27 December 2010

7he Boston Babies are 2 weeks old today. The time goes so quickly. They all have their eyes open and are starting to get up on their legs now. They move about a lot and I have had to put up a barrier to keep them in the crate now as they can get out. I will move them down stairs to the bigger pen some time this week.
Daisy is still feeding them and they are very solid chunky puppies they all weigh about 750m grams each. James was the smallest but he is now the biggest. Daisy is eating much better this time than when she had her last litter.She is still thin but thankfully not suffering from the calcium deficiency this time. She is eating about 1.5 pounds of chicken a day which is a lot for a dog that only weighs 14lbs.

Jingle


















Belle











Jesse












James

25 December 2010 - Christmas day

Christmas day. Now the children have all left home apart from Robin things are much quieter on Christmas morning. As Robin was still asleep I took the dogs for a walk as soon as I got up. then when we got back it was time to open the presents.















All the dogs had a new squeaky toy and a back of treats. They all managed to open their presents. Then things got a little noisy as they all walked round squeaking their toys until Casey managed to de-squeak his and then tried to steal the others. I put the toys away so we could have a bit of peace.



















For breakfast the big dogs had a turkey wing each and some of their treats. TheBostons had a bit of turky neck so no-one missed out on Christmas dinner apart from the baby Bostons who just had milk.

22nd December 2010

The puppies are doing very well. They are feeding well and putting weight on regularly. They doubled their birth weight today. They are very active strong puppies. Daisy is looking after them very well and is eating much better than when she had her last litter. I am hopeful she won't suffer from a recurrence of the calcium deficiency she had last time. She is obviously feeling much better after her cesarean as she keeps demanding I get her favourite toy out and play with her , but I am very mean and refuse as it would strain her stitches too much to be playing tuggy so soon after an operation.

Jingle



















Belle














Jesse













James

14 December 2010

I haven't posted for some time but thought it was time for a catch up.
Many things have changed since I last posted, the main one is that Saffy no longer lives here. I had been having increasing problems with her dislike of living with other bitches and she turned against Ruby and would attack her on sight.

It was proving very stressful having to keep them separate all the time so eventually had to make the heartbreaking decision to look for a new home for Saffy. She could have gone back to her breeder Jan but as Jan has lots of dogs I thought is would be better to find her a home where she could be an only dog, so in mid October Saffy moved to Norfolk to live with Gareth and Bobbie. She has settled in very well and is obviously loving being an only dog.

While we were having to deal with keeping Saffy and Ruby separate Daisy also came into season and it became clear recently that somewhere our system of keeping all the various dogs separate there had been a miscalculation. At the end of November I noticed Daisy was getting fatter. A quick trip to the vets confirmed my worst fears Daisy was pregnant. Thankfully (?) with the size difference the only possible father could be Milo but it was still a shock as I didn't want to breed from Daisy at the moment. I was also very worried about the pups as Daisy had been going to agility, competing in competitions and playing wildly with her toys. Not things I would usually do with a pregnant girl.

Another problem was not knowing when the pups were due. The vet scanned her and said she was at least 6 weeks which meant that she almost certainly caught right at the end of her season.
Things started happening on Sunday but no puppies arrived until 5:30 Monday morning when a little girl arrived, then at 8:00 a very big boy who got very stuck and when I finally got him out I was unable to get him breathing. Next at 11:00 came another boy. No problem this time thankfully. Unfortunately after this things ground to a halt so at 2:00 it was off to the vets for an oxytocin injection. This failed to get things moving and the vet said there was a puppy stuck so the only alternative was a cesarean. Thankfully the vet was bale to get both remaining puppies out and the stuck one was still alive so we now have 4 puppies 3 girls and a boy.

18 August 2010

Friday 13th certainly lived up to its reputation as Ruby badly cut her paw when out for a walk. I noticed her limping and when I checked there was a lot of blood.
Unfortunately we were due to go to the Working Belgian Shepherd Society agility show that night and this meant she would not be able to compete.
Much to her disgust I decided to leave her at home and not even take her with us in the caravan as I know she would not rest if she was at an agility show, sore paw or no sore paw.

When we got to the show it was raining quite heavily but I managed to get the caravan set up without too many problems. Unfortunately the rain carried on to the following morning and I had to run the first couple of classes in the rain. daisy did really well in her first jumping class going clear. although a couple of handling errors by me meant our time wasn't fast enough for a place.

Saffy also had a very good day getting 2 clear rounds in jumping and agility and also coming fourth in her agility class. She was also best BSD in 3 of her classes.

Sunday was not quite so successful. Saffy ran two very nice agility rounds but just missed her A frame contact in both of them. A real shame as she was much faster than the winning dog so would have won if she had got them.

