NaBloPoMo Post #14
All The Nyans, Part Five
On Saturday, May 16, Eler Beth and I dropped Bryant off to board at our vet, so she and I could drive to Milton, FL to pick up Remiel.
Thomas stayed home and would care for the other dogs, but we didn't want him to have to deal with Bryant, quite a large dog. Bryant loves everyone at his vet's office, and we knew he would do well there. And it was only for two nights.
The two newborn kittens were going to make the trip with us. They were still being bottle fed and cleaned, needing 24-hour care, so we outfitted a large plastic tote, set it on the back seat of the car, and took them with us. I drove most of the way down, with Eler Beth feeding and cleaning them when needed.
I turned the wheel over to her once in Alabama, and wouldn't you know it we had a downpour right then! She did great, though. It was late when we pulled into our hotel in Milton, Florida, just a few minutes away from Rare Earth Ranch. We checked in, got ourselves and the kittens settled, and happily went to sleep.
The next morning we had a quick breakfast, fed and bathed the kittens and got ourselves presentable for meeting Remi for the first time. My girl was SO, SO excited. She'd been planning for this day for eight years!
We'll meet Remiel, the Fennec, in tomorrow's post.
~ ~ Lori
NaBloPoMo #12
All The Nyans Part Four
We heard from Summer, the breeder, on April 13. Her fox had given birth to two males the night before. Eler Beth was ecstatic! One of those two was Remiel!
As I said in the second post of this series, our only concern about getting Remiel was how Bryant would be with him. Bryant is the sweetest, gentlest dog, but he is big, and he is very attached to Eler Beth. Those fears were put to rest the next week when we brought home the orphaned newborn kittens to raise. Bryant went into surrogate daddy mode. He cleaned them and watched over them, was worried if you took them from his sight, and he was very, very gentle with them. He also would not let Little Big, the fox terrier, get near them. So we knew he would be fine with Remi.
Summer kept us updated online and by email with pictures and reports of the babies' progress. We started making plans for our trip in May to pick him up.
Left is pictured the two newborn Fennec Fox kits. I have no idea which one turned out to be Remiel; they were competely identical.
Pictured on the right are the Fennec kits with their step-siblings, Bengal kittens just a bit older than they. Summer hand raises her Fennecs from birth. She bottle feeds them during the day, and then at night she lets her Bengal cat nurse them with her kittens to give Summer a rest. This gives the foxes the socialization they need.
The story will continue in future posts; the next Remiel post will be about our trip down to Pensacola to pick up our fox.
~ ~ Lori
NaBloPoMo Post #11
All The Nyans, Part Three
From the time Eler Beth was eleven years old, she has wanted a Fennec fox. As with anything she has an interest in, she began researching Fennecs and the legality of owning a Fennec in Indiana.
To my surprise, at the time she first started doing her research, there was a breeder in the Northern part of Indiana who, among other exotic animals, bred Fennecs. She also found one in Ohio and some other nearby states. We contacted the breeder in our state and got some information, and then about twice a year, she'd check to see if she was still breeding them.
About three years ago she started making definite plans for owning a Fennec. She contacted a local vet who works with exotics to make sure she would treat a Fennec; she would. She pretty much made a care manual with specific instructions for housing, training, feeding, and health care.
Two years ago we found out that the breeder in Indiana was no longer breeding Fennecs. But that was okay. By that time she had found a breeder in Florida who she liked the look of. Summer runs Rare Earth Ranch, near Pensacola, and everything we read about her on her web site made us think she was the type of breeder we wanted to work with. Eler Beth got in touch with other Fennec owners who had bought their foxes from Summer, and then she got in touch with Summer, herself, last year. The two of them hit it off from the start. Summer said she could tell from the correspondence that Eler Beth was the type of person she wanted for one of her Fennecs. She has actually turned down prospective buyers who hadn't done their homework, or who expected more from a Fennec as a pet than they would get.
Fennecs are not legal to own in all states in the country. They are legal in Indiana, and we checked with our local officials to make sure there were no city or county regulations against them. There were not.
When she graduated from high school in 2014 Eler Beth saved most of her graduation money to go toward the Fennec, and in late fall of last year we sent Summer a deposit on a male Fennec. Summer's Fennec fox rates were higher than the other breeders, but from what we saw and read, we knew it would be worth it. When Eler Beth started working she saved as much as she could to add to her other savings so that she'd have the balance when her Fennec was ready.
She started getting the supplies she would need for her fox, and decided that she would name him Remiel. By the end of last year we were counting down the days to Remiel's birth -- praying there would be at least two males in the spring litter, because another purchaser had dibs on the first male. If there was only one male or none, she would have to wait until the summer litter was born. But assuming everything went according to plan, we knew that Remiel would be born around the second or third week of April, and we would be able to go down to get him by the end of May.
Pictures of Remiel on this page are current photos of him. I will post pictures of him as a newborn, as a baby, and of her first meeting with him in the next few blog posts.
Eler Beth and Remiel, earlier this year.
To Be Continued....
~ ~ Lori
Thomas stayed home and would care for the other dogs, but we didn't want him to have to deal with Bryant, quite a large dog. Bryant loves everyone at his vet's office, and we knew he would do well there. And it was only for two nights. 
The two newborn kittens were going to make the trip with us. They were still being bottle fed and cleaned, needing 24-hour care, so we outfitted a large plastic tote, set it on the back seat of the car, and took them with us. I drove most of the way down, with Eler Beth feeding and cleaning them when needed.
