Oops

I obviously need more practice at sexing puppies, 1 of the white and blacks (no spot on head) is a boy. What a do-nut I am :-)

She just couldn't wait

Bella was due on 21.01.11 assuming she took on her 1st mating but yesterday she was a bit huffy puffy in the morning. I wasn't too concerned as when the girls are close things get a bit uncomfortable and they can have periods where they pant a bit. However by the evening, despite eating a large meal, she was definitely in labour. She was very fidgety and was panting quite hard, but no signs of contractions or pushing. Graham and I did shifts sitting with her until 5.30am at which point she was no further advanced and was not unduly stressed so we both fell into bed. When I got up to check her at 7.30am she had produced and cleaned 1 tiny, but healthy, black and tan bitch pup. By 10.00am she had obviously decided she was 'too posh to push' so off we went to the vets. There the fantastic team there delivered 5 chunky healthy pups and then spayed Bella. Mum and babies are doing well.

The final tally is, one black boy with white bib & toes, one black girl with white bib & toes, one black/tan girl with white bib and the surprises were three white/black/tan girls who I suspect will be roans. These pups will not be docked. There are photos of each pup on my flickr account (link on top right) There is also a link on the right-hand side of the blog for live web cam pictures, although this will not always be on.

Ladies in Waiting

Unfortunately I have to concede that Audrey is not pregnant. Last week I was 99% sure I could feel a puppy, but she is not showing and sign of an advancing pregnancy. I am so disappointed, both for myself and all those that have contacted me about the possible pups. I will of course try again on her next season, due in about 4 months. This will probably coincide with Dollar being mated but that can't be helped.

On the plus side, Betty is definitely pregnant, although she will almost certainly have a single pup again. Bella on the other hand is huge and she still has a week to go! I meant to take my camera on our walk this morning but forgot it, but as I promised Rosie I would take a picture of Bella, for Norman, I took a couple of shots on my phone. Once again the quality is not great but if you compare her outline to the picture in one of my recent posts it gives you an idea of her size, it's not just her abdomen that is swollen, her ribcage is also being pushed out.. She can't jump into the van anymore and I think I could probably run faster than her;-)

Happy Christmas?

Perhaps not the best Christmas and new year, Emily broke up from school and the following day went down with the flu, this was followed by a nasty chest infection which meant she spent the whole of christmas on antibiotics laid out asleep on the sofa, we took her back to the doctors as soon as we could who sent her to the hospital with suspected pneumonia. After a thorough examination she was sent home on 2 aggressive courses of antibiotics. Five days later she was still poorly so we took her back to hospital where she was admitted and treated for pneumonia. She is now finishing her recovery at home. I realise you don't read this to hear about my family probs but it explains the photos of Frankie, taken today, who was so pleased to see me she insisted on sitting on my lap, something she has never done before and knows isn't allowed :-)

Bella and Betty are both expecting pups at the end Jan, beginning of Feb. It is still a bit early to know about Audrey, should know by the end of next week so watch this space as they say.

Happy Christmas Everyone

Firstly I would like to thank all those people who have my puppies and kittens that have stayed in contact over the past years/months, I very much appreciate the effort of all the updates and photos, I am now trying to add them to my pups/kittens progress pages as I receive them. Several owners also have flickr.com accounts now which I think is a fantastic way of showing off your baby and getting to know how others are coming on.

Frankie has made a full recovery now, thanks to all who enquired after her. Hopefully she will be going to a very special new home in the new year where she will get far more 1 to 1 attention than I can give her. She really has proved herself to be a wonderful little dog and to say I will be upset when she goes (feeling a bit tearful even as I type this) is an understatement, but I truly believe this is in her best interest.

After being snowbound for several days and only able to walk in the small local woods me and the girls were starting to get a bad case of cabil fever so as the snow has all but gone at home I loaded the girls up and we headed off to Haldon Forest for our usual walk. I knew there had been a lot of snow there as the news reports showed the A38 and A380 closed due to the weather, but that was a few days ago so I thought we would go and have a look. The main roads were fine but as soon as we turned off I was driving on several inches of compacted snow, but the gate was only 150 yards away so I continued. Got to the gate and promptly got stuck! Seeing as I was already there I decided to go for our walk anyway, which was lovely, unfortunately I didn't have my camera so just managed a quick bit of poor phone video. Got back to the van andd realised I wasn't going anywhere, despite digging the wheels out, so at that point I had to call Graham out of his sick bed (been in bed all week with flu) to come and be my knight in shining armour. It took him half an hour to get me off the ice and I now owe him big time :-). I have had to promise that I won't try again until the snpow has melted.

I would like to wish everyone a very happy christmas, hope those who have young pups and kittens have got their trees well protected!!

Below is a festive picture of Murphy, one of Miss G's kittens from this year. Thanks to his owner, Lisa, for the photo.

Will hopefully be announcing that we have pups on the way in the new year, have a good one.

Poor Frankie

Up until recently Frankie had a long floppy topknot, about a week ago I noticed that she had a weepy eye, there was no sign of any infection so I came to the conclusion that she must be getting hair in her eyes therefore I cut her topknot back. After 48hrs I decided that it had not improved so had a much closer examination of it which revealed that she has developed a condition known as entropion. This is where the eyelid roll inwards and causes irritation to the lense, we think that because she doesn't use the muscles in her eyes nearly as much as a sighted dog everything has relaxed, causing her eyes to take on the appearance of being slightly sunk. Unfortunately this will require surgical correction and she is booked in on Monday to decide on and undertake the appropriate course of action.

Monday evening and Frankie is home. She has had corrective surgery and although she is feeling very sorry for herself, wearing a lampshade, the surgery went well and hopefully she will be back to her usual lively self in the next few days. At the moment all she wants is cuddles, suits me as she is lovely and warm!

Puppies?

Once again it all seems to be happening at once. I knew Bella was due in season and had found a lovely chocolate boy for her to go to, so that was all planned. Unfortunately the dog, Woodhouse Quartz, who is a hip and eye tested grade 7 agility agility dog with a pedigree full of FT champions, lives in Milton Keynes so this involved 2 round trips of approx 8 hours, but I think he was worth the journey as on top of his excellant agility achievemnts he is just a lovely dog. He was smitten by Bella, after the mating had taken place his owner offered both dogs a treat (as if the mating wasn't enough of a treat :-0) which he turned down as he just wanted to sit with Bella, something he has apparntly never done before.

Then Audrey decided to come into season, I wasn't sure when to expect her to have a season as she missed the last one that she was due. I had hoped to be using a red imported boy on her but unfortunately, for various reasons, he is now not coming into the country, so I had to re think, After speaking to various people I was unable to find a suitable apricot dog so I have decided to use a black dog. I have chosen this dog,CH Torpaz Talking Point At Vanitonia, as apart from being a succesfull show dog he is fully health tested (hips, eyes and SA) and is a lovely forward character. I am hopeful that we will have some apricots from this mating but failing that the puppies should be of excellant quality and type so if I am tempted to keep one, which is pretty likely, I will have more options when I eventualy want to breed the next generation of finding an unrelated apricot dog.





Then to top it all, Betty came into season. I am very keen to have a bitch puppy from Betty as she is the last of her line as far as I know, and as she is now 5 years old and only ever has 1 or 2 pups, time is running out so I have mated her. Although it is possible we could have three litters together you hardly know it when Betty has babies and hopefully Bella and Audrey will have small to average sized litters. At least none of them are due until after Christmas :-).