Rory the Crazy Hound

Remember last year when we brought home our tiny little puppy.  Well our little cute puppy is now a giant, annoying, overly affectionate, licky (like constantly!), slobbery, hound who is really very sweet and loving! He even licked the vet whilst she gave him his shots ... much to her amusement and our embarrassment.

 

Taken in 2013 when he was still little and cute ...

Feb: Sitting with my little Mistress ...

he has lots of big fluffy bits which is the collie coming out in him.

March 2015 - Having a snooze on daddy's lap

 

Seriously Rory are you comfortable yet?

 

April; Oooh Grannies come to visit she'll give me love rubs.

May; Asleep with his little Mistress.

Am so glad animals aren't allowed on the furniture in our house ...

seriously does anyone listen to me!

 

June; Such a dopey looking thing at times!  Check out the grey whiskers from his Collie dad.

July; Yes I think I'll sleep right here, on top of poor suffering Scruffie!!!

 

August; He loves playing soccer, either with us or by himself.

 

October;  he often sleeps with his baby or even a ball in his mouth.

 

December; Aren't I so sweet and innocent?

So there you have it ... the crazy beast who is one of the family. On the down side he has issues with being left alone so we have to pop him in a big cage (trailer size) when we go out or we come home to this ...
 

             

 

Meet our latest addition, Miss Melody

When Agent Smelly got Rory (our totally mad dog!) as her very own pet, The Fashionista was pretty upset as she also wanted a pet too.

Her papa and I discussed it and said that as long as it wasn't another dog then we'd consider it. After much tossing ideas around and lots of investigation she settled on wanting an English Angora Rabbit.

Bad camera photo!

So as part of her birthday gift she received a beautiful lilac/blue (?) baby girl whom she name Melody but gets Melli most of the time. Melli arrived about a week before her birthday as we had to her transported from another district. And even though she is going to kill me for letting you all know this, there were tears when she opened her eyes and saw her on her lap for the first time. It was so cute!

This little monster spends her days outside in a big run and cage and her nights bouncing around her mistresses bedroom before being placed in her new big cage to spend the night. Her breed is very, very, very fluffy and she is groomed every morning or she will matt. One her adult hair comes in around 8-9 months we can start using it to spin for wool. How awesome will that be!

These rabbits are quite amazing and so very tame. She follows us around the house (when Rory is outside as he in love with her!) and even hops over to lay down beside Scruffie. She has recently learnt how to hop onto her mistresses bed for a snuggle in the mornings.

Why do all our animals seem to think they are human?

New Addition to the Family

 

Meet Rory ... he's a seven week old, German Shephard (mum) and Border Collie (dad) cross. The vet very kindly pointed out to me that we are going to have a very intelligent and active dog on our hands ... gee thanks!

He is Agent Smelly's baby and of course we got him purely for homeschooling purposes. And whilst I joke about that in fact she has to work out his feeding times, measure how much he eats and of course there's a lot of home economics involved, puddles everywhere! She is also expected to note down his shots, etc. and later they will be going to Puppy Training, which we think is going to be a great training excercise for her ... not sure about the mad mutt! The Fashionista, anxious to be involed, has started using Excel in order to keep a running tally of all his expenses. Every shot, lead, toy (I am tripping over them and him!) is recorded diligantly by her. Probably so she can point out to us that her sister has been given this much money for Rory (although Agent Smelly has spent a fair bit of her own money on his toys), so now it's her turn for a puppy ... lol

G is for ... "Goats or Guilt?"

Some of you may remember that our girls adopted a couple of day old Saanen goats and hand-reared them. Milly our gentle doe and Molly our funny, bit of a dork of a buck.

Unfortunately our boy Molly became a bit of a handful. We had never had him "fixed" as we thought we'd use him to get Milly in kid but his testosterone was really kicking in and with those big horns of his I was concerned one of the girls was going to get hurt with them having to handle him every morning and evening to and from the goats hut. We were also struggling to find feed for him as he ate like a horse and found our lives revolving around the schedule of these two goats. We'd rush home from places so we could feed them in time or put them away if it rained and so on. We decided that the kindest thing for Molly would be to find him a new home with a few ladies for him to service. Agent Smelly didn't mind as he had gotten a bit rough with her a couple of times whilst they were playing and I think she realised he was getting a bit much for her. Frankly a buck is not really pet material but we never intended to get a buck some of you may recall, but our "she" turned out to be a "he" and a real character to boot.

