hiking dog. but i wanted a 'proper dog' (which i think means a bigger one) and i still just couldn't help going for that hound type. i remembered some friends of friends back in england having rhodesian ridgebacks and i had fallen in love with them but never had ran into any more since. the rhodesian ridgeback is a beautiful handsome looking dog and it also originates from south africa so we thought this could be a sign! we did a lot of research about the breed over a few months and found out they were not regular dogs in character and temprament.. which attracted us to them even more..

"Ridgebacks are not Labradors or Golden Retrievers in short coats. They are hunting dogs and have a high prey drive. Translation: They are quite independent -- they don’t fawn over your every word, they can be oblivious to being called and require a lot of positive motivation to train them in traditional obedience. Many people just aren't prepared for the willful disobedience and hard-headedness in this breed." exerpt from www.ridgebackrescue.org/breedinfo/RRCUS_right_dog_for_your_family

other points that we became aware of are that they are often described as 'aloof' with strangers, they really need to be part of the family i.e. you can not just stick them outide in the yard all day and they need a lot of exercise and stimulation - so! more of a challenge but these qualities just made us like the sound of them more. we also discovered they are known for being super loyal to their 'pack leaders' (us), amazing family dogs/great with kids, very hungry all the time, like stealing the sofa and bed and hate being told off. i looked up some breeders in B.C. and decided to contact a couple of them to go visit and experience the real live ridgeback! In return we got sent the 'puppy questionnaire'.. a few pages of probing questions regarding the ridgeback nature and character, our lifestyles, what we intended feeding the dog etc etc it was very much an interview - you can't just randomly go buy a real rhodesian ridgeback from a real breeder, they actually really care about their dogs and the breed so they're definitely not willing to sell to just anyone!

in the meantime i bought a book to get me started generally, 'the art of raising a puppy' this was a really great starting point and covers behaviour as well as care and handling. i've since got a rhodesian ridgeback specific book which is very good and have a few more books on order covering raw feeding and dog behaviour and handling. i know a lot about horse behaviour and handling having owned and worked with horses for many years and i'm really noticing how much i love understanding the way animals work and how we can communicate to them in 'their' language. on another note, we had been slightly concerned that our landlord might not agree to us having a dog but after us providing evidence of our insurance covering up to $2500 worth of damage caused by pets they said yes and luckily the lady used to have dogs and secretly is pleased i know it!

so, passing the initial questionnaire test for one breeder, in april we visited the tamaridge kennel on vancouver island, Tammy and Mark were lovely and it was a great experience (apart from the expensive ferry ride which i got in trouble about eek) we met their dogs, two of which were 4 months old, they were all so chilled and lazy in the house, and yes they were kind of aloof with us, but not in a nasty way, they just weren't all gushy over us. a bit later we took them outside and suddenly they were full of life, ready for action, perfect! we got lots of great advice from them (including how to make beer chicken) and were put on their puppy waitlist for the next litter which is planned for early 2010. i think after this visit Oliver was also completely sold, i know he's after a clever, non-gushy/whiney dog and the rhodesian ridgeback seems to fit the bill.. apparently they never bark without a really good reason (probably like someone breaking into your house). We'll see.. i'm defintely prepared for some whining at least when it's a pup!!

back at home, even more loving the breed after spending time with them in person we really wanted to find some pups that were coming earlier than next year so we contacted another breeding kennel called beau bijou located in surrey nearish the u.s. border. we filled out a questionnaire and were invited to go and meet Avril, Paul and their ridgebacks, wow they were all beauties! again we learnt a lot from our visit and we met both the sire (Bandit) and the dam (Beau) of the litter that was due early june. Bandit had been bred by Avril and was a very sweet boy with lovely head, Beau was also very beautiful (as her name suggests) and obviously had a very sweet nature. so we asked to be put on the waitlist for the litter and were accepted hooraay!

Avril really loves her dogs and is so helpful, she began sending out info about raw feeding, injections/vaccinations, and recommending books, websites and forums to join so i'm pretty obsessed with all that right now. i'm also super interested in the breeding lines too and there's a pretty awesome website that traces back all the ridgeback lines (most with pictures) to the first 2 recorded ridgebacks called Lion and Como.

now the exciting news! the pups were born super early in the morning of monday june 8! 11 of them! 6 girls and 5 boys. i didn't expect that many and was pretty glad i guess because it gives us more of a chance of actually getting one! the really good specimens, with perfect ridges etc are often kept by the breeder or bought by another breeder so the good characteristics can be duplicated by breeding from these dogs thus keeping the breed correct. we're down for a black nosed male but we'll see when we meet them what their characters are like too. we have to wait until they are at least 4 weeks before we can go and see them as Beau will be very protective right now and also they are very susceptible to outside germs etc. in the meantime we have photos! and time to prepare for our new family member (this could be him below!)..

gorgeous snoozy 'Cool Hand Luke' - 11 days old
born June 8, 2009