My First Pheasant HUNT

Opening Day finally came, and we all got up extra early, even though we could not start hunting until 9 am. We wanted to make sure we were ready though. At 9 o'clock Mommy, Daddy, Abby, and me went hunting. I was so excited, but I think Mommy was even more excited than I was!

We started out in the buckwheat field, then headed towards the swamp, and up through the woods. Me and Abby found lots of birds, but guess what? Every time we flushed one, Daddy and Mommy MISSED with their guns. Me and Abby heard the shots and we knew a bird was supposed to fall down on the ground, but they never did. Instead, they just flew away! All morning we flushed those birds, but Mommy and Daddy never hit a single one. My first day of real bird hunting ended with no birds.

We kept trying though, every morning and sometimes again in the afternoon we would go out and look for birds. Sometimes, instead of flushing, those birds would run away into the corn. Then nobody could shoot them cause they hid where we couldn't see them. But me and Abby flushed most of them and we kept hoping that one would fall down so we could go and get it.

After about a week we wondered if we would ever get to have any birds. Then, one morning, Daddy looked out the window and saw a whole bunch of pheasants standing next to the driveway, pecking gravel. He showed Mommy, and then we all grabbed our gear and ran out to see if we could shoot one of them. By the time we got there, the birds had moved into the field next to the driveway. Mommy told me to "find the birds" and boy, did I ever! I ran right out in that field and found where those birds had gone. Then I flushed one. Daddy shot his gun and one of those birds came falling right down to the ground! But I was so excited that I kept chasing those other birds and I flushed some more of them. Daddy shot again and hit another bird! Down it came and I ran right over to where it landed on the ground. It wasn't even dead yet, but I picked it up and started running around with it. Mommy and Daddy wanted it but I wanted to keep it. I shook that bird so hard while I was running around with it. Finally, Mommy came and got it and told me to "Go Find" the other bird. So I ran back to where I was standing when Daddy shot it, and I sniffed around until I could smell it, then I ran to where it was laying on the ground. I grabbed it and ran away AGAIN! It sure is hard to just give up after I worked so hard to get those birds! But after chasing me for just a little while I let Mommy have that bird, too.

Here is a picture of me and Daddy with my birds. It was hard for Mommy to even take the picture because I was still trying to "get those birds". I did not want Daddy to have them!

Mommy was sooooo proud of me for finally being a real hunting dog! And I was so proud of Daddy for being such a good shot!

My First Pheasant Bird

After I found those two pheasant hens in the buckwheat field, Mommy and Daddy said no more hunting till Opening Day. They did not want us dogs scaring all the pheasants away. But a couple of days before the Opener, Mommy changed her mind and decided to take me out one last time, just to reinforce what I had learned about pheasants.

We started in the buckwheat field, where we almost always find birds. Not that day- the field was empty. We crossed the fence, heading towards the swamp, and all of a sudden I got really excited! It was like I could smell where the birds had been, but I didn't find any! I kept looking though, and I finally went right into a great big raspberry bramble and found a pheasant hiding in the middle of it. For some reason, that pheasant just ran along the ground but did not try to fly away like they usually do. I couldn't figure out why, so I just kept following it. 'Round and 'round we went till finally the bird ran out of the bramble into the grass. I chased it some more, until I finally caught that old bird! I never expected that to happen!

Meanwhile, Mommy could tell that I was on the trail of a bird, but she could not see what was going on from the other side of the bramble. Right around the time that I caught my bird, Mommy came around the side of the bramble and saw the bird in my mouth. She was so surprised! She told me to bring the bird to her, but I was so excited that I wanted to keep that bird. I ran a little ways away, then put the bird down on the ground. As soon as I let it go, it tried to run away and I had to catch it again. While I was chasing the bird, Mommy was chasing me! She really wanted that bird! After I had let it go and caught it a few more times, I finally let Mommy come and take it away from me, but you can see in this picture that I wasn't very happy about giving it up.


