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A couple photos of Toby and his litter sister, Jessica taken today.  Toby
 Jessica
The end of last week I received a lovely update email. It was for Lucy who is now nearly 9 years old. We re-homed Lucy nearly three years ago. Lucy is on The Girls page, under 'The Old Girls.' We got her as an adult dog, as someone was advertising her to re-home. She settled right in with us and produced two lovely litters of Cavapoos easily and just as we started to do her health tests to bred her third and last litter Judith and Tony contacted us about having a puppy from her. They visited us and meet Lucy and Reggie, but Lucy on having her annual heart examination over 5 years old by a cardiologist vet was heard to have a murmur. I contacted Judith and Tony to tell them we would not breed from her again and what snowballed from that was they would be very interested in having Lucy. They had Cavaliers before and understood the heart issues. My main reason for re-homing Lucy was that she had spent the early part of her life not living in a pack and although she fitted in well I thought she would probably be better suited to living out her adult into old age life in a home with less dogs. So nearly three years ago Lucy started her life with Judith and Tony.  Lucy nearly 9 years old "Hi Jane and the family It is time to give you an update on dear Lucy. She is just fine, full of beans - she will be 9 years old in June and has now been with us for 3 years. She loves her toys, as you well know, and continues to sneak off with them and pile them all together but never puts them back!! No amount of training will persuade her, just like a child. Unfortunately, we think she is deaf and we are not sure that it is selective hearing as we have carried out our little tests on her and the vet thinks the same. However, Lucy keeps an eye on us most of the time just in case there is food about as she cannot hear the kitchen noises anymore or the cake and biscuit tins being opened!! Now Tony is retired she does not get that 7.00 am walk before work as Tony sleeps in a bit later (why not?) but unfortunately we have a new alarm - Lucy continually barking just to let us know it is time to get up. At least I still get to have an early cuppa in bed
 The small parcel Judith and Tony sent us Thanks Judith and Tony. Really great to hear from you and that Lucy is so well. The parcel arrived yesterday and thank you for seeing the tea towel and thinking of us and then so kindly taking the time to post it to us. It certainly will see a lot of use.
 Reggie fast asleep
 Dolly with the blue mark on her foot being the colour of Terramycin spray Noticed a couple spots of blood on the floor in the kitchen and thought maybe another bitch on heat, but noticed Dolly not traveling 100% and took a look at her paw to see a bit of blood and on further investigation could see that somehow she has ripped her toenail out. So a clean out with a bit of hydrogen peroxide and a phone call to David, to ask if he could borrow a squirt of Terramycin Wound Spray from the farmer he works for. Terramycin is an antibiotic spray ideal for this type of wound. Here in the UK this spray is only available through your vet. All stock farmers will have a spray like this on their farm at all times for foot problems or minor wounds to animals. Comes in handy sometimes working for farmers.
 Blottie and Toby after their little hunt Mid morning I realized I had two dogs missing, Toby and Blottie. Blottie is certainly her mother and grandmother's daughter when it comes to tracking and a strong drive to hunt. Found the hole in the fence. I had to be in town for my Mum, so rang my husband, David at work and he said he could come home to start the search. I returned from town just after midday to search. David had just come back to base, because of the call of nature. I told him where I would start searching and poo pooed the notion of taking a mobile phone with me. I don't use a mobile phone, but after today I may concede to using one if dogs go off again, because David came out of the toilet after I had left, to then find Blottie and Toby had returned on their own steam. He then spent a hour and a half trying to find me. When he did eventually find me, I said, "You are good at tracking, if I was prey and you had, had a shotgun you would of had me." He replied, "Every time I kept hearing you calling the dogs and then me calling to you, and you did not hear and kept moving on. I wish I had, had a bloody shotgun." We both laughed, joined hands and walked the mile or so home together with a good colour to our cheeks.
 Blottie and Bumble sitting at the doorway to the igloo  Blottie and Toby This photo I got this morning is interesting to me, because you see Toby our tricoloured Cavalier boy stood with Blottie, one of the girls we kept from our Cavalier/Brittany litter born April 2015. Interesting as I look at it as a potential pairing in the future. My only concern is they share one slightly close ancestor.
One of Blottie's Great Grandfathers is the same as one Toby's Grandfathers. I know it is not that close a relationship and will probably bring more predictable type about in offspring. Pure breeders would laugh to think someone was being worried about breeding dogs this related (or they would consider this unrelated), but with health issues in the Cavalier I would be happier if the relationship was more distant and is why I'm looking at using Treacle (F1 Cavapoo) with Toby and hope we get something with the potential to use as an intermediary for these two. The Cavalier/Brittany cross makes a lovely spaniel dog, but I just want to get the size down a bit. Seeing Blottie and Toby together though, I do think they would make a handsome coupling and I'm very tempted, but lets see first what Toby's coupling with Treacle produces.
 Sweet beef curry Beef curry tonight, with beef from a big bit of brisket roasted by my husband, David a week ago Tuesday. We had a stew from it at the weekend and I went shopping today and replenished the rice jar, so we could have a sweet mild beef curry tonight. Keeping the curry mild means that the dogs can lick the plates off as they go in the dishwasher without me having to refill the water bowl out the back several times in the evening and then having to let them go out to wee twice as much as usual. This morning we had a pretty hard frost. A bit of cold bright dry weather has finally arrived. Which means the dogs run out and don't come back in leaving a trail of mud through the home. With the very wet weather I have had most days two loads of washing just from towels and bedding from the dogs, so it was lovely today to have dry almost mud free dogs. The photos below are the dogs enjoying the bright sunshine and dry weather this morning.  Our daughter Molly thought it funny on finding Dad's sunglasses to see what Toby looked like wearing sunglasses. So she got this photo of him on my lap looking like Toby Orbison.
 Bumble's Dad, Henry lying asleep with Bumble's sister, Blottie  Toby tries on a replica East German Guard's hat our oldest child bought this weekend from a local Army Surplus Store that is closing down.  Could not resist adding glasses, as Toby will happily wear them.
 Bumble looking like a Cuckoo with our two smallest Cavaliers Primrose and Jessica
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“The greatest pleasure of a dog is that you may make a fool of yourself with him, and not only will he not scold you,but he will make a fool of himself, too.”
― Samuel Butler 
Me (Jane) with Puddin' and Teagol, waiting patiently to flush a patch of kale, December 2019
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