Moo’s Blog

The girl alpacas have been with us over a weeknow. They appear to be settling in well. They don’t eat as much hay as the boys, but they are a slighter build so I am supposing that is normal. The boys love gettign their grain forst thing in the mornings, and come running up to me and eat out of my hands, with Frankie eating out of the bucket. The girls took a few days to get used to me, but now they come running too,and can’t wait for the boys to get fed their grain and for it to be their turn. Keremeos was the first to take the grain, eating out of the bucket. Sasha, our girl alapca has been eating out of my hand for three or four days now. The littlest one, I call her Delilah, does not eat the grain either out of my hand or out of the bucket, but she does now nibble at bits of grain that have fallen on the grass. She still suckles from her mum, and is still very wary of getting near me.

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We are excited as our girl alpaca arrives tomorrow! Sasha is the new girl. She is about 15 months old and is the sister of Chopaka (male, single registered)and the half sister of Sumac (male,single registered). They all share the same mother, Keremeos (single registered), and she will be coming too along with a baby of hers so that Sasha (siingle registered) will not be lonely.
Alpacas need to have company. One on their own is no good as they get lonely. And since we can’t have our boys in with any female in case they mate, and particularly with Sasha who is a close relative, then we have done the next best thing to buying a couple of girls, and that is borrowing them!
Female alpacas are expensive to buy, more expensive than male alpacas. Double registered alpacas (those registered in Canada and the USA) are more expensive than single registered (those registered in just one country).
Sasha should be pregnant. Sasha is dark brown in color and Caesar, the male she was mated with, is a light brown color so we are hoping that the offspring will have brown fleece. We thi8nk she is pregnant as she spits and kicks at the male once she has “taken”. The cria, or baby,shoul dbe due about 11 months after mating, which means sometime around about September she should give birth!
We (the Royal “we” here…meaning mainly my husband!) have cleaned up the paddock where the horses used to be, fenced a new area off and made the shelter more suitable for the alpacas. Plus we have a heated bucket for the water for the females and more hay coming tomorrow to make sure they all have enough to eat over the winter.
Chopaka should be pleased to see the females. We took our males down to the neighbours alpaca farm (Sunshine Valley Alpacas) while we went to England and they stayed there for three weeks. (this is the farm that has Sasha and Keremeos and her baby, plus many other females,most of them double registered and the farm where we got our male, white, blue eyed (unregistered) Frankie.) When we got our alpacas back and walked them down the road back to our farm all but Chopaka were pleased to be home. Chopaka however spent many days looking over the gate to see if he could escape back down the road!!
I wonder what he will make of having females around?!

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I took Bo for his yearly check up and injections on Monday this week. The appointment was for 9-30 and at 9-30, right on time, Bo got weighed. Then we went into the room where an assistant came and checked Bo’s heart rate and took his temperature. He was NOT pleased to have a thermometer stufk up his back side. How do I know? He abruptly stopped taking the little treats I had for him, ignoring them completely!
We were then left to wait.
At 9-45 the vet came in and checked Bo’s heart rate, felt him over and gave the prognosis of him being overweight as his ribs could not be felt easily. Then she gave him his injections which he didn’t even seem to feel. Great!
Then we went out to await the billing. This seemed to take forever! And in the end we got the bill, and some new shampoo for Jaxx,but came away without the form being signed (it will be forwarded by mail) to say which injections Bo had had.
10-15 am all done (minus the signed form). a long visit!

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It is Wednesday, early evening (June 20 2007) and Bo and I have been sitting in the library quietly while I read. I leave to go prepare a meal and Bo reluctantly follows. I notice he is very involved with licking his fur. I think he must have siome twigs entangled in it so I get the brush ready to give him a grooming and help with his problem.

However, on beginning to groom I look at the offending area…under his right armpit. There are no twigs there. In fact there is NO SKIN there either! It is red and open. He has somehow torn himself open. The wound is the size of the top of a tea cup. BIG!

The first thing we do is get a collar for him. We have one in the basement from when he had his operation to neuter back in October last year. The collar then was used to stop him licking his wounds. We figure this will prevent him licking it. He lets us put the collar on but he doesn’t like the inconvenience of it. He bangs into things. He can’t get into his usual resting places. He doesn’t settle.

During the evening he is restless. When we go to bed we put the gate up between the kitchen and the utility room as it is hot and would be too hot for sleeping in the utility room with the door closed. I put Bo’s cushion in front fo the back door, a place he is happy to rest normally.

He doesn’t settle and cries on and off throughout the night. I wake a few times and take him outside but he doesn’t need to relieve himself so that is not why he is restless.

About 4am I get up and take him into the lounge with me and I rest in a comfy lazy-boy type chair. Bo decides to come and rest on my lap. We sleep fitfully for an hour or so and then I get up.

