April 28th - May 20th

Sorry for the delay in my posts but my PC has been acting up. Can't live with them, can't live without them. . . Well I suppose I could live without my PC but I would have to hand write the blog multiple times and have hand drawn sketches of the foxes which with my kindergarten level of drawing would be less then enjoyable for you all.

April 28th was Valla's 1st birthday! Gosh it is hard to believe that it has been a year since my baby girl came home. So much has happened in that time which has shaped her into the wonderful girl she is today. I just cant believe how beautiful she is!




As you can see she got 3 plush animals ( 2 foxes,1 Eeyore) and a birthday cake made of dog chews which was also filled with chews. She also got an Elefun which is a children's toy that is shaped like an elephant that blows butterfly's into the air for children, or in this case foxes to catch. I think her favourite was her Elefun which her and Harry played with for ages each hoarding butterfly's in an opposite corner of the room to each other. Needless to say we did not have a second round for quite some time.


























Amazingly all of Valla's soft toys are still in one piece apart from the Eeyore who like all of her Eeyores she has removes the tail from. I really have no idea why she does this but she does. Maybe she knows that in Winnie the pooh Eeyore is always looking for his tail?

In other news Sapphire and Slush are shedding BIG time! Their summer coats are coming in fast, Slush's more so then Sapphire's but they are both looking so different.

With Sapphire it all started with her eyes:


Then her mouth and snout joined in:


And that's about where Sapphire has remained more or less for a couple of weeks. Slush however started by getting darker:



Then his spots amalgamated:




Then his whole coat looked like it was going to just fall out:


Then his face got darker:


and today:


He's suddenly almost black!
Here he is next to Sapphire so you can see the difference:


Her back leg has just begun where as he is ready for summer! I wonder if Slush will have spots again next winter?

Oh and the white things on the ground are duck down from the duck down pillow that we opened and poured into Sapphire's house and fur from the two of them.

So the other day Akiko was playing with Sprite while I was painting the wood work in a room. She was very brave unlike any of the other foxes and started to play with Kikomo the Bengal cat who, being twice the size of her quite liked having a tiny critter to play with.

At one point Kikomo decided that leaping onto Akiko from atop his scratch post would be glorious fun which Akiko did not agree with and from that moment on decided not to play with him. He worried the poor girl so much that she literally pooped herself!


Clearly it was time to play with Sprite on the bed.






When Sprite wandered off to find Valla to play with Akiko went to investigate the decal I had just put on the wall.


She seemed a little worried by it all.


Maybe it was due to the size:


So she jumped down and came to watch me paint. What I didn't notice however was that I had left the lid to the wood paint on the floor within reach of the little tyke who then walked over it and started to paint the floor:
 

You just have to love the guilty look on her face hehe!

Until next time!

Happy Easter!

Okay we may be a day late but Easter is very busy in the Flashman house hold with so many fur kids and one human one we have been been run off our feet!

Everyone got a big plastic Easter egg filled with yummy goodies and a plush rabbit toy. . . They also all got rabbit for dinner but I promise it was not the Easter bunny!

As Audrey was making Easter masks in the morning by time Akiko got out of bed Audrey was done and there was allot of craft stuff left over so we thought we would have some fun with the presentation of Akiko's eggs.















The following photos are sort of freaky but they are where Akiko is chewing:

OMG! No Peeps?!


We hope everyone had a most wonderful Easter!

Until next time.

One month and four days

Today it has been 1 month and 4 days since Slush arrived and turned Sapphire back into the happy go lucky girl we all know her to be.

I must be honest, I was worried to post in-case something suddenly happened to him like with Logan, I just did not want to jinx it.  Silly I know but with the luck I have had this last year I was just so worried.

A few days after we got Slush we took him to the vets. He is 100% healthy which was a real weight off our minds. Not that we thought anything was wrong with him, more that we just wanted to be sure. The vet believes Slush to be between 2-3years of age which makes him a fair bit older then Sapphire who is not yet one but I don't mind, so long as Sapphire is happy I am happy.

This last month has been really interesting to watch as Slush has been worming his way into Sapphire's heart. He started with grooming her, then he started hauling blankets from inside their house for her to sleep on in the sun (shame he does no take them back in when it rains hehe), then he noticed that Sapphire likes to give kisses so he kisses her (on the lips and everything) which is all quite romantic!

For a while I was not too sure if his ways of winning her over were exactly working. Sapphire was not sleeping curled up with him and as he is unable to jump atop her level she was sleeping more and more often up there as though she was trying to escape him. I would not actually be too surprised if she was trying to escape him as for every romantic thing he would do he would then try to hump her which Sapphire was not a fan of. . . Mind you Sapphire was not exactly innocent in all of this, she is very much a little flirt!

