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 :-).

Playtime

A little clip showing Sophie and Cally, two of Dollars girls, when they met up a couple of weeks ago, a good time was obviously had by all. Thank you to their families for sending the pictures/video it is always nice to get the occasional update and photos/video are even better :-)

Frankie update and Congrats to Galax

Frankie had her follow up eye check today, the news was as good as we could have hoped for. The vet confirmed what we thought/hoped, that as Frankie has grown the cataracts have remaind stable. This means that although her vision is very poor, she can see something around the cataracts (they cover 80% of the lens). I have to be very aware of any eye infections that she may pick up, but other than that she can carry on living a relatively normal life.

Although surgery would still be a dramatic improvement for her (her retina has developed normally and surgery should restore her vision) and obviously something I will hope to acheive should the funds become available, the vet followed this up by assuring me that she will still enjoy a good quality of life without the surgery. He also commented, on several occassions through the consult, about how well adjusted and confident she was, which is always good to hear. I am still hoping that the right home will be found for her.

I had some very nice news form Monica regarding Galax who attended his first show last weekend, with Monicas older silver bitch,Tiana, who judging by her rosette also did well. Although this was a low key affair as he is still only a baby of 4 months, he got some very nice critiques on the 1st day of the show and then on the 2nd day he got best opposite sex puppy, a real acheivement especially considering he was 2 months younger than some of the dogs he was competing against. CONGRATULATIONS to you both.

Lilly and Libby pairs

This is a clip of Lilly and Libby competing in a pairs competition. Pairs can be quite a high pressure event because if you make a mistake but your partner does a good round you have spoilt it for both of you. Fortunately Rosie and I have been best friends for many years and any mistakes were just a reason for a bit of light hearted name calling, on this occassion it was me and Lilly that got it wrong.
Although they were both std poodles, their attitude to agility was quite different.Llibby was a very good dog but much harder to motivate than Lilly, Rosie really had to work to get the best from Libby (which she did). I was so lucky with Lilly, all she wanted to do was please me and would give her all every time. This certainly didn't make her a perfect agility dog but it did make my life easy, she always put a smile on my face and now watching this she puts both a smile on my face and a tear in my eye :-)
Libby is Audreys auntie. She was one of the best natured dogs I have ever had the pleasure of knowing and it was her that made me want an apricot poodle. Lilly and Libby were born 3 weeks apart and both lived to see their 15th birthdays.

Lillys last show

As the title says, this was to be Lillys last show as my then husband, Mark, died shortly after which put an end to my agility. Lilly was such a special girl and although I love all my dogs, she will always have a very special place in my heart. Lilly was over 15 years old when she was put to sleep (respiratory problems) and right to the end she remained a loyal, fun loving dog who would still chase deer when we were out walking. She was my first home bred dog and the start of the Itzapromise gang.

Lilly in slow motion

This shows Lilly working at novice level, she was at the time one of the best std poodles competing in agility, she always drew a crowd. The second part of this clip shows her doing the same round in slow motion. This shows the amount of drive she had and how much work she put in to please me, I think it also shows the amount of stresses the sport puts on a dog and why it is so important not to do too much too soon and that your dog should be very fit and not carrying any excess weight (unlike me at the time, I did go on to loose 8 1/2 stone in a year and have kept nearly all of it off for 9 years :-)). Watching these videos now make me realise how much I miss it, perhaps I will find the time and money soon and have a go with Audrey and Dilli as I think they both have the right attitude.

Daphne

This is Daphne. She was my first toy poodle and is Bettys mum. She was a lovely example of the breed and won alot of people over to the breed. She was never going to set the world alight with her agility, especially as she was so small the canvas tunnels were too heavy for her to push through easily, but we had fun together, and I think that is how it should be.

Lilly in starters agility

This was Lilly right at the start of her agility career, she was a fantastic dog who always gave everything she had for me. She loved agility although she was hard work to train, she had a typical poodle stubborn streak when it suited her, but once she got it everything was fun! You may notice she barks all the way round, just so she had the last word :-)

Rosie and I spent 2 days working out how to transfer the old video images that she had put on DVD onto my pc so that we could edit it (which turned out to be extreemly simple once she found the right program). I would like to thank her for her refusal not to give in when I was all for throwing the computer out of the window!!!!

New camera and new cat

Got my new camera today (late birthday present) so will be out taking lots of superb pictures :-). Also have a gorgeous new cat, well gorgeous may not be everyones 1st thought but we think he is. He is a blue tabby sphynx called Gary-baldi. What he lacks in fur he more than makes up for in purrsonality. He joined our madhouse on Thursday and fits in beautifully, he will hopefully be the start of a very limited sphynx breeding program in the future.

Meanwhile Frankie and Dorothy continue to be best friends.