Mommy wanted to let the bird go but when she looked at it she could see that it was hurt- not by ME! Something else had already hurt it and that is why it did not fly away when I tried to flush it. Mommy thinks a hawk or an eagle tried to catch it because it had scars on it's back where some wounds had started to heal but were not back to normal. But then, while Mommy was carrying the bird, it died! Mommy decided that we should get rid of the "evidence", so she and Daddy ate that bird for dinner. Mommy said it was an illicit meal, but that they enjoyed it anyway, especially since it was my FIRST pheasant!

Mommy Learns A Lesson

When we got home from Pencilvania it was almost Hunting Season in Minnesota and Mommy was worried that we were not ready. She really wanted me to learn what a pheasant bird smells like before Opening Day, so back we went to our friend Steve's to look for one. This is what Mommy wrote on rr-folk about that day:

After all the unpacking was done and I was back on my feet I realized that bird season opens here in less than two weeks and pup is not at all ready- he's never even seen a pheasant! We took him to a nearby game club on Monday afternoon to do some scratch hunting (which means that we go out in the field after the club's clients have finished their hunt, with planted birds, and we look for any birds which they might have missed). We were directed to a field which had last been hunted an hour before we got there and were told that the clients had left 3 birds behind. We started at one end of the field, working our way first down one side, then back up the other side. Pup never gave any indication that there were any birds anywhere near us. He did find 2 piles of feathers which the earlier group of hunters had left on the ground, but no live birds. Since the field is bordered on four sides by woods we decided to walk through the woods to see if any of the birds had gone into them seeking cover. Still no birds. We finally walked over to the flight pen, knowing that loose birds often make their way back to the pen, but no birds there, either. Now, my husband loves pup as much as I do, but until he and I met he was a Retriever man all the way and I don't know if he fully realizes the potential of the "brown dogs". He has helped me with Pup's training since the beginning, but I spend a lot more time with Pup than Craig does and I feel as if I know the dog better and can read him better than Craig can. When we first started tracking with pup, whenever Craig expressed any doubts while on a track, I always told him to "trust the dog. He knows what he's doing". Invariably, Pup proved me right. But now we were both perplexed as to why we weren't finding any birds. Craig finally decided it was time to give up, but I was reluctant to do so. Pup had been asked to track so many different things over the past few weeks without getting the reward of downed quarry, and I really wanted him to have at least one chance to see a downed bird before the season opens. I have seen him work more than Craig has and I have a lot of faith in the dog. Still, as Craig repeated his opinion that pup just wasn't finding the birds, doubt began to creep in. I thought about all the people-tracking, pig chasing, and dog showing we had done over the last few weeks and wondered if I had just ruined the dog for bird hunting. I watched him as we walked back through the field and realized that he wasn't hunting at all- he was simply out for a nice walk in the country. Maybe he had forgotten what a bird smells like! Maybe he would never hunt again! After all the work I had done with him I was nearly despondent at the thought.


By the time we left the field I was pretty worried. We decided that I would walk pup along the dirt road up to the clubhouse and that Craig would get the van and meet us there. I wanted to see if pup could find any stray birds along the way. We had no sooner started walking when Craig hollered out that he had just seen a rooster walking on the mowed path in front of him. The rooster had taken off flying and was heading into the woods. I ran over to the end of the path with pup and started walking towards the spot where the rooster had been. I never even had a chance to give the "find bird" command before pup picked up the scent, all on his own! He ran off, tracking the bird well into the woods before finally losing the scent. We let him work the area for a good while, just in case the bird had landed close by, but he never found it. But what a difference from what he had been doing out in the field. He was HUNTING! Woo Hoo!!!!! With my faith somewhat restored, we headed for home.When we got close to our place, I asked Craig to stop and let pup and me out of the van near one of our fields. I wanted to walk through the field on the way back to the house to see if pup could find any birds there. The field I wanted to walk is planted in buckwheat and is a favorite feeding spot of the pheasants. We made our way through the swamp to the edge of the field- no birds. But as soon as we got over the fence to the edge of the buckwheat, pup's nose jerked up, his head whipped around, and I knew he had caught some scent! Down went the nose, pup tracked for a few feet, and before I realized what he was doing he had taken five big leaps into the buckwheat and flushed two hens! Woo Hooooooo!!! I KNEW he could do it. In retrospect, I realized that when we started in the first field at the club, Pup already knew that there were no birds there. If we had had Craig's Lab along, she would have worked herself into a frenzy looking anyway. But Pup, being a RR, obviously didn't see the point in running around what he already knew was an empty field. This is my kind of dog- the Lazy Hunter's Companion, lol. Because I am just like him- I don't see the point in running around getting all worked up over nothing, lol. But, put a bird in front of us, and we're all over it, lol.

