I have one pup from the previous litter here, and she is now over a year old. I kept intending to post snapshots as she grew: “here she is at one month, here she is at three months…,” etc. however, an astute lurker would note that I didn’t do that.
Boerboel Puppy on the Beach - Watching one of the other dogs going in after a stick.
I am not sure why. I think I decided that I was on the cusp of needing to decide between two very different things: To either be a “real” kennel and get more capacity for dogs, and at the same time have less time with each individual, or to concentrate on just raising a good dog, and reducing my focus on getting new blood into a breeding program.
My tax guy is annoyed, but I decided that the average person who is working outside of the house cannot run a larger kennel without losing even more money than I already am — and without compromising important things: having the dogs living together as family, as opposed to being outside in cages, being rotated in whenever one has time.
I concentrated on raising the pup, and have scaled back Kiburi Kennels for the time being. Kiburi is still there, and I will continue to consider breeding in the coming years, but only when it suits me and the dogs, not my desire for profit or pride.
So, the puppy… She is now a teen, and is full of teen challenges, but I’m happy to report that she is happy, healthy, and full of crazy energy. She has learned a bit from me, but as often happens when you have wise, older dogs, I credit the oldsters with most of her manners.
As I’ve said before, older, stable dogs are excellent at teaching things that are difficult to teach otherwise. Never underestimate the power of learning from peers. I think about things the pup does not do, and I wonder if I ever had to correct her. Counter surfing (stealing food from counters) for example. I never had to teach her not to. Why not? I think she just watched the others, sitting there, pretending not to notice a pile of raw meat on the counter, and thus decided, “oh, that’s what we do: We sit and wait. That sucks, but okay…” 
However, letting dogs teach can go badly, so be careful just shoving them together. For example, my twelve year old GSD is barely able to walk now, yet he’s still able to jump over fences. Sadly, he taught the pup how to do this, and now she proudly leaps over fences that get in her way. Sigh.
Also, fear transfers well from dog to dog, yet so can bravery. I had two dogs who was scared of thunderstorms living with two who were not. The scared ones seem to have learned from the other to more or less ignore the strikes — unless they take out a tree on the property, in which case we all duck and cover. 
I will try to update more on the pup progress as I go. I apologize for stopping, as it would have been fun to see the progress of her — and I — as time went by. Maybe I’ll be able to recreate some of it.
Anyway, I won’t really go into those, as if you’re up in the woods with your dog you’d probably be able to figure out how to rescue a dog from a snare, which I would assume is pretty much just a cut the damn thing off with a knife, fast, sort of thing.