We could have sold the fella (he's just a huge, majestic looking fella) but we really wanted a kind and loving family where we knew he would be well-cared for so I advertised him amongst the local homeschooling community as being for free as long as he went to the right home. We managed to find a home, not too far away from here, where he would live amongst three other does. Buck heaven people!

We then discussed the idea with The Fashionista of Milly going with him to his new home, as they were happy to take her too as they are going to milk their little herd of goats. TF was very emotional and initially not at all keen on parting with Milly as she absolutely adores that goat, we are talking love with a capital L! Sadly though Milly cannot be left on her own. Even if Molly was moved away from her for a short time, she would bleat and bleat and bleat. She was fine if The Fashionista was nearby her and anytime she heard her little mistresses voice we would hear her start bleating over and over again until TF went out to give her a hug. Milly loved her little mistress just as much as she loved her. She was also prone to escaping to find company. Sadly we had to explain that Milly would be much happier in a little herd and staying with Molly until she herself become a mother, when she would probably be more interested in her kid. We did not force TF but explained the reasons and left the decision to her. She bravely decided that it would be best for Milly too, at times she liked the idea of Milly being in a herd of fellow does, then other times she would worry whether she'd be OK without her to look after her and such. It was a bit of an emotional roller coaster for a couple of weeks til we could take them to their new home.

Anyway we took the goats off to their new home and just as I suspected TF broke down when we unloaded them. Unfortunately Milly wasn't at all happy either and escaped through their fence to get back to TF. I had to send TF to the car so Milly couldn't see or hear her. It was simply heartbreaking. TF in the car sobbing, Milly on the other side of the fence bleating. I was tempted to tell the Papa to load her back in the trailer cage to bring home. Even the family that took her were upset on seeing TF so distraught and the dad kindly came over to the car and promised her they would look after Milly.

That night TF came down to the lounge sobbing her heart out and fell asleep in my arms with tears still wet on her little face. I looked across at the Papa and he was wiping tears from his eyes as well from hearing her little heart break. We had a few days of tears, mostly at night when she was in bed, but thankfully she hasn't cried for a week now.

The Papa and I felt so guilty about Milly, mostly because of TF' heartbreak, although we were we quite fond of the goats, but we know deep down we did the right thing. Molly needed some girls to mate with and Milly hated being by herself and would have had to have lived on the end of a chain, as I am dead certain she would have found a way to escape her paddock to find someone. That is certainly no life for an animal as far as I am concerned. We are also planning on some big moves early next year and we would have had to find new homes for them then anyway, so this way it is better for them to move now whilst they are still relatively young enough to settle into their new home.

As for Molly he didn't give any of us a second look and was trying to mount their does within about 3 seconds ... seriously could have even been 2!  It was actually a little embarrassing his haste, no how do you do, nothing. We all couldn't stop laughing about it on the way home, especially when one of the little boys at the new property asked what he was doing to their goats. To the end of his stay with us, Molly made us laugh.

A Special Posting for a Special Friend

One of my BFF's (I know that's a young kids term, but it's so darn cute), who lives in Melbourne, has a wee crush on my little dog, Scruffie. So as a little surprise I thought I'd finish the year by posting photos of Scruffie's year that was, just for her. So Chess, here you go ...

 

January; "Mama, stop teasing and open my treats jar ... I've been good"

 

 

February; "I bags the beanbag."

 

 

 

March; "Great, yet another photo shoot. Seriously girls enough with the camera already!"

 

 

 

April; "Yes please Fashionista, I always enjoy a cuddle." 

 

May; "Yes, even dogs can have bad hair days you know!"

 

"Oh no, don't give the clippers out. I will brush, I promise.

Maybe if I put my paws over my eyes she wont see me?" 

 

 

 

June; "Hmm, it's nice and warm here."

 

 

 

July; Snoozing on Agent Smelly's empty birthday present box.

 

 

 

August; "What are these little creatures? And why is one of them wearing one

of my coats and butting me? Get out of my house!"

September; "Mama, I think you should spend less time on the laptop and more on me!

Or else I am going to keep laying across it, despite you moving me numerous times,

until you simply give up".

 

 

 

 

 

October; "Just chillin'  - it's so hard doing nothing all day."

 

 

 

November; "Those Guy Fawkes fireworks scared the crap out of me ... so I ran away

 ... to the swamp!!!"