Frankie and friends

Just a quick bit of video showing the girls out on a walk and how Frankie copes when out and about

A very big ask

This is a very difficult post for me to write, the time has come to start to look for a permenant home for Frankie. She needs a home where someone will have plenty of time for her, coupled with a good level of experience in bringing on puppies, ideally they will have 1 or 2 sensible dogs to give her some canine company and the icing on the cake would be to find someone who has the money to have her eyes operated on in the next couple of months, which will restore her sight, something that is totally out of reach for me at the moment as through no fault of his own Graham has been out of work for a few months.

I had hoped to be able to keep her myself for a bit lomger, but my problem is, the longer she stays the more I am falling for her and I am finding the thought of letting her go is getting harder and harder but I still believe she would do better in a home with less dogs.

She is a beautiful, happy girl who in many ways reminds me of Audrey. Her tail wags all the time and she smiles! She has a good recall, she knows sit and down although wait and stay are proving to be a bit harder for her. She walks on the lead in a confident manner and is not bothered by heavy traffic. She doesn't spook at things when we are out although she is quiet when we meet strangers, she is happy off the lead and enjoys walks. She will need to be groomed by a patient yet competent groomer as she does not like the clippers on her face.

I wasn't planning on keeping any more dogs this year :-)

But when you have animals things never seem to go quite according to plan! So I now have Frankie and yesterday I collected Dorothy (Dotty for short). Dotty is probably the best toy parti poodle that I have come accross (though in fairness I haven't met that many). She is an extreemly well put together puppy and to cap it all she is bold as brass.

She and Frankie are playing non stop and although, to my knowledge, she has never met any dogs other than toy poodles she strutted in like she had been here all her life. I think we are going to have lots of fun with this little lady. The pictures are not great because she doesn't stay still!

And then there were two

Sunday, Galax had his health check, prior to flying on Monday, which he sailed through. That was the easy part for him, we then drove down to Sunbury to spend the night at my friends' Rosie in preparation for getting him to Heathrow for 7:15am. Poor boy was terribly car sick all the way, he picked up pretty quickly once we arrived but didn't gancy his dinner. The following morning he was keen for his breakfast which he had at 6am in the hope it would be digested by the time he flew (10:20am).He managed the car journey to the airport without incadent which was a relief, but unfortunatly the plane journey was just too much! But hopefuly he is now feeling much better as he settles into his new life with Monica in Norway.

Remy also came with us for the journey as he has board and lodging with another friend who is going to be flying to Canada with him in a few weeks, I have to say it was much easier leaving Remy in a nice home than Galax in a crate in a warehouse type building (the staff were very reassuring that he would be well looked after).

So now the house is a lot quieter, just Super Duper Dave and Frankie and come the weekend if all goes well it will just be Frankie as Dave is practicing his bagpipes as we speak in preparation to his new life in Scotland. They are both booked in for their 1st vaccinations on Thursday and then Frankie will be attending her 1st puppy class in the evening. If I can find someone to accompany us I will try to get a bit of video then. She has done a bit more lead work today, she has learnt to keep her nose to the back of my legs and trots along very confidently, I am looking forward to being able to take her out more once she has had a jab. Despite having a couple of lovely offers of homes, I have decided to keep her for a couple of months until I am happy that she is well enough socialised to cope with a new environment, I still hope to re home her as I still feel that she will benifit from a less doggy home where she isn't one of a pack. Having said that, when you look at the photos of her charging around the garden (1st time in that area) I would be very surprised if anyone thought they were looking at a blind pup!  I don't know why the text has suddenly changed colour and is underlined?

All Clear

The apricot pups had their follow up appointments with the eye specialist today and were given the all clear to go to their new homes :-). All the silver pups except Galax, who is off to Norway on Monday, are now enjoying life with their new families and today 2 of the apricot girls went off to pastures new.

2 of the apricot boys are still waiting for a home of their own, Super Duper Dave(a real character) and Vinnie (a complete thug, in the nicest possible way!). They are in the centre of the photo below.

Frankie continues to impress me. She had her 1st outing yesterday, to the hairdressers. She quite happily sat on my knee admist all the hustle and bustle, she wasn't at all worried by the noise of the hairdryers. Obviously she caused a lot of attention - well she is beautiful, and whilst she didn't back away from anything she was a little reserved when strangers approached. However once we got outside I popped a lead on her (1st time) and walked down the High Street. She was a little star and trotted on quite confidently, not at all bothered by any of the heavy traffic, and when people approached her she responded by wagging her tail. The only special guidance I gave her was to let her know when she had to go up or down a kerb. I have now ordered her a T shirt advising people that she is blind. Picture below shows Sahara, just before leaving today, and Frankie insisting she is centre of attention.

I have had a suggestion for my website that I have a page where I can post pictures and information of pups and their owners, this will allow those who want to see how their pups siblings are progressing and possibly contact other owners. If you have a pup I would be interested on your views and if you are in favour perhaps you could send me a photo with any information/contact details that you feel is appropriate.

