Monthly Archive for May, 2009

Jiggy hasn’t been living up to his name as the big killing machine. For 3 days now he hasn’t eaten, but the rest of the pack have.
The pups killed the other day and Puzzles and Jiggy never got to the kill. But when the pups joined them Puzzles made sure they regurgitated for her. She begged from 4 pups and they all fed her well, but there was none for Jiggy.

The next day the dogs were right in the south and when I got to them I saw one dog on the opposite bank of the Chiredzi river. Not able to drive down there I ran down to the river to see where the other dogs were. No sign. Then I saw an adult male impala running along the far bank of the river. It looked tired. It ran around the bend, so I had to run down the river too. It got to a donga/ravine and tried to jump across but fell short, being so tired, and thumped into the side with its chest. It lay there a while, then got up and ran on before disappearing into a thicket. Then I saw the wild dog pup came tearing along the bank. Got to the donga, sniffed around, then carried on. Got to the thicket, turned round and headed back the other way. Then turned again and back to the thicket. Just then the impala ran out and across the river.

It’s very shallow now and mostly sand. The impala was exhausted and had already nearly stopped in the sand when the pup grabbed it. I had to sprint back to the car in the soft river sand. Drove further down and then tried to drive down into the river. The bank was steep. Then I was on 3 wheels. Then teetering on 2 and finally came to a grinding halt on a huge tree stump. I couldn’t go further, so grabbed my camera and ran to the dog and impala. The pup was now full and leaving to call the others. The impala was still standing with its backside having been eaten. I managed to get some footage before it collapsed on the ground. The pup was gone a while so I ran back to the car to try and jack it off the stump. Then I saw the other dogs arriving and had to rush back to the kill. This running in soft river sand is tough going. The dogs were great, even with me running at them they scattered at the last minute but only briefly and were back on the kill. I spent the next couple of hours with them in the river feeding and playing with them all around me. Even Puzzles. Just amazing to have this experience and to be accepted like this. Truly awesome.

When the dogs eventually left I was left to dig myself out. Jacking the car wasn’t getting me off this massive tree stump. In the end I had to chop through this tree, nearly 2ft in diameter, and only then did the car start moving. Many more jacking attempts and digging and eventually about an hour and a half later I was out!

With all this going on Jiggy got to the kill about half an hour late. There were still scraps but he didn’t even bother, as if too proud to eat from their kill.
And today the dogs were just being domestic. Just acting like domestic dogs. Lying around, playing a little and not up to much.

A herd of wildebeest got the pups attention for about 10mins and then all was quiet again, until sunset when the pups heard a white rhino nearby and decided to hassle the bull. It looked like a lot of fun with this huge tank repeatedly charging them but they were too quick. Unfortunately it didn’t offer me any opportunity to film it.