Morse

Since just before the girls had their last seasons there has been a growing tension between Cash and Morse, there have not been any fights or spats but there has been a lot of posturing and Cashes behaviour towards Morse had become intimidating (despite Cash being a complete ponce in all other respects and half the size of Morse). So after much agonising we made the decision that should the right home be offered we would let Morse go.

This is not a hastily made decision, and whilst I know a lot of people in multi dog situations will persevere and separate dogs at all time this is not a route that sits well with me, my dogs must be happy in their home, tension does not make for relaxed dogs and the dogs welfare must take precedence over my emotions.

The right home was offered several weeks ago and at the beginning of last week Morse went to his new home, just up the road from us, in Brixham. He is now living the dream, allowed on furniture and sleeping on the bed, and he gets to share this luxury with one of his sons, and as if that wasn't enough, he lives within walking distance of the coast so he gets fab walks every day.

The transition is going to take a little while, he and his son have had to work out some personal space issues, but this is going well and there is no reason to suppose that they won't be best buddies in the not too distant future. Morse is understandably feeling a bit insecure and is currently quite clingy, but again this should almost certainly resolve itself with correct handling and time.

As I consider Morse to be an important addition to the UK poodle gene pool, he will remain entire and I still plan to have a repeat mating with him and Spirit in the next few months.

Enjoy your new life Morse, my big black muppet.

Happy family

Tibbs and her kittens have settled beautifully. We have a lilac girl, a blue boy and a blue girl. At the moment I am planning on keeping the blue boy, the other two are available. Here are a couple of pics taken this morning.

As a follow up to yesterdays post, Eliza has been diagnosed with a stress fracture in one of her toes. All being well it should sort itself out with rest and anti inflammatories.

Not quite as planned.

Tibbs was due to have her kittens a day or two ago, but having said that it is not uncommon for a cat to go a little past their due date. Unfortunately I had a course to attend today but left Graham in charge with strict instructions to watch Tibbs and if necessary put her in the kittening pen and monitor her. Well, I came home at around 4pm, to find Graham trying to extract Tibbs and 3 very new born kittens from a brand new, formerly cream, scratch post. Other than being a little cold all 3 kittens were fortunately fine and they and Tibbs were moved to a more appropriate area.

After watching the new family for a few hours I wasn't comfortable that she had finished, so off we went for a quick xray just to be on the safe side, thankfully there were no kittens evident on the xray so we are now home where Tibbs is settling down with her new family.

This is a picture taken just after I got home, so bedding was still bloody from the babies, rest assured they now have a clean bed but I won't take any fresh pics until tomorrow as they have had more than enough disruption today. I can tell you that we have 2 blues and a lilac.

We are off to the vets again tomorrow as Eliza, who has had a fairly dramatic haircut, is absolutely hopping lame, so fingers crossed that we don't end up needing anything other than rest and pain relief.

And then there was one.

There has been a mass exodus, all the pups have set off on the 1st step of the rest of their lives except for little yellow collar who is waiting for her family to get back from their holiday and collect her on Tuesday. So far all the reports have been positive with the pups settling in pretty well. Some have had other Itzapromise poodles waiting to meet them in their new homes, others have an existing dog, and whilst this can be a little daunting for a new baby, once they have made friends it will be great for them to have a pal to show them the ropes. A couple get to be the one and only in their new families and of course these will enjoy being the complete centre of attention.

Here are a few pics of the pups taken in their last week with us.

And one of our lone, lonely loner, who now gets to fully integrate with the rest of the pack.

Just when you think it's all over for a little while, you realise that Miss Tibbs is expecting a litter. As she is now a middle aged lady this will likely be her final litter. We are hoping for kittens in about 10 days time :)