Lesson re-learned-

Always Trust Your Dog!

Once Mommy knew that I had not lost my nose she was so much happier!

Catching Baby Pigs, and, Going To The Specialty

After Daddy shot the sow, we still had to get all those baby pigs out of the field. There were so many of them that they were eating a whole lot of the farmer's corn. We spent lots and lots of time tracking those little pigs, but they were so darn fast we could never catch them. Daddy finally managed to catch two of them one day when he snuck up on them while they were sleeping in the sun. Another day he caught another one. Here is a picture of me and Daddy with one of the little piglets. We put all three of those piglets in our barn and we are going to keep them and raise them so that when our freezer is empty again we will have more pigs to give us more pork.

By the time we got done chasing those little pigs all over the place, it was time for me and Mommy to head off on another Big Adventure. This time, we were going all the way to Gettysburg, Pencilvania for the Rhodesian Ridgeback National Specialty dog show. First, we drove back down to Illinois where my Grandma Joan, Grandpa Frank, and Michael were having a puppy party for me and all of my littermates. I hadn't seen any of then for such a long time- over 5 months! I was also happy to see my canine mommy again, but I was such a big puppy by then that I didn't miss her anymore like when I was little. My friends Barbara Sawyer-Brown and Art Brown came to the party too, and Art put a skinny little collar on me and we practiced walking around like we were at a dog show. Art was going to be my handler at the Specialty so it was good that we had a chance to practice before we got to Pencilvania. My sister Dixie was going to the show, too, and so was her new adopted brother, Dusty. We were so tired after the puppy party that we slept hard all night long.

The next morning we got up early, loaded Grandma Joan's van, and headed off to Pencilvania. It was so far away that it took us all day to get there- we didn't arrive at our hotel until 9 o'clock at night.

The next morning Mommy took me over to the conformation ring so that Art and I could dog show in the Puppy Sweepstakes. I was a little nervous 'cause I had only been to one dog show before this and there were hardly any Rhodesian Ridgebacks there. At the Specialty, ALL of the dogs were RR's, and there were so MANY of them! I tried to count them all but I kept losing track and finally gave up. Mommy was even more nervous than I was, so it was a good thing that Art and I were showing together, instead of me and Mommy.

There were so many puppies in my class that the judge had to split us into two groups. Then he chose the ones he liked best, and excused all of the others. Art and I made the "cut", and Mommy was so excited because Barbara had told her that nobody goes to the Specialty to win and she had no expectations that we would. She was very surprised and very happy. After the judge looked us all over again he chose the four that he liked best. He picked one, two, and then he pointed at ME! THIRD PLACE. woohoo! That meant we got a ribbon, a fancy new leash, and Mommy got a piece of paper with some numbers on it. I liked my leash a lot better. Then we got to have our picture taken with the judge. I was a little scared to get on the big box, but then they started throwing squeaky toys and I forgot to be scared. Mommy says my picture turned out beautiful!

Mommy says that I should mention that the judge was a very nice man and was very kind and gentle with the puppies. Mommy says that was very important because she did not want me to get afraid of judges at my first big show. Mr. William Kent was the Sweepstakes judge and I liked him a lot, too.

After Art and I did our dog showing, he and Dixie showed in the Girl Puppy Sweepstakes. Mommy and I thought that Dixie looked fantastic, but the judge did not give her a ribbon. That made us sad, because Michael, Dixie's Daddy, wasn't there and we all wanted to surprise him with TWO puppy wins.