Swings and roundabouts

The pups are becoming more and more of a handful, despite the fact that 6 silvers have gone to their new homes we still have a lot of puppies. All the silvers now have homes, but we now have 2/3 apricot boys that have become re available, these boys all have very strong chatacters and will make great companions (They love a cuddle as well, as you can see in the pictures). All the apricot pups are due to be seen by the eye specialist on 02.09.2010 and hopefully they will be given the all clear to go to their new homes then.

The pups may look a little bedraggled in some of the pictures, this is due to the persistant rain we have had, I think if they stay here much longer they will develop flippers!!  Monica - you should be able to identufy Galax in the photos soon, as he should be the only silver here after the weekend:-).

FrankieMy Movie (4)

Sat here studying the pups so thought the sensible thing would be to keep a video record of how Frankie copes in various situations.So this is the start of it, slightly off topic but I need to get Rosie down to work out why the colour is so poor on my films as some of the pups are a really rich colour and they all have a washed out appearance in these shots. I am going to start getting Frankie out and about as soon as possible and I need to find a puppy class that has experience of disabled pups. I am also going to see if I can get her some sort of tabbard made up advising people that she is blind and to talk to her before touching. Anyway, sorry if this is a bit rambling, it's just me sort of talking to myself.

Frankie

Frankie is one of Rhondas pups, she has unfortunately developed cataracts and is now blind (these are NOT hereditary cataracts).He thinks it likely that Rhonda had a viral infection during pregnancy that has caused this problem. I can't begin to describe how upsetting this has been. This happened very quickly and all the other pups have been seen by an eye specialist and will be checked again in 2 weeks time. Frankie - so named after ol'blue eyes Frank Sianatra, is coping remarkably well. When she is with her littermates you would be hard pushed to see any problem but once she is on her own she does bump into things a bit more. She is however a remarkably confident, happy and loving pup therefore I feel she deserves a chance at life.

The eye specialist feels she is a good candidate for surgery once she is a bit bigger, but at a cost approaching £3000 this is going to require some serious saving and may well take a long time before we can look at going down this route.

Ideally I would like to find a very special home for this pup, she should live a pretty normal life but obviously there are many considerations to take account of when caring for a blind pup. Until the right home can be found she will be part of our family and if necessary she will stay here, although I feel she would be better placed in a household with less dogs.

The first of Dollars pups, now known as Cally has gone to her new home, she is going to be a very spoilt puppy, lucky girl. 2 of her brothers are still waiting to find somebody to love.

All the pups were microchipped on Weds, they travelled very well, only a couple were sick on the journey - though they managed to ensure they shared it with every pup in the van :-)  Not one puppy made a sound when they were chipped, a credit to Emmas chipping technique.

Apricot Puppies

Please could anyone that has booked an apricot puppy contact me asap, sorry but I can't find phone numbers for everyone.

pups at 7 weeks

Well this is probably the last video I will do of all the pups together. As can be seen they are all happy confident little babies bursting with energy and looking for a fuss.

Countdown!

There's no denying it, I'm tired (you would be surprized how many corrections I've had to make to this writing already). 16 pups are starting to take their toll I think I am lucky to get 5 hrs sleep a night at the moment, and of course, like children they wake up loud and bouncy at the crack of dawn :-).

They are both lovely litters and in all honesty apart from being a bit on the noisy side, they have been easy. Although some are more pushy than others none are shy. They are all eating really well - going through about 5kgs of meat a day, and other from slightly loose tummies at the start of weaning they have done really well on their raw meat diet. They are off to the vets on Weds to be microchipped, that could be fun taking 16 pups on their 1st journey, must remember to take planty of kitchen towel!

The first babies leave home on next Saturday (21.08) and the majority will follow fairly quickly. The 2 pups that are flying to their new homes will be staying with me until the 1st week of September. I now have just 1 apricot boy and 2 silver boys waiting to find someone to love.

It's getting harder to get nice pictures as the pups get faster and every time you get down to their level to get a shot, they mug you. Will get the video camera out this weekend as I don't think we have any visitors due (unless of course someone wants to meet the remaining pups) as video still takes me considerably longer to do than stills.

Charlie came to tea.

Charlie, the apricot pups big brother, brought his owners Thorsten and Ciel over for a bit of puppy cuddling this afternoon. I couldn't believe how big he has turned out, he stands a good 2 or 3 inches taller than Rhonda and Audrey. He was very well behaved and tolerated the pups very well, it is interesting that there is little or no interest between my girls and Charlie. My daughter and Charlie had great fun with the cat tickling stick.

I have also put in a picture of Sybil, I think she deserves the title of most tolerant cat on the planet. Speaking of Sybil, I am pleased to say all her kittens have now found loving homes.

With regard to pup availability, I have 1apricot boy available, poss 1 apricot girl and 3 silver boys.