Daisy had a mad moment in her agility class and ran over to the pole picker and then the judgeto see if they would make a fuss of her. She loves people and finds it hard to ignore them. Hopefully as she gets more experienced she will learn to wait until she has finished her runs to speak to people.

6th August 2010

I am back from a lovely 9 days away staying in my caravan with the dogs. We went to the Adams Agility show, then stayed on the site until the Derbyshire Agility show the following weekend. Ruby did very well at both shows getting numerous clear rounds.

Finally Saffy has managed to get a couple of clear rounds too. One in a pay on the day class and one in a jumping class so she has actually got a point in her agility record book. Only 199 to go to get her Bronze agility warrant!













The venue was a lovely place with lots of space for the dogs to run and play





























In the week there were some fun games to do and training too. Saffy did really well winning the tennis ball dunking game, getting 6 tennis balls out of a bucket of water in just 17 seconds. She also had a go at the the teddy bear rescue where they dogs had to retrieve teddies from a square. At first she seemed to think she was doing a scent exercise but then got the idea and brought them all back.

Lily entered her very first agility competition. A fun class consisting of just jumps and tunnels. We did the anysize class with low jumps and much to my surprise she won it. She was delighted with the squeaky toy that was her prize.
Daisy was entered in several classes and did really well getting mostly clear rounds, although she did disgrace herself in one class by running up to the pole picker and trying to get him to stroke her.

On Saturday as a break from agility we went along to the BSDA Championship show which was being held just down the road.
Lily came second in Junior which was very good as she is such a baby, only just out of puppy.
Ruby did really well winning Limit, and then went on to come second in the obedience.



















Unfortunately I made a mistake with the entries so Saffy wasn't entered in the obedience.

21st July 2010

Today is Lily's first birthday. It is amazing how quickly they year has gone.
We started agility last night and once she settled into the class she did very well. She happily jumped the jumps and was really good at following my body language . She wasn't sure about the A Frame but I am sure she will soon get the hang of it.

Rosie and Lily playing

18 July 2010

Saturday was National Working and Pastoral breeds show. This was Lily's last show as a puppy as she is one on Wednesday. She did really well winning best puppy in breed.














Gordon has now left home and gone to seek his fortune in London, so it is getting much quieter here.



















Italy is still here at the moment and she is getting more like her mum every day














Here she is making sure that Splodge knows who is Boss.














Splodge has been rescued.

16th July 2010

Every morning I take Lily Daisy and Saffy up to the golf course for their walk. Once there we play ball. Well Saffy plays with her Frisbee and Lily and Daisy have their tennis balls. Both Daisy and Lily have their own personal tennis ball and will not fetch each others ball If they run to a ball and find it is not their ball then they just give me a filthy look and come back without the ball. Luckily they are pretty good at keeping track of which ball I am throwing.


















Saffy














Lily is very enthusiastic and hurls herself in the air to catch the ball while it is still in the air.

11th July

It is much quieter here now as some of the puppys have departed for new horizons. Maggie was the first to go, sailing off yesterday morning for the channel Islands. Gizmo has not gone quite so far, staying in the county. Bob came with us down to East of England show where he met up with his new owners and made his way back to Kent.
Milo was entered at the show and did very well, coming Second in Puppy dog in a large class. This qualifies him for Crufts next year.















Italy posing on the wall. Ears well on the way up.



















Gordon and Splodge, Gordons ears are almost up now too












Splodge is too big to use the baby step now.



















Gordon finds the flags nice and cool.

07 July 2010

Maggie is the first puppy to put her ears up

































Bob and Milo having an afternoon nap















Bob and Lil















Naughty puppies. I am getting down low to take a picture and Maggie Bob and Gordon think the camera strap makes a good toy.

4th July 2010

This weekend I have been away in the caravan to Dashing Dogs agility show leaving Robin and Ashleigh looking after the babies.
Saturday was not very successful as although Ruby ran well, silly errors on my part meant we got eliminated twice. We did get an eight place our Agility class though.

Sunday was much better as I really made an effort to handle properly and it really paid off as we WON our first class of the day, Grade 1 agility. This now means we are now grade 2.















Ruby also got a clear round in her jumping and a 6th place in the combined 1-2 Agility so we had a really good day.

Ruby does like her agility but what she likes most in the world is playing in the garden with her sticks and as you can see from her photo the first thing she did when she got home was go outside to check they were still where she had left them.

02 July 2010

Puppys teaching Robin to Dance!
















Maggie wants Uncle Milo's ball














The don't play all the time. Gordon having 40 winks under the chair















Bostons do like their comfort and prefer to sleep on a piece of vet bed rather than the cold hard floor















Italy snoozing in solitary splendour

30 June 2010

New pictures of all the puppies

Splodge. He is the biggest puppy















Maggie who is the smallest




















Italy















Gordon

















Gizmo
















Bob