 

 

 

December; "My special tree is back ... now to spend the month sleeping under it!" 

 

 

HAPPY NEW YEAR TO YOU ALL FOR 2013

with love from Scruffie and his family

x x x x x

 

 

Reading with a little help from the Goatlings

As it was such a lovely day here today I sent the girls out onto the deck to have their lunch and do their reading.

Milly, who is now around six weeks old, thought it would be fun to try and nibble on her mistresses hair whilst she lay there reading. 

I am not sure why Agent Smelly had her dresser stool outside but anyway here she is reading her book (I hope) whilst her beloved boy Molly eats around her. She popped a couple of temporary standards in so that she could pop his lead over it so that he could be close to her.


I must say that I have been really and truly impressed with how well the girls have done taking care of their "kids" or goatlings as we joking call them here.  I had wondered if the excitement would wear off but so far it hasn't. They feed them every morning and night, take them out of their house each morning, put them away each evening all without ever complaining or being asked to and they even take them for walks during the day on their leads. Sometimes they'll just go out and have a chat with them and give them a cuddle. 


The funniest thing about our goatlings is that they both have personalities like their owners. The Papa and I often laugh at how much they are like them. Milly is a little more delicate but very noisy especially if her milk is running late and Milly is a right little terror and when off his lead he's straight off to destroy the few plants that we do have, jump on the garden furniture, barrel poor Scruffie and to top it off he's a bit of a piggy just like someone else who shall remain nameless. Who knew goats were so darn cute and personable?

An update on "The Kids"

Well The Pig and the girls went down to give Milly and Molly their bottles this morning and low and behold Molly peed from underneath. The Pig took a closer look and yup Molly is in fact a wee boy.

The farmer that gave the kids to Kaka told her that the boys had an orange stripe down their backs and Molly definitely had no orange down his back. I think the farmer may need glasses, as one of Kaka's little girls has also turned out to be a little boy.

For a moment there Agent Smelly was worried she would have to rename Molly. Then I explained that although rare, some males were called Molly. She was also worried about him having a pink collar so I told all about the great, flamboyant, Molly (Ian) Meldrum, Australian popular music critic, journalist, record producer and musical entrepreneur and she had a good laugh and thought he could keep his pink collar afterall.

Molly is a really friendly wee fella and skips after his mistress like a puppy. I found this on my return from having a shower ... yes he was quite happy and settled watching TV with her on an armchair.

And I found the other pair comfortably sitting on the couch, Milly sound asleep beside her Mistress. Milly is a little bit smaller than Molly and a bit more timid.

The girls are very, very excited at the thought of breeding the pair but The Pig and I aren't sure we really want to go down this road.

Milly and Molly

Meet the girls new pets, Milly and Molly. They are 2 day old Saanan goats. 

The Pig and I are not sure what came over us but, a friend, Kaka, texted me last night to ask if we wanted to adopt a baby goat. I spoke to her today and apparently she had gone to pick to farm to get a goat for each for her kids and the man took her out the back to these day old kids and said basically told her to take her pick as they were just going to knock the rest on the head ... so being the hard-hearted farmer (yeah right!) that she is, of course came home with ALL 11 kids, cause she couldn't bear the thought of them being put down. Don't you just love her! Such a cool thing to do.

Milly's, the smaller of the two, and belongs to The Fashionista's; she's sporting the blue coat with white paw prints and a birght, green collar. Molly's who is Agent Smelly's, is wearing the navy with the light blue collar and star on the back and the bright pink collar. The little coats are actually my dog Scruffie's ...

 

 

 

 

Iain and I discussed it and thought that we might as well take two of them, as at least they'd have company  and it also meant that our girls would have one each. We're not silly, this way there won't be arguing over who gets to do the bottle feeds, etc!

 

 

 

 

Because the little goats are so young and little, they need to be kept out of the cold winter air, so they are in the shipping container for the night where we have made them a bed amongst the hay in there. We went to feed them at 8.00pm ... somehow the girls didn't make their normal bed time.

 

 

 

 

The girls have set their alarm clock for 7am and will be getting me up (I am so not a morning person!) to make "their kids" their warm milk formula, so they can give their babies their morning feed on time.

 

I really have my fingers crossed that all goes well with both of them, as at this age the little darlings are still very susceptible to illness, cold's etc.