When you have clever friends

 Further to the pictures I posted last week, Mark Hicks has sent me a montage of photos/video from the day (which he does professionally too).  

Life goes on

 Whilst I am still very upset about the loss of Florins puppies the dogs live very much for the moment and their needs have to be met. We were lucky enough to be invited to walk with friends who have 2 Itzapromise poodles during their weeks holiday in Devon. What was meant to be a stroll along the beach ended up as a 12 mile walk :) 

Florin

 Today I should have been announcing the birth of Florins puppies, instead I find myself mourning 4 babies who made it all the way through pregnancy only to fall at the last hurdle. Florin is stressed but physically fine. Not only am I very upset for Florin and myself, I'm also upset for those families who have waited so long for these puppies. Florin was checked by the vet this morning and there is no reason to suspect that this will happen again, so assuming all is well on her next season, we will try again. 

Bernards babies

 Well, they were a bit later than expected and numbers are not what her figure indicated, but Bernard has 2 beautiful kittens. She went into labour in the early hours this morning, the 1st kitten, a red, was born at about 4:45, the 2nd, a black, was born shortly afterwards but was unfortunately stillborn. The 3rd kitten, another black, arrived at around 6am and Bernard immediately settled and showed no signs of further pushing, but because of her size I was pretty sure there were more to come. I gave her about 4 hours (would have not waited as long had she been actively pushing or in any sort of distress) then phoned my vets who advised I pop her in for a check. They agreed that she certainly looked like she wasn't done, but a couple of quick xrays (she was such a good girl, didn't need any sedative) showed that she is in fact in serious need of weight watchers!

A couple of quick pictures, I will take better photos in a few days when Bernard has had a chance to recover from giving birth/visiting vets. They are huge strong kittens and both are suckling well :) 

Waiting game

 I am delighted to announce that Florence is definitely pregnant. She's not huge so I think it may be quite a small litter, but we won't know that for a few more weeks :) 

Bernard on the other hand is huge and is looking particularly glamorous 😂 , her kittens are due any time now, so watch this space for updates!

Not much doubt this time

 Bernard is now 7 weeks pregnant, she looks like she has several buns in the oven :) 

Florin has been mated so we are now waiting to see. 

The dogs have been spoilt for walks this month. I have found several extensions to our regular walk so we have averaged 6/7 miles a day and have also managed several walks that have been 8- 12 miles long. At long last the stay local restrictions have been lifted so we were able to meet with a friend for a beach walk on Monday, it was so good to get on the sand again. All the dogs had a blast and I had ice cream so everybody was happy :) 

On a different walk we met up with a friend who was walking a great dane puppy, she is always being asked where its saddle is, so when we passed this cart on the old granite tramway we couldn't resist setting up a photo of the dane pulling the poodles :) 

At last

 Spring is in the air, and 10 months after their last seasons the girls have finally come into season. Fingers crossed for positive news in weeks to come. Pics of Florin from the last few months.