But then a funny thing happened. The next day Art and I dog showed in the 6-9 month Puppy Dog class and we DIDN'T win. Not a ribbon, not a leash, not even a piece of paper with numbers on it. Nothing at all. But Mommy said she was still very proud of me and thought I had done a great job dog showing with Art, and she was still so happy about our ribbon from the first day that she didn't seem sad at all. The best part was, when Dixie dog showed in the 6-9 month Girl Puppy class, SHE won a ribbon. For FOURTH PLACE! I think that was even better than my third place in Sweepstakes but Mommy was still very happy about that. When our dog showing was all done, both me and Dixie had a ribbon to take home. Dusty was still too little to enter the dog show, but he was watching and learning for when he gets bigger like me and Dixie. We all had a great time in Gettysburg, made lots of new friends, met so many nice people, and I had lots of fun playing with Dixie, Dusty, Mommy, and Grandma Joan. All in all, it was another Great Adventure!

How I Became A Hog Hunter

One day when Daddy was out working on the shooting range he came into the house and told Mommy that he thought he had just seen a herd of wild hogs running along the fence on the North end of the range. Mommy said "But Honey (that's what she calls him sometimes), we don't have any wild hogs in Minnesota". Daddy said "I know, that's why it was so weird". But he was sure he had seen SOMETHING, so he and Mommy went back to the range to see if they could see the hogs, or whatever it had been. There was no sign of them, so they decided to go over to the other side of the creek to see if they could find anything over there. When they got there they were amazed to find that over two acres of corn had been destroyed, by SOMETHING. They walked and walked and finally they heard SOMETHING. They stood very still, and finally, they saw a WILD HOG. Not just one, either. They counted one big old sow and TEN little baby pigs!

After they saw the hogs, Daddy and Mommy figured out that the sow was someone's domestic hog which had gotten out of her pen and run away from home, probably when she was about to have her babies. She had taken up residence in our corn field and eaten and eaten and eaten, until she ate up over two acres of corn. Daddy and Mommy realized that they had to get the sow out of the field before she damaged any more corn, especially since that field was leased to another farmer and it was HIS corn she was eating. They tried and tried to catch her, with no luck. She was too wild and kept running away. Finally Daddy decided to shoot her. Mommy said that she never intended for me to hunt hogs, 'cause she doesn't want me to get hurt, but she said it was okay for me to try to TRACK the sow. Since the cornfield was sooooooo big, over 30 acres, it was really hard for Daddy to find that sow in all the corn. Mommy put my green tracking harness on me one day and we all went out to the field together. Daddy took me to where he had last seen the sow and told me to "FIND THE PIG". Well, back then I was just a little puppy and I didn't even know what a PIG was. But I could sure smell something stinky, so I put my nose down and started tracking, just like when we played the tracking game. I tracked and tracked and tracked, and I finally found that old sow and her babies, right smack in the corn. Mommy took me away then because she did not want me to stand next to Daddy when he shot the gun. He was using his 45/70 and it was the biggest, loudest gun I had ever been around. Mommy and me went back to the house to wait. After awhile, Daddy came back and said he had shot the sow but she had run off into the corn. Mommy decided to let me track her again, so we went back to the field. Daddy showed us where she had been standing when he shot her, and he found a little drop of blood on the ground. He pointed to it and told me to "go find". Well, I had never smelled blood like that before, but I could follow the blood trail just like any other trail we had been practicing, so I took off after her. Mommy had my long check cord attached to my harness so that she could stay close to me, just in case.

Pretty soon, I got to where that old sow was hiding in the corn. Daddy caught up to us and Mommy pulled me back again, away from the noise of the gun while Daddy shot it. He made a good shot and that sow fell right down on the ground. Then Daddy took my picture next to the hog with Mommy, even though she wasn't the one who shot it. That afternoon Mommy and Daddy took the sow to the meat processor, and a couple of weeks later, we had a freezer full of pork! Mommy was SO proud of me for tracking that hog, and she just kept telling me what a GOOD PUPPY I was.

