Cinders R.I.P.

Yesterday, whilst in the care of a good friend, Cinders was hit by a car and killed. This was a terrible accident and no one is to blame, not even the F****ing taxi driver who didn't stop even though there were children in the road trying to get Cinders back, and when later tracked down said she didn't have time to stop for that sort of thing as she had to get to work!
I write this as a little tribute to her memory. I was conned when I bought Cinders, she came from a respected breeder who lives about 6 hours from me, on the initial phone enquiry I stressed that to fit into our household she needed to be an outgoing pup (she was 5 months old when I took her on). I was assured this was the case. Due to journey time we agreed to meet at a show where he was exhibiting some of his other dogs. He presented me with a cat box with a very frightened pup at the back of it, he assured me that this was purely because she had never been in a car before and a show is a frightening place for a first visit. I should have listened to my instincts and walked away, but because of the journey we had made I allowed myself to beleive him. As we were leaving (having paid a huge sum of money for her) he casualy mentioned that she had never had a coolar or lead on, wasn't housetrained and he hadn't given her a name.
When we got home she spent the first few weeks hiding in corners and would go rigid when picked up, in time she trusted us and learned to enjoy human and canine company. Walks were her greatest pleasure, she ran like the wind, chased rabbit and deer with the big dogs on walks and played with toys, she wouldn't hesitate about running up to greet people we met on her walks. I think her walks were the way she de stressed herself as she was quite a hyper dog in the house. She also insisted on sitting on my lap in the evenings which is where she felt secure.
What we never achieved was geting her completly housetrained. I know she started life in a flat, what I am guessing she was crated for lengthy periods as she would happily soil her pen and then sleep in it, she would also toilet anywhere else in the house if she got caught short. We worked hard on this by giving her every opportunity to go out, and by keeping her beds clean at all times, and to a certain extent this worked but if she was upset about anything she would forget and would mess in her pen overnight.
She had a puppy last year, and initialy she was very overprotective about him, burrying him in the bedding and carrying him around the house! but in the end she did a very good job with him and Jack was a fantastic happy little chap.
I am now glad I took Cinders on as I think the two years she spent here were good ones, far better than the life she had previously, without a name, without walks and without love.

Oliver

I know, it's fatal giving them a name, but he is always wanting more of everything so he had to be Oliver. He is most definately out and about now ('though still a bit unsteady), he is already investigating everything, and constantly getting himself in trouble with the cats. Once he has had enough action - at the moment he can manage about 10 minutes before he is flaked out, he wants to snuggle on the nearest available lap, where he will sleep for as long as you sit still. The big dogs have started to take an interest in him so he finds he is often fast asleep and a giant nose comes from nowhere and pushes him out of bed!

3 Weeks old and homeless!!

Betty's pup, which at the moment is being called Blobby due to his rather round well fed shape, has now got his eyes open and is making some effort to get up and about. He is doing very well as he has no competition, but being an only baby means that he isn't happy when Betty leaves him for a toilet break so he now has a cuddly toy to snuggle into when he is left.
Within 72 hours of him being born I had 3 people who were very keen to have this little man, but unfortunately all have had to pull out due to personal circumstances so he has gone from being very much spoken for to needing to find a special home. He is still too young to say what sort of character he will be, obviously he should be a bold well adjusted lad but we will have to wait and see as to whether he will be a hooligan or a lap dog.
He has started to have visitors now(feline as well as human) so that his socialisation can begin.

Nearly 2 weeks old

Not much can be said about Betty's pup at the moment, other than he is tiny, black and eating for England. Still difficult to get a decent picture but have put a couple of shots on anyway, would like to show him with his mum but as they are both black you can't make him out!

Just the 1!!

Betty had her puppy in the early hours of Wednesday morning - what's wrong with having pups at a sociable time? She produced a very healthy black boy with no trouble, but she was quite big during this pregnancy so I had guessed at 2 maybe 3 pups. As the morning went on Betty was showing no sign of pushing but was restless and a bit shivery so I thought I should have her checked by a vet. We got to the surgery and the vet had a feel, she thought the same as I did, definitely a lump but not sure if it was a puppy or the uterus contracting, so we took an xray, sure enough there was a mass by her pelvis which looked like a pup, the picture was a bit grainy but you could make out a skull, backbone and legs. It was almost out so the vet decided to see if a combination of squeezing the abdomen and trying to hook it out would work.
Of course Betty's size was against her, the vet could only insert 1 finger so was limited on what she could feel. After a fairly lengthy attempt to move this mass we decided that a Cesarean was our only course of action, so at this point I requested that she would be spayed at the same time (I don't believe in breeding from an animal that has needed surgical intervention to get the babies out). Just to make sure we took another xray and lo and behold the 'puppy' had gone!, we took a third picture and still no pup! We can only conclude that it must have been excrement that we saw on the 1st picture - Bettys diet contains a lot of bone.
So Betty is now home with her very precious baby, and as usual is the most devoted mum. The pictures are not great, black and small are not the easiest combination to photograph(and i'm not sure why Emily found it necessary to wear a cat mask) but hopefully we will get some better shots as he grows.

Just Chillin'

All fairly peaceful at the moment, so I took advantage of the lovely weather we are currently enjoying and sat in the garden this afternoon and too a few photos. Unfortunatly I was wrong about Miss Tibbs expecting kittens, so we will try again next year. But I did notice that Betty has been eating very well and was looking a little round, mentioned this to Graham who has now confessed to letting her out with Alfie when she was in season! So it looks like we may have an unplanned patter of tiny paws in October.

Parti poodles come to Itzapromise!

Well I have finally done it, I have wanted a Parti for years. I was very close to getting a standard parti last year but having kept Martha the timing wasn't right, so when I saw an advert fot a parti toy a few weeks ago, I couldn't help myself!!
She comes from Wales so I had to make arrangement for a sitter for my daughter and my dogs as this was to be about a 3.5 hour drive each way. All was well, we left on time (about 1:30pm) but after about 40 minutes driving we started getting engine management warning lights and various other lights coming up on the dashboard and cruise control stopped working so we decided that we better go home and swap vehicles. So now instead of doing a long journey in a comfortable and economical car, with sat nav we now had to take the not very comfortable and very noisy van with no sat nav.
The first hour or so there were no traffic problems but at junction 24 on the M5 the traffic slowed to a crawl. This continued until we left the motorway at junction 18. Then we hit similar traffic as soon as we hit the M4. It turns out that not only was there all the expected holiday traffic, but U2 were in concert in Cardiff so the roads were heaving. We eventually arrived at her breeders after 8pm. We then didn't leave until 9:30 and after stopping for a quick bite to eat got home at 1am, by which time Graham was telling me that this pup had better poo (he used a different word) gold to make her worth the journey!Fortunately she travels beautifully.
The poor pup - Dilligaf or Dilli for short- had a very quick garden outing and was quickly settled for the night, not the ideal way to introduce a pup to it's new home but bless her, she accepted all this and we didn't hear a peep out of her.
The following day she had a bath and a haircut and has started to settle in. She is quieter than the rest of my girls, but doesn't appear to be worried by anything. She has shown no interest in the chickens and has given the cats a bit of a woof, which Sybil didn't even dignify with a response. She is a very good eater and fortunately had already been started on a raw food diet, so no worries about changing her diet. We took her for her first walk this morning and she didn't put a paw wrong, as with all my pups on their first outing she was off lead in the woods straight away and as Emily and I were the only things she knew we had no problems keeping her with us and coming when called.

On a different note, I am pleased to say that Miss Tibbs has pinked up so we are expecting her first litter of kittens in a few week. Watch this space as they say.