I take Bo to the vets for 8am when they open. As it happens I have an appointment for Bo for 6pm the same evening. However the assistant looks at Bo when she arrives and we decide that Bo needs stitches, that the tear is mendable and that they will somehow fit him into the morning schedule.

At nine thirty am we get a phone call to say that Bo is on the operating table right now, being stitched, and that he had to be put under full anaesthetic to work on him. While he is out they check for heartworm.

Four pm we collect Bo and see how his stitching job. We see how to change his wadding and he is bandaged to prevent him licking his wounds. We are pleased he doesn’t have to wear his collar!

Bo is pleased to be home and the other animals especially Jaxx who has been searching for Bo all day, are pleased to see him too.

Bo has a good night’s sleep . He has to be kept quiet for a few days so he is on leashed walks roudn the farm for a while.

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I am pleased to report that after over a week of restraining Bo, he is back to normal and able to run and play off leash! It was no fun having to watch him to make sure he didn’t overdo it or run out of the door when it was opened. When he had the white cone of a collar on he became noisy in his movements, bumping into furniture as he settled himself in his favourite area under the kitchen counter, or into doorways etc as he moved from place to place. He couldn’t get into his cage as his cone was too big.

Life became easier in some ways once the cone was removed, but more difficult in others. Bo reverted to behaviour that he had as a puppy, and crept upstairs to relieve himself on the landing. No matter how much I watched him he still had a few “accidents” up there, and even though I cleaned thoroughly and sprayed with disinfectant, he did it again.

 Yesterday was his first day of running and playing in the field without any restraint. It was a day earlier than I was supposed to let him run loose, but he had been confined in the utility room all morning since I went down to Spokane to help a friend out who needed to return a rental truck (his car had been damaged very severely by a deer and needed to rent transport). Bo was energetic and ‘high’ by the time we returned! So I let him out. Bo thoroughly enjoyed being free!!! He ran and played and chased the ball! I am happy to report that since then he has had no more “accidents” in the house! I am wondering if it was his way of rebelling and objecting to all that had happened to him.

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Bosun has had his operation for neutering. While there he was found to have a hernia, (he would have had it since birth) so that has been treated too. Also it was decided to remove his dew claws to prevent them being ripped and causing damage to him in the future, especially since he is such an active dog.

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Bosun has been busy with a visit to the kennels in Ladner for two weeks and now an operation for neutering, dew claw removal and hernia. Poor love, he wonders what has happened to him since returning to Grand Forks . Visit his pages to read in detail about him.

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We went down to the river the other day and Bo went in the water and swam. The next day we did the same, but this time i had him on a long 20 ft leash and had my camera ready! The little video is now on his  Bosun - Sept web page.

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Bo is growing quickly and he is getting strong. He has already broken several leads and yesterday he broke his collar. He had been leashed after going to annoy the neighbours! However he was roaming round the yard and we wondered why until we saw the leash and collar lying on the ground, still attached to the long rope. He had snapped his collar right where the buckle is. The only other collar that we had available for him in the house is the one that Otis used to wear. Bo can wear that until we get him a new STRONG one (and more leashes!!) today (hopefully!).

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We have just got back from a visit to Lillooet which is over a  six hour drive away from Grand Forks. (It took us over 8 hours with several stops included.) We took Bosun and Jaxx with us, our two dogs. Jaxx is used to going away and knows what to expect. It is still new to our 25 week old.

Bo was excellent in the car. He didn’t really want to get in and went to sit by the back door as we were about to start our journey at 7am on Tuesday morning. Once he was in the car he settled quickly. We went in the Volkswagen Golf as it is very economical having a diesel engine. We put the back seat down and they were in the bit just behind our seats, with our little bit of luggage at the very tail end of the car.

We stopped several times on the way and let the boys stretch their legs. While we went in for breakfast at A&W on the outskirts of Kelowna they waited patiently. It was cool so they coped well. Later we stopped to see Kamloops lake and later again at Marble Canyon where they went in the water for a while.

When we booked in at about 4pm at the motel at Lillooet we were able to take them for a much needed walk.

We visited friends that evening so the dogs had to be housed in the car again. Poor loves! They coped well and were extremely well behaved, the only mishap being that they tipped their bowl of water over in the back of the car.

At midnight after another walk with them, we settled down for sleep.  WE settled down for sleep. The puppy did NOT!! He was restless and would sleep for a while then come and disturb us by jumping on us or nuzzling our faces!!! Or else he would start chewing on the furniture rather than my shoe or a bone! In the end we leashed him so he could not roam all over the room and for the first half of the night I had him attached to me and for the latter half of the night it was my husband’s turn! That worked well as he could get into less mischief!!!

 Next time we go away we will definitely pack Bo’s cage so he has a base to settle in that he knows is his!!!

He was delighted to return to the farm on Wednesday evening and thoroughly enjoyed being able to run around off leash. I am pleased to report my husband and I both slept better with Bo back in his sleeping quarters downstairs!

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