The Accidental Tracking Dog

While we were learning to find birds, Mommy noticed something really neat. When it was Daddy's turn to take the bird out to the field and hide it, Mommy would stay in the house with me until she was sure Daddy had had enough time to get the bird into position, then we would go outside and head for the field so I could start hunting for it. But one day, Mommy noticed that I was tracking way before we even got out of the yard. She told Daddy later that she thought I was tracking HIM. Guess what? She was RIGHT! I could tell where he went just by smelling his scent all the way from the yard to the field, and nobody even taught me how! Mommy thought that was VERY smart of me, so she bought me a nice green tracking harness and we started playing tracking games. One time, Daddy would go hide and I would find him. The next time, Mommy would hide and I would find HER. Pretty soon, Mommy was going out to the deer stand in the big meadow a half a mile away from the house, and I tracked her all the way there! I showed Daddy exactly where she was hiding, no problem! I am sure that I could track someone much farther than a half mile, if only they would let me. Mommy says that I am going to take a tracking test some day, just like a grown up tracking dog.

Bird Dog Training

Once I had my basic training down, Mommy and Daddy decided that I was ready for an introduction to birds, 'cause besides being a show dog, Mommy really wanted me to be her bird hunting partner. Mommy says that she likes Rhodesian Ridgebacks the best because we always want to either chase lions (or birds, or whatever) or sleep on the couch! No in-between for us! That's kind of funny though, 'cause she never lets us on the couch, hmmm. Anyway, we had been playing games with pheasant wings- chasing, retrieving, and following a drag trail and I did all of those things easily, so next up was to meet live birds.

Mommy and Daddy took me to a neighbor's hunt club where they had lots and lots of birds. I also met another new human friend there named Steve. We went out to a field with a couple of pigeons and Steve put one of them down in the grass. The pigeon had one clipped wing so it could not fly very well, but I know I could have gotten it even without the clipped wing! When I first smelled it I wasn't sure what to do. We have chickens at home, and they are like birds, but I was never supposed to mess around with them. The pigeon kind of smelled like a chicken, but not really, so it was kind of confusing. But then, Mommy and Daddy started telling me to "find the bird", and "get it", so I did! I ran right out there in the grass and found that pigeon! Then I wasn't sure what to do next, but Mommy and Daddy kept telling me to "get it", and finally I just grabbed that old bird right in my mouth. That made Mommy and Daddy really happy so next I started swinging it around. When I stopped and put it back on the ground it wanted to run away, so I grabbed it again! It was like a really fun game, and everyone was so happy.

When I was done Steve took the bird away from me and everyone was happy that it wasn't even hurt. They all said that I had a really nice, soft mouth, which I guess is good for a bird dog. Steve gave Mommy the pigeon to take home so that we could practice "finding the bird" some more. We used that bird for several more days, then we went back to Steve's and played the same game with a different bird. This one was called a quail. It smelled kind of like a bird, too, but different from the chickens and pigeon. We played with that quail for two whole weeks and Mommy was so happy that I did not even hurt it. But one day, while we were playing, my sister Abby smelled that bird and she came running to get it from me. I had to run all over the field to keep it away from her, and I didn't even respond when Mommy told me to "come here RIGHT NOW, you Kwetu's Tchaka Olmurani Lolowuara!!!!!!" I didn't mean to be bad, but I didn't want Abby to take my bird away, and I didn't know what else to do. Finally, I let Mommy come and take my quail. She was very sad because it turns out that I had accidently hurt it while I was running around the field. Mommy tried to fix it, but it died. I was afraid that meant that I would not have my nice, soft mouth anymore, but luckily, that was not the case and I was able to keep getting birds after that without hurting them.

