Tag Archives: puppy

Peering into trouble: Video

It’s been an interesting week for the dogs and thankfully they’re all still going strong.
Zip and Kodak both have foot injuries but both recovering just fine.

The day after the lions killed the dogs, the rest of the pack were too nervous to go to the den. So for over 24hrs they didn’t feed the pups. It was only the next morning after a successful hunt that they slowly approached the den and called the pups out.

As was to be expected Puzzles wanted to move the pups to a new den. They often do this when hassled by lions. Several times she called the pups and they would follow her until the yearlings stepped in to feed them. They stopped the whole move. Eventually Puzzles gave up.

The next day Puzzles was on her own at the den and had already moved some of the pups to a new den close by when I got there at dawn. She then tried to move the rest but they wouldn’t jump down a ledge. She picked up the one and carried it off leaving the others milling around me. Eventually they moved back to the den. Puzzles then gave up calling them and carried them one at a time to the den. Now back at the 2nd den.

Puzzles is now out hunting with her yearlings, and nobody is left behind to look after the pups. But the den they’re in is really secure from lions and other predators, so long as the pups don’t go a wandering.
Lions were again at the den the one night and again the pack were nervous all day only getting to feed the pups late in the evening.
Puzzles now seems to have resigned herself to the fact that the pups are in a safe den, so why move them?

Hyaenas also came to within about 50m of the den. The dogs watched, ready to send them packing, but no need. They hyaenas seemed to know they better move off. They had come to check out the dead dogs of which there was hardly anything remaining.
We were also successful in implanting Chevvy with a transmitter. This goes in the stomach cavity and the animal doesn’t even know it’s there. So at least now I can again keep track of the dogs movements.

The dogs are all doing well and the yearlings hunting very successfully. There’s been no change in the status of the pack without Jiggy being there, but no doubt things will change when Puzzles comes into oestrus next year.

Excitement Supreme: Video

It was a lovely warm dawn, but only cos of the complete cloud cover.
It didn’t last long and the warm turned to a miserable cold as a gentle drizzle set in.

The pack were all at the den chilling out with full tummies, obviously having hunted successfully in the evening.

Then pandemonium broke out in their afternoon greeting ceremony. The screams of excitement were intense as the dogs rushed in and out, and in and out of the den. They just wanted contact with the little puppies, but Puzzles wasn’t that keen, although she is becoming more accepting of them around her little ones.

As the rain came down again in the afternoon the pack headed off hunting. It was pretty miserable weather but I sat it out. Well only till nightfall and then packed it in.

Dogs on Buffalo: Video

Puzzles’ little adventures of den hunting didn’t continue today. I’m not seeing any further teat development but surely in the next few days her milk must drop?

The pack had killed early today and when I caught up with them, they were all lazing around in the hills with full tummies. This is a spot they’ve lain up in before. The sands are soft here and nice and cool. Makes a pretty good bed for me too!

Although the dogs have been active last night and early today, for me their activities amount to close on zero as they spent the rest of the day chilling out in the hills.

At dusk there was a little movement as some managed to stretch their bodies enough to then go off and hassle a friend.

(Of course this buffalo sequence is that I mentioned a few days ago.)

Painted dogs versus stripes: Video

It makes me even more anxious looking at these pictures of the dogs and the video shot a few days ago. I wonder how they’re getting on just hoping they’ll be back on Malilangwe when I get back tomorrow.

For now I’m just having a wild time with my daughters.

Pups hassling hyaenas: Video

It’s me back in the saddle. Well not that I haven’t been in the saddle, I just haven’t been in the Wildcast saddle.
The wild dogs are all doing great but still no sign of Wave. It really is a mystery as to what happened to him. He was a great dog and big friends with Chevvy. Since then Chevvy seems to be spending most of his time lying up alone. But then Chevvy always was a different boy. He’s a great hunter and is often out there leading the pack.

The dogs were having one of their tribal games this morning well before sunrise when we found them. They’d cornered a couple of hyaena in some thick bush and weren’t letting them out of there. Although, actually the hyaenas just didn’t want to leave. They could easily have left out the back door, but seemed to be quite happy playing the game.

When another hyaena arrived the pups were quickly onto it, it too taking refuge in thick bush but by the sounds of it, it wasn’t having such a fun game.
In these games neither party has the intention of trying to kill the other. They might nip each other on the backside but that’s about as bad as it gets.
When I got out the car to join the pups in their game, the game ended abruptly when the hyaenas took off because of me. I like to think this scored me a few points with the dogs.
The pack still seemed full from yesterday’s killed and weren’t keen to move off, especially when it started raining. But try as I wish, I wasn’t able to film them in the rain as it came it little spurts. Some were actually quite big spurts, enough to soak me while my Mike Dolan, my script writer and Barend, my editor took cover under the tarpaulin.

The dogs had no plans on moving but we did and headed off in search of elephants again. We’d searched yesterday to no avail. Not even a track. Mike, out from Washington, was on his first visit to Africa and I just had to show him all my movie stars.
We got lucky around midday when a breeding herd of ellies came down to Tsuvuka pan. The soils there are red and once the herd had tucked in to that mud wallow we were left with these terracotta sculptures. A little calf was having piles of fun and soon some young bulls joined him, all putting on a great show for Mike.

We were back with the dogs in the early afternoon and already they were on the move heading south. Thankfully they kept to the track most of the way but once the chase was on we had to abandon our mission. The rains have left the soils really soggy in that area and I wasn’t keen to be digging myself out of clay for the rest of the day.
I presume they killed in there, as their signal didn’t move by the time we left them at sunset.

Excitement after the rain: Video

I feel like I’ve been wet all day.
The dogs made little effort to hunt today and then rested up in the mopanie. I took this time to rest up with them to get them used to my constant presence, especially on foot.

So there I was lying on the ground, having left my vehicle a ways off in the bush, with the wild dog pups resting in a pile about 10m away. Now that alone is pretty cool.
But it’s only cool if the weather doesn’t change. It started with a slight drizzle. So like the dogs, I decided I would sit it out and curled up in a ball and fell asleep. It wasn’t too long and the slight drizzle turned to a heavy drizzle. I stayed.

Don’t ask why, but I did. Eventually totally soaked and having sat there for about half an hour I decided it was time to head home to fix the 2 slow punctures I had.
While doing that the rain really came down, perfect stuff for filming the dogs in.
2 tyres sorted and an hour later I headed back out to my dogs. The rain was still coming down hard when I left and arriving at the dogs, they were all huddled up under a shrub.
But as luck would have it, while I was getting the camera out the rain let up!
So there I was soaked for the second time today for no reason. But I hung around with the dogs hoping it might rain again. Well of course that never happened, and the next thing the dogs were off hunting.

I was a little nervous following off road as the clays in the area were already a little sticky and I wasn’t too keen to find myself playing in the mud.
So I happily went home to a hot bath!