Thank all of you for your caring thoughts and messages. Ruby in the last year has slowly lost her hearing and at the time she was totally deaf, although her nose could always find the food!! We thought also that she was getting adept at lip reading!!!
Maybe in time we will be owned by another dog,.I would love a huntaway but because they are more suited to the farm it may not be feasable because of our age and small section size .However Crufts now recognize them as a NZ Breed in their own right and they are increasingly being used on the 10/20 acre farmlets as both workers and pets.
