Final Stretch

Hey everyone!

I can't believe that its been 10 weeks already. As some you many know, I start my trip back home from the Cheetah Conservation Fund next week. My last day of work is this Sunday, and I start my trip Monday morning. It's a long trip, but fortunately its only a total of 24 hours of total travel, and it's also broken up into two parts since I am visiting family in Barcelona. I am super excited to see my family, and I think it has been 13 years since I last had a chance to visit with my mum. This will be an amazing ending to my trip out of the country.

This past week has been rather eventful all in all. For one, another dog, Taya, has had a litter of 6 puppies, and let me tell you, They. Are. ADORABLE! I haven't had many chances to see them, but when I have I have taken pictures. They are so cute when they are first born!!!

On top of all the puppies, this is the time of year that many of the goats here have their kids. It's SO CUTE!!! There are so many cute kids around it's not even Funny!!! For some reason, a lot of the little ones this year have been male, which unfortunately means that they will be meat goats, but there are some cute little girls that were finally born. They're so FLUFFY, I'm gonna DIE!! XD
I just had to take a couple selfies with them (Holy cow..... The world must be ending because I actually used "I'm taking selfies" in a sentence. What has this world come to. . .)

Also, I had these little stowaways on my saddle last week. I was putting on the two pads on Ghouli, a sweet white horse I was riding, and when I removed the second pad, I saw these two on the saddle. 

Safe to say they gave me quite the surprise. They were quite brave too, they refused to get off the saddle for several minutes, and even then, they didn't want to go very far after I coaxed them off of it. 

Besides that, the weeks have just become increasingly busy. Plus, on top of that, there was a small... err... fiasco that occurred when another intern, Nick, and I went to walk the dogs with another intern on her first day, Sam. Most of the dogs are at the Kraal, with all the goats. There are two dogs, Nesbit and Kiri, that are down near Silver pens, near some of the cheetahs. First we grabbed Nesbit, and took him outside, and Nick went into the next pen to get Kiri. When he brought her out, and the new intern opened the door, Kiri lunged and the least slipped out of his hand. Nick and I both burst after Kiri, and Nesbit was more than happy to power me along after her, and we ran about 1/2 a kilometer before she slowed down and started chasing a large warthog. I was about 20 meters away, and Nick had passed me and was only about 5 or 10 meters away from Kiri. The warthog then made a U-turn and began to run straight at Nick, who dodged out of the way very quickly. The warthog ran around a bush, and ran within 5 meters of me, but I just wasn't close enough to grab Kiri. They both ran into the bushes, where we lost her for 2-3 minutes or so. Nick followed her into the heavily bushed area, and we both started calling for her. Soon after we heard barking. Since I was holding onto Nesbit, I took the road, and Nick continued through the Acacia bushes. She ended up by the Quarantine pens, where we hold cheetahs that have been recently brought to CCF, these are at the very far corner of the silver pens. At the quarantine pens, Kiri found an adult female Kudu, which she decided to chase. Nick at that point had caught up, and tried to catch her while running around the quarantine pens 3 times. I finally arrived and hoped the Kudu would run past me so I could grab Kiri, but instead it turned and started running back towards the dog's pens. The two cheetahs that were in Silver pens had at that point noticed the Kudu, and followed them from the inside of the pen. Note: This kudu was not running very fast, if I ran at full speed, I probably could have caught up, or kept up, but both Nick and I were too winded to keep running. We walked back to the dog pen, where we saw the cheetahs sitting winded and breathing after the chase. We put Nesbit back, and started walking towards the hotspot from two different directions in the hopes that they went in that direction. Nick walked up a hill while I walked the road. Kiri had ended up at the small waterhole

past the hill, where Sam had followed them and was trying to get Kiri. Kiri had, before I arrived, got in the water, and was having a stare down with the Kudu. Sam tried to get Kiri, but instead, Kiri started getting out of the water, and the Kudu jumped into the water. Kiri then started biting at the Kudu, and eventually latched on, while the Kudu had apparently given up. I finally arrived, and Nick and I jumped into the murky water to drag Kiri away. Initially, Nick grabbed the collar, but it slid off and Kiri went back to the Kudu, then he grabbed her from around her body, while I grabbed the collar. At some point during this time, Nick unfortunately got kicked, which bruised, but he was otherwise okay. We slipped the collar back on, and I wrapped the leash around her waist, so that Kiri wouldn't be able to slip out of it. We ended up having to drag her out of the water, because she certainly wasn't walking. I can't count how many times I got stuck in the mud, and had to try several times to get my foot, or feet out of the mud. The Kudu, on the other hand, just sat there. . .

Eventually, we got Kiri out, and Nick and I dragged her to the top of the hill. At that point, Nick ran to get someone to look at the Kudu, and I brought Kiri back to her pen. She looked SO proud of herself. For a dog who can't get rid of her baby fat (she had puppies in June), that dog can Run.... The Kudu ended up walking away okay, but she did seem a bit shell shocked, so to speak.
All things considered, it was definitely an interesting end of my day...















This past Sunday, the last intern who was here when I arrived finally left. It was sad to have her leave, but I am sure that, although she was sad to be leaving, she is also super happy to be home and see her family and dog. I certainly am excited to be leaving soon! I want to see my fuzzy boy!!!

Next Monday.....
Guess what Monday was????!!!
ANOTHER WATERHOOOLE COOOOOUUUNT!!!!
But this time, the interns were in Bellabino. I am sooo happy!!! It was actually really cool. We were at a high high, which for some reason I did not get a picture of. . . Don't know why. Regardless!
It was actually a really eventful day. We saw a wide variety of animals, including Giraffes, Oryx, Zebra, Impala, warthog, and HONEY BADGER!!!! It was a short period of time, but I am super excited that we saw Honey Badgers. I have haven't seen any out here, and even some of the staff members haven't seen any while they have been here. Also, a lot of the animals that came through had babies and juveniles with them. There was even a few day old Eland calf!!! IT was SOOOO CUTE!!! Here I am gushing, but honestly, a pictures worth a thousand words, and maybe a video too....

Ana had to take a nap, I don't blame her!

As a final Note: I will be uploading one more blog post, but it won't be until two weeks from now, when I return home from traveling. I plan on enjoying the time I am with my family, and then I will post about that final leg of my trip as well. Enjoy the next two weeks! And for those of you in Bend, See you guys soon!!!