More family visits

The past two weeks Bruce's parents, Aunt Mary Alice, and our daughter Leilani have been visiting. They left this morning, so I decided I needed to update the blog. It was such fun to have family here and show off this beautiful country.  I will be posting some of the things we saw and did over the next few days.
 

We visited the Cheetah Conservation Fund (CCF) again. (You can see grandpa in the background in the green sweatshirt.) The wonder of seeing these amazing cats has not diminished. This time we were able to see a couple of them run. They are pretty darn fast. The cats are exercised by chasing a flag tied to a cable that runs along the ground. 

 When they catch the flag, they are rewarded with a treat of  meat. The staff are very careful to avoid handling the meat and offer it to the cheetahs on long "spoons". The cheetahs are very smart and soon figure out that the flag will come around the corners again if they wait. So the staff have to remotely change the direction and speed of the flag. It is just like playing a game of "chase the yarn" with a house cat only a a much larger scale. The cats hunch down and ponce just like our little Snickers kitty does.

  Eating time!

 On the drive out to see the cheetahs, we saw many small Steenbok along the road. They only stand about 18 inches high and look like baby deer. My guess is that they were always around, but we were able to see more of them because the grass is much shorter during the dry winter months.

  

This is a picture of one of the dogs in the guard dog program. The CCF breeds these dogs as part of their program to enable the cheetah to live in harmony with people. These dogs are placed with a goat or sheep farmer while still young puppies. The pups "adopt" the livestock as their family and become very protective of them. They will chase off any predators that threaten them. Ninety percent of Namibian cheetahs live on farmlands, so it is important to reduce the human-wildlife conflict to ensure the long-term survival of the cheetah.