Fingers crossed

Dollar has a new boyfriend and their first date went very well, lots of chatting up and playing and them off behind the bike sheds this morning. As Hobbs is a young dog and Dollar is his first girlfriend both his owner and I felt it best to allow them to be as natural as possible so Dollar is having a couple of 'sleepovers'. This is a picture of her new man.



Audrey is also in season (along with virtually every other female in the house, lol) and we are now just waiting for her to be ready to mate, hopefully either the end of this week or beginning of next.

Do I or don't I?

Nearly 3 months late but Dollar has now come in season. Whilst I am relieved that she has obliged with a season I am now having to think about the timing. If she is mated in the next week or two they will be ready to go to their new homes around Christmas time and the last thing I want is to have people buying a "Christmas Puppy" on impulse. Therefore I would be very grateful if anyone who has been enquiring about or just waiting to hear about a Dollar pup, would let me know if they are seriously interested, if there is enough interest I will go ahead with the mating. To add an extra twist to this, I am considering using a Champion sired brindle poodle who goes back to silver breeding on his mums side.

I would be very keen to hear peoples opinions on both these topics either as comments on this blog or by a private email.

Thanks in advance.

I am also now expecting Audrey to come into season and I am still planning on putting her to a health tested red boy.

Mother Nature

Unfortunately Diva lost one of her girls this morning. Although all the kittens initially did very well I started to notice that one of the girls was always away from the rest, normally behind mum. Every time I put her back with  her litter mates she latched on and fed. This continued for the next 24 hrs by which time I started to get the feeling something wasn't quite right, although to me it looked like a normal kitten. This morning I came down to find it had been removed from the nest and was very cold, I warmed it up and put it back in but by this stage she didn't try to suckle, within an hour or so she quietly passed away.

I learned a long time ago that you can't fight natural instinct, obviously if you have a baby that is just a bit smaller and needs help , you do all you can to ensure it gets it's fair share of food, warmth and love, but if mum has given up on it there is usually a reason and in these circumstances I feel it is best to keep them as comfy as possible and let mother nature make the decisions.

The remaining kittens and Mum are all doing very well and I have absolutely no concerns about them.

Before and after

Diva is having kittens :-). Despite the fact that she is was not meant to have kittens this young she is so far having a trouble free kittening. So far we have 5 but I am fairly sure she hasn't finished yet! She has remained calm and relaxed throughout and the first 4 kittens have already fed well (the 5th has only been born a few minutes). As I write number 6 has just appeared! Yes Rosie I know they look like maggots, lol.

The devon kittens are now making very good progress after their poorly tums. 3 of Miss T's kittens had their 1st vaccination yesterday, the 4th had been hit harder by the tummy bug so we are just giving him a couple more days to gain a bit more weight before he has his on Sat (his new owner is already aware of this). Unlike puppies you just can't contain kittens, so we have kittens everywhere at the moment.

Despite my best efforts Graham does not want any more cats at the moment (he is probably right) so reluctantly I am now looking for a home for Sybils chocolate torti girl.



Rhonda is feeling a little sorry for herself at the moment, she was spayed on Tuesday. All went well and she is now quite put out that she is missing out on her walks. 

I have to admit that I am looking forward to Colin going to his new home next week, him and Spirit are best buddies and play loudly. He is a very confident young man and I hope his new owners will have great fun with him, I really want to be able to get Spitit tuned into me and although we are doing well with her training it will be easier without another pup distracting us, this is why I don't generally sell two pups together. Both he and Spirit will be having their first vaccinations next week. By leaving it until they are 12 weeks old it should mean they will only need one shot, Spirit will be titre tested to check this.

Kitten update

Well, we've had a couple of weeks of poo! Sybil and Miss T both got upset tums which they then passed on to their kittens, at one point all I seemed to be doing was cleaning litter trays. 5 of the kittens lost weight during this period, but thankfully, following lots of tlc, all are now well on the road to recovery and are re gaining the weight they lost and are playing hard, although I have to say I am still  a little bit over keen to check the trays whenever I hear a kitten in it.

Helen, I have mislaid your phone number again, but the red boy that you wanted has your name on him:-)

Jenny, you can probably tell from the picture that your little girl escaped the tummy bug!

The little chocolate torti girl may well be available, depending on whether or not I can persuade Graham that we really do need another cat, I have wanted a Sybil baby for a long time and as this one is not related to Manuel she would be ideal. Off to cook him something special now :-)

Audreys 1st Agility Lesson

After a break of several years, I have at last found a local agility club. Tonight was our first lesson, it was very simple but is hopefully the start of a good grounding in the sport. We both enjoyed it and are looking forward to next week:-)

Home Alone (apart from all the other dogs and cats)

Out of Dillis five pups, four have now left to start their lives in a new home, so we have one little boy who is 'home alone'. He is a lovely little character who enjoys a fuss and a cuddle but who is also quite prepared to play with my standard pup who must be at least six times bigger than he is. He was 8 weeks old on Tuesday so is the perfect age to go to his new home, he is not show quality but has all the qualities he needs to make a fantastic loving pet. As always there are more photos on flickr.com. Update - this lucky boy is off to Guernsey in a couple of weeks. My plan to take over the Channel Islands with toy poodles is working as one of his brothers is already in Jersey :-) lol.

All the kittens now have homes waiting for them, except for one of Tibb's blue boys.