One morning after I had heard Slush doing his mating call nearly ALL night I went to a window which faces my garage and Logan's old enclosure which is where they are housed and to my surprise I could see neither of them! Had they escaped?!

I quickly donned my robe and ran to their enclosure as fast as I could calling "Pie? Pie?" my slippers were getting muddy as the lawn was still damp with dew. I fumbled with the keys and the combination lock as I was so very worried. Once I was inside the enclosure I was not greeted with my customary morning kisses and screams of delight! Where were my little princess and her new prince charming?! I ran to their shed and opened the door to my relief curled up in the XL dog bed which was atop of the kennel, my fur balls were okay! Sapphire looked up at me with a HUGE smile on her little face as she stretched her front paws out. I walked over still shaking from worry and cuddled her tighter then I think I have ever cuddled her as she let out a little squeak which she does not normally do (oops, maybe a bit too tight). Slush continued to sleep which was odd as he is normally very much on his toes when I am around.

How on earth Slush managed to get up there continued to be a big mystery to me until a couple of days ago when I set aside a few hours to wrestle him into his collar. It turns out scrabbling really does help where your jumping may fall just a little short. . .

So it looks like though it took him a few weeks Slush is now allowed to sleep in the same bed as Sapphire at bed time however nap time is still a no-no if it is warm outside. If it is warm Slush is expected by Sapphire to sleep out in the sun while she will have the whole shed to herself! . . . Well I never said Sapphire was not greedy.

On March 28th I got Slush his first bale of hay. You may wonder what exactly is so great about a bale of hay for a fox, they are not rabbits, they don't eat it. Well instead of merely eating it they rub against it to help them remove their winter coat, they roll in it to smell nice, they pounce on it as they like the sound and the feeling under their feet, they make nests with it. . the list goes on and on! I honestly think a bale of hay is one of the more fun things one can give a fox. I actually filmed Sapphire and Slush playing in the hay for you all to enjoy!

Some of it is cut quite randomly. This is as Slush was being his randy self and as I do not like seeing that sort of thing I did not think any of you would either.

Today my daughter Audrey was spending some time with Sapphire. They spend allot of time together every day and have become very close. I would go as far as to say they love each other:

 

Well today Audrey wanted to make a video for school talking about Sapphire and how they are the best of friends. . . Well it did not exactly go to plan. . .

It started well enough, Audrey was not worried about talking to the camera:

But then as if from nowhere Slush came out of the house and tried to run off with Audrey's jeans, pulling them down in the process!:

Thankfully Audrey was not at all upset with him and actually found it all to be hilarious! 

Well I must be off, it is 02:30 and I must get some sleep as must the foxies:

 

Goodnight! 

Happy Sapphire

So sadly I did not get my snow video as it had all melted by the next day. To make up for the lack of snow we got Sapphire a HUGE bale of sawdust for in her house which seemed to make her nearly as happy as the snow did!

Sapphire smelt wonderful from rolling in the sawdust! I think we might have gotten too much as it was enough for a stable but she seemed really happy that it was so very deep and she could hide things in it but sadly like with everything else the novelty wore off and she went back to missing Logan.

I really did not think that she would grieve for so very long. Do not get me wrong, I am still grieving his passing but people say that if the animal sees the dead animals body that they will accept it. I think Sapphire just loved him way too much to be able to let him go.

Since Logan's passing Sapphire and I have become really close which is so very wonderful. You see at first, when she was a kit, she loved me but then she very much became my partners fox which was great as that was what she was meant to be but I will be honest, I was quite jealous of their bond. It is not that Sapphire did not like me it was just that my partner could pick her up and he clearly meant EVERYTHING to her.

Well the more time I spent with her even just sitting with her the more fond of me she has become. I spent allot of time with her before but always with my partner but now I was spending time alone with her and she saw that I am actually pretty damn fun where before she seemed to play with me out of pity as she and her human dad would be having such fun and she did not want me to be left out.

On February 28th my partner and I decided Sapphire was ready to welcome a new man into her life to make her whole again and so we welcomed Slush Puppie into our family. We had ordered him before the 28th but we were unsure if we should keep him in her enclosure as opposed to putting him in Logan's with Sapphire.



Slush was named by our 7yr old daughter Audrey who had wanted to name Sapphire and Logan Slush so we though it only fair for her to name this little man.

We have no idea how old Slush is but I am pretty sure he is at least a year older then Sapphire as he is very much a charmer.

When Sapphire first saw him she looked SO very, very happy, ecstatic even! Look for yourself:

As soon as we let him out of the crate they started playing and continued to do so until he noticed the dogs and went to tell them to go away. Once he noticed they were going nowhere he got back to playing.

