Plan 'B'

Dime was ready to mate yesterday, so off we went, on a 550 mile round trip (thank goodness we didn't encounter the snow that is forecasted). The boy I had chosen was a 10 year old virgin, so we had pre empted possible problems and arranged for artificial insemination in case he didn't know what to do, which did indeed turn out to be the case. Not a problem you might think, we were in the right place, at the right time with an experienced vet, the only problem we had was that when his semen was evaluated it turned out that he had no viable sperm, so the whole mission had to be aborted.
This left me with 2 options, either leave her for this time (bearing in mind that she is now 6 and her litters have never been huge) whilst I look for another suitable dog, a task I have been trying to sort for over a year, or take her home and mate her to Cash. I went with option 2.

Cash was not my 1st choice for this mating, but this has nothing to do with his suitability as his previous litters with Dime have been wonderful pups that I am very proud of. The reason I wanted to go elsewhere this time was because I am a strong believer in trying to widen the gene pool in my breed and repeating a mating, even a good mating is not going to do that. But with the knowledge that Dimes mum didn't have puppies on her last mating I couldn't afford to risk losing the line by leaving it to late, so that is why I went ahead with a repeat mating. I am going to redouble my efforts to find a different boy and will attempt one last litter with Dime. That said, I have no doubt that this litter will contain puppies equally gorgeous as the previous matings have produced. Cash was as usual in full aren't I wonderful mode as he flirted with Dime!

Spirit was not quite ready so her mating should take place on Weds, her beau is a younger experienced boys, so we are not foreseeing any problems with this pairing :).