06 January 2011

I have been quite ill with flu so haven't updated the blog for a few days. The puppies have now moved down stairs into a pen in the living room where they can get used to household noises and meet the other dogs.

They have started on solid food but are not eating a huge amount as Daisy is still feeding them quite a lot. She seems to be managing 4 puppies better than 6. They like toddling round the living room and love to meet the other dogs, especially daddy Milo. He thinks they are great fun too.

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.