I got to keep playing bird games with Mommy and Daddy all summer long. Mommy said that "hunting season" started in October, and then we could hunt for real. Another part of my training had to do with loud noises. I was supposed to be very brave around loud noises so that I would not get scared when Mommy and Daddy used their guns to shoot my birds. Daddy took his small gun out to the shooting range while Mommy and I stayed in the yard playing with a bird. Daddy was so far away that when he started shooting I didn't even notice! So then we moved out of the yard into the hay field- no big deal! We played this new game for several days until, finally, Daddy took his bird-shooting gun out and Mommy and I moved out of the hay field down towards the shooting range. I was so busy "finding the bird" and taking treats from Mommy that before I knew it, Daddy was practically standing right next to me while he fired the gun. I couldn't have cared less! Mommy was so happy because my brother Argos has thunderstorm phobia and is scared of thunderstorms and all other loud noises. He tried to go hunting with Daddy and one of Daddy's friends once, but he was so scared of the gun that he had to go back to the house. Now he doesn't like hunting season at all. Unfortunately, he also has seperation anxiety and he hates staying alone in the house while the rest of us go hunting. Poor Argos. His first Mommy and Daddy did not teach him to be smart and brave, like me. I wish he could hunt with us- it is so much FUN!

My First Big Trip and I Start Obedience Training

Mommy says that I was a very easy puppy. I was very smart and I was completely housebroken before I was even 13 weeks old. I hardly chewed anything at all except a few of my toys and my puppy bed. Just the inside part which was made of foam rubber. I don't know why, but I REALLY like chewing on foam rubber. Because I was so good I got to go on a trip with Mommy when I was only 15 weeks old. This trip was even longer than my trip from Illinois to Minnesota. This time, we drove all the way from Minnesota to Florida! It took 3 whole days, with lots of stops for me! One night we stayed at my old house in Illinois with Grandma Joan and Grandpa Frank. My friends Art Brown and Barbara Sawyer-Brown came to visit me, too. We were having a great time, then I had to stay in my crate while the grown-ups went out to eat supper.

When we finally got to Florida we stayed in Mommy's house. It is a nice house out in the country, but not as far out in the country as our farm in Minnesota. I never had any accidents while we were there! I got to sleep in a bed with Mommy, even though she was afraid I might get spoiled, lol. I stayed in my crate all by myself when Mommy had to go take care of business, and I never cried or had any seperation anxiety.

I also learned how to swim while we were in Florida. We went to the Alafia River, which is near Mommy's house, and I was able to walk right down into the water. It wasn't scary at all. Mommy threw sticks for me and I went right in after them. It was fun.

After we got home from Florida I started Obedience Class. I had already had some informal puppy classes with my vet and some of her foster dogs so I was ready. I did okay in Obedience except that I was not supposed to learn to sit. Mommy says don't tell anyone that sitting was practically the very FIRST thing I learned to do, way back when I was a tiny little puppy. But we did not do the sitting on lead in class because I was going to grow up to be a show dog and show dogs aren't supposed to sit in the conformation ring. The instructor let me slide on that exercise and I passed the class with flying colors! I even got a nice certificate with my name on it and everything.

Besides learning how to sit I also learned "down"; "wait"; "sit pretty"; "find it"; "crawl"; and "shake". I can even shake right or left-handed. I wasn't so good on the "down", though. Even though I knew what it meant and would do it for a treat, for some reason I did not like to do it without treats. Okay, I'll tell you a secret- I never even did a real "down", without treats, until I was 13 months old. Mommy thinks that is awful! But hey- now I can do it all the time if I want to.

Shiloh And Other New Pals

Here is a picture of me with one of our foster kittens. It was taken when I was 9 months old and Tigger was 14 weeks old.

I don't have many pictures for this installment of my blog because Mommy lost them all when her computer crashed. Daddy says he is going to try to retrieve them next winter when he has more time. I don't know why he has to wait till then- that's a LOOONG time away! Retrieving is EASY- I do it all the time. If I just knew what pictures smelled like I could rip that old hard drive apart with my teeth and GET those pictures! Oh well, till winter, I'll just have to get by with writing.

