| RONA - BLONDIE'S PUP
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| The splashing of tiny flippers is now to be heard in our outdoor pools. On Monday the 21st of July at 8.03 am Blondie gave birth to a healthy female pup. Rona (Gaelic for Seal) has been incredibly active in the water and is keeping Blondie very busy indeed, but our proud mum wouldn´t have it any other way. Blondie is a very attentive mother and jealously guards her baby from seagulls and any other potential threats.
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| When we recently had chance to weigh Rona, during a pool clean, we discovered that at only 1 week old she has already grown heavier than the pups we have in our hospital who are 4½ Wweeks old. At 13kg she has already grown visibly.
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| UPDATE 02/11/03
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| Many of our visitors have been e-mailing us recently to find out how Rona is coping following Blondie´s death. For the first few days following her loss Rona did seem a little dazed and confused. After that she began to take everything in her stride, swimming round our pools very fast. However we were still concerned that she was not paying any attention at feed times and was gradually losing weight. The decision had been taken to wait as long as possible before taking her into the hospital unit as learning to eat on her own would be far less stressful than being force fed by the animal care team. We set a minimum weight limit at 15kg and closely monitored her progress. Once Homer was ready to move outside we hoped his influence would help Rona to learn. Finally after 4 weeks of anxious waiting she began to rip her fish into two halves and rapidly swallowing them, ingesting as many as possible. She is now gaining weight well and is looking far brighter than before. We are sure she will progress to her release weight with no trouble at all.
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