Santana to the Mets?

I hate the Mets!

More pictures of Evey...

Well, last Monday, we removed Evey's splint, and to be completely honest, I was very disappointed. The leg was extremely weak and did not bend much at all. I took her to an Orthopedic surgeon who took several X-Rays and determined that 2 different ligaments in the hock were torn. We decided to wait a few days and she how she progressed. Well, she is doing much better. The leg has strengthened considerably and bends much better now. For the moment, we have decided not to do surgery. Here are a few pictures. The damaged leg is the right rear. It's still a little weaker than the other leg, but I am hopeful that it will strengthen with time and not need surgery.
I think she has a more classically shaped face than Mlenje. Her muzzle is shorter and not nearly as dark. They really do get along well. Mlenje is still a bit of a puppy, so he likes to run and jump around her but generally tires before she does. Evey is much more outgoing than he was at the same age. She frequently climbs over the back seat to join me in the front seat (something Mlenje never did).

Meet Evey.

Evey is my new Rhodesian Ridgeback. She was born on the 5th of November (Guy Fawkes Day) and will be 9 weeks old tomorrow. I picked her up yesterday in Harare. Her registered name is "Imbahuru Tawanda," but I am going to call her Evey for Natalie Portman's character in V for Vendetta, a film reference to the 5th of November. "Imbahuru Tawanda" is Shona, the primary language spoken in Zimbabwe. Imbahuru, the name for the kennel where she was whelped, means "Big House," and Tawanda means "We were plentiful, we multiplied."

This trip to Harare was much less troublesome than my trip to South Africa to pick Mlenje. Wanting to spend as little time in Zimbabwe as possible, we traveled to Harare and back (1,000 km) in 1 day. We left Lusaka at 5 AM and made the Chirundu border by 7 AM. This time I had all the proper paperwork, so the crossing only took an hour and a half with no run-ins with police (it certainly helped that Kevin and his wife have Canadian Diplomatic plates and passports -- makes crossing borders much easier). We hit Harare at 11:45. After completing all the paperwork for the 5 puppies we bought for various people, we left Harare at 1:30, hit the border at 5, and were back in Lusaka at 8.
Mlenje was surprisingly gentle with the new puppies. He was very calm and attentive when he met them for the first time. Most importantly, he and Evey are getting along very well so far.
You may notice a bandage on Evey's back leg. She dislocated a bone in her ankle about a week and a half ago and is wearing a splint for a couple of weeks. It does not seem to affect her very much -- she is by far the most active puppy of the litter even with the splint.