It was all going very well. Not as well as Logan meeting Sapphire as she seemed a little worried but none the less well. . . Or at least it was until we noticed Slush making a noise like a happy ferret followed by some grunting and the next thing I knew I was having to tell Audrey that Sapphire was giving him a piggy back!

Yep Slush is smooth all right. He is a total little Casanova and when Sapphire climbed on top of her tower where he could not go he started sniffing our Papillon Sprite! I am just glad Sprite was outside the enclosure hehe.

I now feel quite awkward going to see them as if Slush is awake he is randy and poor Sapphire does not know what to do when she is trying to say good morning to her human Daddy and Slush is dragging her rear end off. I was told Sapphire should be in heat in 2 weeks time if not later but it seems we were off by a week or two.

I really hope that if Logan is looking down on Sapphire from the rainbow bridge that he knows that the only reason we got her Slush is as she loved him so much that she would have never been really happy without him here unless we got Slush to try to fill the void he left in her heart. It is so wonderful to see our little girl happy again as in truly happy. It's wonderful to go out and see her playing with him or him grooming her.

The first snow of the year

Today we had the first snow of the year which was very exciting for young miss Sapphire and I feel it was just what she needed to cheer her up.

Since Logan's passing life has been hard for Sapphire. She stayed inside with us for a while as she needed someone to be with her as she was accustomed to Logan being there 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. After a while we decided that after her walk we would put her in her enclosure to have a play with us which seemed to really perk her up!

Oddly though no matter how happy Sapphire might have looked she never "talked" bar to call Logan, no happy squeals at all. . .

When the weather started to get properly cold again we thought moving Sapphire back outside would be a good idea due to the central heating making her WAY too warm but she was not happy in her enclosure. I suppose that was as it was where she and Logan lived so we moved her to the enclosure we built for Logan. She seems much happier in there.

So today, as I was saying, we had our first snow!
I love the snow and since the day we got Sapphire I have been excited about this day. As Sapphire sleeps during the day when she is outside it was great to be able to be the ones to show her the snow:



Once she emerged from her house she had a good sniff of the snow:


Then a taste:


Or two:


And then she was running around screaming like all of her Christmases had come at once!

She was having a most wonderful time until she noticed that her toys were gone so she had a break from her excitement to haul them all out from under the snow:



Once she knew Swiper was safe she went to watch the dogs rolling n the snow:


Then continues frolicking:


And being Sapphire there was also a fair amount of kissing, weather her Daddy wanted kisses or not:


I shall try to film her in the snow tomorrow as I doubt I will go out bar to walk the animals as it is my day off and I have fox shaped cookie cutters to try! I got a whole set of woodland animals including a hedgehog, a squirrel, a bear, a snail, a moose and of coarse a fox! I might make fox shaped liver treats for the foxies.





Well I must be off. I have a whole day of playing in the snow with my two snow buddies (Sapphire and Audrey) tomorrow and I will need my sleep to keep up with the two of them.

December 14th - January 14th

On January 14th my partner and I went out to Logan and Sapphire's enclosure to give them breakfast only to find that Logan who was still sleeping will never wake-up. . .
We were at the time and indeed are still shocked beyond words. He was making such progress and was so very happy, even just the night before and now to find him curled up dead. . . It was just so very shocking.

Somehow just looking at him curled up with his tail over his nose, the exact same way that he sleeps I knew he was gone yet I could not believe it. My partner checked him for a pulse and there was none. His body was becoming more and more stiff yet he was still warm from where Sapphire had been curled around him all night sleeping.

I burst out crying. Sapphire started licking away my tears as she was unsure why I was crying. At first I thought that this was as she knew Logan was gone but she had no idea, she thought Logan was still asleep so she went over and licked his face. She then nuzzled his head but she still seems to have believed he was sleeping. . .

We waited for a while with Sapphire before moving Logan's body, if an animal sees their friend is dead it is meant to help the healing process but no matter how long we waited she still did not understand. I called the vet and said what had happened and that I needed a necropsy urgently as whatever had killed Logan could possibly be a threat to all of my other fur babies. They agreed to do the procedure as soon as possible.

When we got Logan to the vet he looked him over and could not see any reason why Logan would have died so suddenly. Our vet had seen Logan multiple times over the mere month he was with us as we wanted to be sure that Logan's weight gain was steady as well as to give Logan both his distemper and parvo vaccines.

That evening when we arrived home Sapphire was sat at the door of her enclosure looking at the house. She called occasionally for Logan. We went out to spend time with her, she was not very interested in us but instead much more interested in trying to look into the house where she last saw Logan headed.  We stayed outside until she dosed off but when we went back inside she woke up again and resumed waiting by the door of the enclosure.

