Guessing games

Spirit is keeping me guessing, normally at this point in pregnancy (3 1/2 weeks) I can feel whether or not my girls are pregnant, but Spirit is a more thick set girl which makes things much harder. I will be taking her for a scan on Thursday morning to find out for sure.

The guessing game with the cats is when and how many :) Both girls are pretty round so I think that between them we may well have fun and games on the horizon. I will update as soon as the kittens arrive.

Not long until K Day

Bob and Mrs Miggins both visited Manuel a few weeks ago and are both expecting kittens at the end of next week, Bob should be a day or two ahead of Mrs Miggins. Both are very fit and well and both are looking pretty plump :)

The weather here has been foul this week, wet and windy which means wet and muddy dogs. This morning I decided that I just couldn't face another day of filthy dogs (very very unusual for us), whilst the dogs were unsettled this morning, once the wood burner was lit they decided it wasn't such a bad idea.

Alfie however decided he would pretend to be a cat 

Eliza was the only one who struggled with doing nothing, she is such a bright girl who just doesn't get that you don't need to be doing something all the time, so she often brings suggestions of things we should be doing, this morning it was a shoe, do you think she was hinting about going out? lol.

Dollar has made a very good recovery from her bloat episode and is completely back to normal. She will however be having surgery next week to prevent a torsion should she bloat again. Thank you to everyone who has enquired after her.

Dollar

Scary evening last night, Dollar had her dinner at about 5pm tonight, within minutes she started shivering and her tummy started to swell, we were at the vets within 20 minutes where my fantastic vets and nurses spent the next 2 hours confirming that she had bloated and then relieving the bloat. Very fortunately her stomach hadn't twisted, she was a complete star and without sedation allowed the vets to pass a stomach tube to relieve the pressure. She is home now and a lot more comfortable than she was, though she is not yet completely out of the woods and is feeling very sorry for herself. I will be discussing gastro pexy (stapling the stomach to the wall of the abdomen) with my vets as once they have bloated they are predisposed to doing it again and although the stapling won't stop the bloating it will prevent the torsion (twisting of the stomach) which is the most dangerous part of bloat. This was Dollar on yesterdays walk, full of the joys - 

And this is her yesterday after our evening at the vets

Standard poodles are one of the breeds that are prone to bloat, please research this condition because if it strikes, sped is of the essence and untreated can be fatal, often within hours, you are far better having a wasted trip to the vets than a dead dog in the morning. This chart may be of use -

Spirit and Morse

Morse and Spirit had a date, so hopefully there will be the patter of tiny paws in about 9 weeks time. Should the mating have been successful we expect a litter containing blacks, apricot/creams and phantom puppies. Hopefully I will be able to confirm pregnancy in about 4 weeks time.

Shouldn't be long now

At long last we have a dog in season! Dime came in a couple of days ago (9 months after the last one!) so the other entire girls, including Spirit should follow in the next few days :)

The dogs are looking very shaggy at the moment because, after years of wanting one, we are finally waiting for my new purpose built dog bath to be delivered and rather than struggle upstairs with them to use our bath, which is what I have always done, I am going to wait until their own bath is plumbed in, especially as after being here 11 years we have at last had our hall, stairs and landing decorated and I do not want wet dogs shaking over the newly painted walls!

Just one more

I wasn't planning on posting again this year, but just thought I would show you that although we had a houseful of guests over Christmas (15!) the dogs were not forgotten, they have had some super walks, including a very hilly 8 miler over Dartmoor yesterday (forgot my camera). I have included pics of a boxing day visit to Dartmoor, some of our trip to the beach today, in glorious sunshine and a couple of Cash at our agility Christmas fun show. Spirit is still keeping us waiting.

Christmas Cheer

A week before Christmas and Eliza has had most of her health testing done now, she has been DNA tested clear for DM, NE and vWD, she has also tested negative for SA. She carries the phantom gene and she is hip scored 3:5. This may be of interest to those who panic about exercise levels in young dogs, I have never adhered to the 5 mins of exercise for every month of age and to date none of my poodles have experienced any joint problems. Care was taken as a pup that she did not slide around on slippery floors and I never played ball games with her, but Eliza was allowed to do regular hour long walks from about 4 months old, the length and intensity of her walks was built up from then and now at 13 months old she has no exercise restrictions. There is a growing argument for young dogs to have enough steady exercise to enable them to build muscle which will help keep joints in place, obviously this does not mean running them to the point of exhaustion or asking them to do things that will put pressure on the joints such as jumping or chasing a ball. I feel that it is so much better for them, both physically and mentally, to have a good outlet for their energy on a walk rather than going loopy in a tight space (indoors) often on slippery floors.

We are very quiet at the moment with regard to puppies and kittens, still waiting for the standard girls to come into season so that Spirit can be mated, hopefully sooner rather than later. This is the only litter of puppies I have planned for 2017, though we should hopefully have a couple of litters of kittens at some point in the year so that should be enough to keep us busy :)

This will probably be the last post for 2016 so from all the Itzapromise crew, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.

After a day full of activity there is nothing better than relaxing in front of a fire :)