Meet Oxford our newest staff member...

Oxford is our new Huntaway pup on the farm, he is nearly 11 weeks old here and has a big puppy playpen with a grass base to play safely in and watch Farm life happening around him. He watches with great interest the cows brought to the cow shed for milking and all visitors to and from the farm. Its very important he has a lot of interaction right from when he is very little so he is well socalized with all the other dogs and animals and various visitors to the farm so he learns from a very little age how to behave well. Basically teaching him mannners right from the start and he comes gardening with me to learn his name and recall and to stay in one area or close by which are all things he will be expected to master when out working on the farm.

Puppies diets are incredibly important to give them a fantastic start in life that sets them up for better health when they are older. Oxford gets special large breed puppy food kibble and a handful of cut up farm meat (which luckily for him happens to be Wagyu which is what we eat at the farm due to our bobby free system we run) He also has large fresh canon bones to chew on to help with teething. (they have baby teeth at 3-4 weeks old then their first set of 28 teeth at 6-8 weeks old. At 12-16 weeks permanent adult teeth start to come through and adult incisors/ canines and premolars are through around 6-8 months) This is why puppies chew so much and need lots of things to chew on. Oxford is also a fan of apples and carrots to chew and eat.

Large breed pups like Huntaways grow fast and Oxford has particularly large feet so we are curious to see just how big he will grow. Huntaway's are breed for their loud deep repeating bark and are a large strong build. They were breed in the late 19th century in New Zealand for moving stock. They are extremely intelligent, hard working dogs and are New Zealand's only indigenous dog.