Sally, Sammie and Sissy to some gunfire today, using my .22 pocket rocket. I fired the first shot when I was still fifty yards away, on my way to give the pups their morning Puppy Chow and their Aunties, their morning biscuit. Very little reaction beyond heads jerking around to see where the loud noise came from.

Sally

The Rabbit Journal Pack.
Technically, the copper nosed puppy belongs to Brag, a gift from his wife.
Which means that Brag'll play with if for a week or two, then she will be moved over here into the pen with her new aunties where I'll be the one blessed with the night squalls and such till she gets used to the demotion from pet to working dog

to feed my puppies twice a day with puppy food. Doc Caldwell is no different.
I'm using Puppy Chow

Every morning, I give Abbie some puppy chow and after she has eat a bit, I get out the rag toy . Since Abbie is so young and new, I use the toy, soaked in Hallmarks Rabbit Scent for a game of tug.
Next week, I’ll drag it around where she can’t see it and hide it in some bushes for her to find

Abbie's first night in her new home was a quite one. She's the first puppy that I've had that stayed quite in the pen the first night. We'll see how it goes tonight. I suspect that the reason had to do with a couple of bedtime tales I told her that were reinforced by Lucy.

Right before dark, about two hours after I had fed and cleaned the pen, Abbie started up, howling and barking continuously. I went down to the pen and let her out for a few minutes, feeding her a little more before putting her back in the pen. I squatted next to the gate with her as the shadows lengthened, the light fading into night. I could see GF looking out the window, no doubt wondering what was taking me so long to do whatever I was doing. I just continued on, telling Abbie about the monster that lurked in the shadows, listening for noisy puppies to eat. Lucy chimed in a time or two, mostly about the huge size of the rolled up newspaper that it attacked with. Abbie listened attentively, the occasional gasp of a whine escaping. I finally eased toward the outer gate and around the corner where she couldn't see me because I was hidden by a thick growth of morning glory and other weeds.

She started up the barking and ran down the fence. Just as she got to the corner where I was hid. I slammed the fence with my arm while growling loudly. With a little yelp, she disappeared under one of the houses.
It was quite the rest of the night.
Heck, must have scared the other dogs because I didn't hear any of them all night, not even the 11 o'clock cat call

Gone to exercise the dogs down in Seale

Abigail Good Hope Myguts, the newest member of The Rabbit Journal pack.



Or Abbie, for a short two syllable name ending with a vowel, making it easy to reach those high notes when calling.

Ten weeks old and for what it’s worth, akc. She has a brown face, tan/red feet, blue tick tail and narrow shoulder collar on a black body. Not enough white on her for my taste, especially the tail, but for the price.....
So far, like all to be rabbit dogs, she seems to live and die by her nose. Sounds like she is going to have a good mouth on her.

I introduced her to her new Aunties this morning and she is getting settled in to her new home. Lucy, the former baby of the pack, doesn’t seem to know quite what to make of her yet, while Dixie, Julie and Kate have been running over to her at every whimper to see what’s wrong.

Tomorrow is our usual pre-season race and Abbie will be tagging along. She may as well get used to the routine.

I called Cuz to tell him about the rattler and he gave me some news of his own, all eight puppies died.

about the results of a recent conjugal visit of Middle Boy’s “Red Dog” with Cuz’s fat “Precious”.

Eight according to Rye when I called about coming out to see him and Cuz. Details (and a pic) to follow in a day or so.

The third time, now.
Sick,
four weeks later: sick,
six weeks later:sick.
Same symptoms started last Friday: Third eyelid a blue gray color. Eyes very weak. Lethargic. Off her feed. Slight temperature. Tail hanging down

On Saturday:
I went down to the pen after I put some redfish on the grill near dark. Lucy looked a lot better after her trip to the vet, Dr. Caldwell on Sportsman Drive in Phenix City, Alabama. Tail was up and wagging. Eyes were clearer, more normal though still with a tint of the grey blue. The vet gave her a shot and put her on amoxicillin. The same as last time, though this time he did a blood workup.

We had taken Lucy with us on the exercise that morning so we could keep an eye on her.

She stayed at my feet, but I didn’t walk far either. Dixie, Maizie and Julie ran two rabbits in a small patch of really thick planted pines. Neither rabbit wanted to come out and play. They preferred to stay home, running in small overlapping circles crisscrossing their scent trail. We had wanted to shoot it so Lucy could see what it was all about, but neither Brag nor myself got a shot. Besides the one I saw run in front of the Pathfinder, all I got was a glimpse of the dark shape of a running rabbit in the pines.

Lucy did try to run. While listening to the dogs, Lucy found a scent trail that got her excited. Her puppy voice rang with excitement for a few minutes before she came back to lay at my feet. This time, she was shivering. I loaded her in the box and went to get Brag and the dogs. Brag came fairly willingly but Julie, Dixie and Maizie was having to much fun on a cool damp morning. I hated to break them off, but I did it while promising them that I would take them again before bow season for deer started this Saturday.

I took Lucy's training collar off today and gave her one of the extra leathers that Brag and I have. She'll wear that one till I get a new blaze orange collar with a new nameplate/phone#/email addy. The training collar was a cheap red fabric Chihuahua collar that she had finally outgrew.

She does have a few quirks. She loves to drink out of the hosepipe and enjoys being sprayed down.

Let me introduce you to Lucy

Brag and My newest addition to our rabbit hounds. She will be 11 weeks old on Monday. She’s a cute mixed breed of Beagle and I suspect from her long body, long ears and loose skin, Bassett. (We've since decided that she is a "beaner", part beagle and part wiener dog.) Hopefully, she will get the beagles energy and the bassett voice. She promises to be about the same size as our 11 incher’s, Maizie, Julie and Dixie. Cuz’s dogs are all about the same size except for the grand dame of the pack, Judy, who is about a 9 incher