I wanted to tell you all about my first night in my new home, and about my first new pal. I had never been away from my canine mommy and my littermates until I went to Minnesota. A lot of little puppies would have been really upset by all of the changes, but Mommy says I took them all in stride. When we got home it was supper time, so that made me feel better. Then Mommy put me into an ex-pen with the strangest little dog. His name is Shiloh and he is an all-black Cockapoo. Shiloh was exactly twice my age- I was 8 weeks old and he was 16 weeks old, but we were almost the exact same size! We hit it off right away and played and played and played until it was time for bed. Mommy had a stroke of genius and decided that she would put me in Shiloh's crate to sleep with him. That made me really happy, and I think it made Shiloh happy, too. I know it made Mommy and Daddy happy 'cause they never heard a peep out of me or Shiloh all night long. I got to keep playing with my new pal and sharing a crate with him for 2 whole weeks. But then, Shiloh got adopted and went to his forever home to be with his new family. It turns out that we were fostering him so he wasn't even my real new brother. I missed him a lot, but was so happy that he found such a great new family.

After Shiloh left, my next new friend was RR Argos. Argos had also been a foster dog but it turned out that he loved living on our farm so much that Mommy and Daddy decided to adopt him. Argos and I get along great- we play Ridgeback rough all the time. For awhile after Shiloh left I slept alone in my own crate in the bedroom, but now I sleep in the ex-pen with Argos. Sometimes I get to sleep in the big bed with Mommy and Daddy, but they say that I fidget too much and nobody gets a good nights' sleep. I sleep GREAT-don't know what their problem is.

Besides Argos, there are two other dogs in our family. Abby is a Black Labrador Retriever. She hunts pheasants with Daddy. She has a great nose and lots of drive and wants to hunt birds all the time. She isn't very interested in me. Tsavo is another RR who used to be a foster dog before he came here. He doesn't like me very much at all! He used to bark at me all the time but he doesn't do that so much now that I am bigger. Mommy says that Tsavo is grumpy 'cause he doesn't feel good- he has lots of allergies and has to take medicine every day. I hope he feels better some day so he can play with me and Argos.

I never knew about cats before I came here, but we have LOTS and LOTS of them. Casey, Digit, and Andy live with us, but we also have foster cats and kittens sometimes till they get adopted. I like cats but Mommy thinks I sometimes play too rough with them, especially Andy. I like to grab him by his head and carry him around but Mommy is afraid I will hurt him.

Introduction

Hi Everyone, and Welcome to my Rhodesian Ridgeback Blog! My name is Tchaka. At least, that's what I'm called. Except when Mommy is really mad at me, then she uses my full name, which is Kwetu's Tchaka Olmurani Lolowuaru. That's a real mouthful- luckily Mommy hardly ever gets mad enough at me to use it! So, mostly I am called Tchaka. That is what Mommy and Daddy named me when they brought me home from Illinois when I was 8 weeks old. The Olmurani Lolowuaru part came much later, and I will write about it in another post. This picture of me was taken when I was just 6 weeks old and still living with my canine Mommy and all of my brothers and sisters. My canine Mommy is Ch. Kwetu's Glamorus Flame. She lives with her human dad, Michael Morrone, in St. Louis. My littermate, Dixie, also lives with Michael. I was born at Michael's parents' home in Palatine, Illinois. It is a nice place and I have been back to visit my human Grandma Joan and Grandpa Frank several times.

I was born on February 6, 2009 and I went to my new home on April 3, 2009. It was my first really long trip by car- almost 10 hours if you count all the times my human Mom stopped so I could potty. I was too little to write a blog then, but now that I am bigger I am going to create a whole lot of posts so that all of my new friends can learn all about me, my entire family, and our life here on the farm.

My new home is just outside Bertha, Minnesota on a 240 acre farm, which means lots and lots of room for my new siblings and me to run around. We have a lot of fun here. Our human Mom is Elizabeth, and our human Dad is Craig. They are both retired, except for a little bit of farming, so we all get to be at home together all day long, almost every day. We do chores together and we go for long walks around the farm. We have fields and swamps and pastures and acres and acres of crops, and we even have a creek. This is a good place for dogs AND humans! My paws are getting tired so I'll stop here for now. Please check back as I will be adding to my blog as fast as I can type.