Kenji has kittens

 Kenji's kittens have arrived after an easy labour and fairly quick delivery on Sunday morning (17.04.2023). She has 4 beautiful babies, 1st born was a tabby girl followed by a cream/colourpoint boy, then two blue torti girls. The tabby girl gave me slight cause for concern as after an initial good start with latching on she then slipped backwards a bit (with newborns this sort of slip can very quickly become life threatening) so later that evening I gave her a bottle feed which she was very keen for. I offered her feeds every couple of hours for the next 12 hours but by the following morning she had regained her vigour and was feeding well from her mum and was far less willing to take a supplementary feed so I stopped them. She made a good weight gain in that period going from 67gms to 74gms so I am happy that she is now thriving. There is some availability for these babies so please email or phone me directly rather than using the kitten application forms if you are interested in them.  Just a few quick phone pics of the kittens, I will take some better pictures in a few days. There will be lots of quick updates on facebook if you would like to follow their progress more closely. 

Communication problems, Crufts and kittens.

 I'm currently having problems with my email account (hopefully will be sorted shortly) but it transpires that not only am I not getting notifications to tell me that someone has completed a puppy/kitten application form, I am now unable to send or receive any emails. This is obviously very frustrating for me, but even more for anyone that thinks I am ignoring them. Please accept my apologies and if you have tried to contact me over the past couple of months, please try emailing me next week, contact my by pm on facebook or give me a ring :)

Last week was Crufts, those that know me know that showing is not my thing, but my dogs were represented by others with their offspring, both that I bred (or were sired by Cash) and the next generation down. The direct descendants achieved a 4th out of 10 dogs, a 5th out of 21 dogs and Florins older sister Margo came 4th in veteran and got her picture in the paper, again! Last time it was the Guardian, this time the Daily Mail.

In other news, Kenji is confirmed pregnant and should have her kittens in about 4 weeks time. There is likely to be some availability on this, the final Itzapromise litter of kittens for the foreseeable future, so give me a shout (tech problems allowing) if you would like to register interest.

No pups this time :(

 I haven't updated as I have been watching Florins tummy and hoping against hope that she had at least one pup in there (her nipples are big and her behaviour slightly different to normal), but I have now got to admit to myself that I think she is just having a mild phantom pregnancy. I am very disappointed as I had wanted to keep the bitch pup from her last litter, but as I knew Whoopi was only having one litter and Florin is able to have further litters I chose to keep Voodoo instead (no regrets there as she is just perfect and wicked). 

I don't know if the issue lies with Florin or the stud dog or is simply that the pair aren't suited to each other (sometimes fertility is non existent with a pair of dogs but when they are given different partners both parties have excellent fertility), so reluctantly I have decided to try a different dog on her next season. I am hoping to use a very nice white boy, but have yet to confirm this.

As there are no puppies on their way we will be having a litter of kittens instead, just waiting for Kenji to start calling and then she can spend a bit of time with Fawlty ;) 

 

The dogs have been enjoying some lovely walks whilst the ground was frozen and now that it has largely dried out and we managed a fab day in North Devon with a friend and her 5 standards a couple of weeks ago.

I have also been bugging a friend who knows Dartmoor like the back of his hand to take me on some hikes, done a couple now, the last one being 9 miles, and it is just wonderful to get out there again. I just take Voodoo with me as all my others cannot be trusted with sheep and the walk becomes stressful (with me constantly looking out for any white blobs on the horizon ) instead of pleasurable. No action shots as only take my phone with me :) 

Puppies, beach and Merry Christmas :)

 Yesterday, after thinking we were going to have to build an ark this week today we woke up to a beautiful sunny day. We were meant to be going on a walk with a friend in North Devon but as Florin is not long finished her season and the walk would have involved the dog she was mated to last week we decided that it might be best to postpone, so me and another friend went to Bigbury instead. Low tide was at 9am, which is when we arrived, fully expecting to have a good couple of hours before we had to worry about the tide coming in, wrong! We walked to one end of the beach, then started to stroll back intending to go past our start point and do the rest of the beach. About half way back we realised that the tide had actually come in far quicker than expected and although we had only been there about 90 minutes we were not going to be able to get back along the beach. So we headed back to the far end of the beach where we knew there was a public footpath, which we hoped would take us back to the coast road. Fortunately it did, so instead of our stroll along the beach we ended going up a very long and steep hill, through a golf course (bloody balls flying past us!) then through a sheep field, with 6 VERY alert dogs on very short leads, before eventually getting back to the car. At least it wasn't a boring walk, lol.

Last week Florin was mated, this is a repeat mating from 2021 and should give us a mix of blues, silvers and creams. Hopefully pregnancy will be confirmed early in the new year.

Which just leaves me to wish everyone a very merry Christmas and a happy new year x