The next day we spent all day with Sapphire. We played with her and tried our best to comfort her yet when  we would cry she would try to comfort us which was very sweet but again whenever she was not entertained she would wait for Logan and call for him. Eventually we brought her inside which seemed like a good idea as we could not really sleep outside with her. . . This ended up being when she began to notice Logan was no longer here. . .

Upon entering the house she ran around looking everywhere for him; under the sofa, in the bath, under my duvet on my bed, everywhere and she started to have a bit of a mental break down. She started looking in all of these places again and again calling for Logan as she ran. She had no time for Sprite who wanted to play with her and pushed her out of her path, she was going to find Logan wherever he was. . . Or so she believed.

Eventually she fell to sleep, she was exhausted.

The next day we went and got her some new toys. We bought her everything that we thought would entertain her; Kong's, bones, chews, squeaky toys, tennis balls, ropes and dental chews which she adores as we decided we would keep her entertained to keep her spirits up. It helped a little but the best toy for Sapphire seemed to be Audrey, her 7year old human sister who apparently is brilliant fun to chase and watch Beverly hills Chihuahua with.

On January 17th the vet finally called with the results of the necropsy. It would seem that Logan's little heart just gave up when he was sleeping. The vet believes that it was caused by Logan's bad diet during the key stages of his growth so well before he came to us. The vet said that there was no way of knowing this would happen and that it is just one of those things. . .

Even though Logan was only with us for 1 month in that short amount of time he very much became an important member of our family.

Sapphire is still very confused but I think she is beginning to feel a little better. She is still not talking which is very, very odd but I am sure she will again in time.

So anyway, that's what has happened.

Before these recent events I really wanted to tell you all about how over X-mas Logan had been highly amusing but as I can't really talk about him without crying I shall past here the post I wrote on Sybil's den for you all to enjoy:


"So I was in hospital for a couple or days, not working which was odd for me as I have only been admitted to hospital a couple of times in my life. It was just very bad tonsillitis so no big deal. I am allot better now. 


ANYWAY when I was in hospital everything went wrong for Mr Elina; he fed my African Pygmy dormice and one got out which he could not catch and even after 24 hours has not gone into the humane mouse trap. He had to deal with Valla being of the belief that he had hidden me so she could not see me so she grunted at him whenever he went near her and argued with him when he put her to bed. Mr Sapphire climbing out of his enclosure. . . TWICE!


Mr Elina saw him the first time and was very confused. When he got over the top he came to the back door and Mr Elina eventually caught him, cut his nails which were quite long as we had not cut them yet as he is a bit freaked out by us and put him back. Mr Elina thought that he had jumped from the platform so he took that out too. A little while later he looked outside and Mr Sapphire was crouched atop one of the panels. Mr Sapphire then quickly got to the floor and ran off and as he had been caught once before he knew how to evade capture a second time. Mr Elina had to spend hours chasing Mr Sapphire around the 2.5acres (approx) he had access too eventually catching him and managing to put him in Sapphire's enclosure which has a roof. 


During this Sapphire tried to follow her man as it looked like he and her Daddy were having a blast but she just fell on her behind so I do not believe all arctics can climb BUT if one can I am guessing this is not some kind of oddity and thus others will be able too so make sure you put roofs on your enclosures. I think one contributing factor to Mr Sapphire's ability to climb is that unlike Sapphire he is underweight and thus it was much easier for him to manoeuvre himself. I am amazed that even with short claws he managed this. 


I just wanted to let you all know as I know a few of you got Arctics this year and though I am sure they are all nice and chunky right now come Summer time they might slim down and I don't want you all to be shocked at your foxes sudden cat like agility. "



Today Logan returned home, allot less furry and allot smaller. I have placed his ashes on the fireplace next to Freyja with his collar atop of him the same way Freyja's is atop of her.
I miss them both so much but at least now I can think that Freyja has a friend to play with while she waits for us at the rainbow bridge. . .

Mr Sapphire finally has a name!

Yes you all read right; Mr Sapphire finally has a name!

After weeks of trying different names out we have settled on a name and oddly enough it was one of the very first we tried. I guess it is like a wedding dress where you normally end up wanting the first one you ever tried on.

So without further a do I shall list our winners!

In third place is Michelle Roderick with Denim.

In second place is Laura Jane Nolan with Hinto.

And our winner of the Mr Sapphire needs a new name competition is

Nicola Carter Barnes

with

If the winners could please send me a message on here or Facebook I will get your badges off to you A.S.A.P. 

Thank you all for your wonderful ideas but there could only be one. 

I have of stuff to tell you all about the foxes over Christmas but I must be off to feed everyone their dinner. 

TTFN!