Just one more post about Stephanie’s place and it had to be the menagerie that is the heart beat and soul of the place!

Stephanie has over 20 Japanese Chins  (she quickly changes the subject when you try to nail her down on an exact number) (plus six new babies), 2 Scotties, 2 white elderly white cats (including Tri-pod, the 3 legged wonder) and Little Wolf, the Abyssinian. … oh and fish and frogs and mosquitoes and wild birds and chickens and that damn rooster.

What can I say? A floating, multi-coloured flokati rug… floating sounds way too tame. This pack bubbles and barks and tears around breaking off into sub-groups to explore and pester and torment. Then they come together again at the slightest sign of an intruder…. or perceived intruder. One barks the alarm and everyone joins in solidarity! Stephanie loves loves loves her Chins, she dotes on them and knows all their names and insists on telling you who is who… as if there will be a test later. She breeds them, rescues them and belongs to FB pages dedicated to them.

The rooster and his ladies are Vendas… apparently a highly prized breed. Phfttt. After the first ‘morning’ when he started crowing at 4am, Stephanie and I had a chat. I was ready to leave, seriously, I hate roosters. She offered that if I could kill him, I could eat him. She knew that wasn’t going to happen so she came up with the idea of stuffing him in a box in the back at night until a reasonable hour. It worked but I didn’t get away with no crowing, apparently roosters have X number of crows in them that they have to let out in a 24 hour period, whether they start at 4am or 9am. But at least he no longer woke me up!

The toad population had exploded so much she was gathering around 40 of the noisy critters a night(!!!), putting them in a box and driving them to an isolated area of Pretoria. Then she got the fish to control the toad population (they eat the eggs) and things are more reasonable now.

She had one white cat and really liked her so she thought she would try to breed white cats so she borrowed a male but when push came to shove (so to speak) he couldn’t do the deed but she kept both and got them neutered. Around this time the male lost his leg (dog bite?)  but he still rules the roost (but not the chicken one 🙂 ) with an iron paw!

So here is a small representation of the pack.

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