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You know how dogs seem to love eating grass. Well, they also love eating fermented grass. This evening the dogs decided that the grass clipping pile had just reached the right fermentation and the dirty beggars have dug into the pile (as they have done before) to get to the grass that is at just the right fermented level for them, which also happens to have the stench of cow shit. So they stink. I've seen dogs happily eat Silage on farms and tomorrow I won't have dogs rough scatting the place, it actually causes the opposite effect in dogs and I will find lovely firm very dark green stools. It don't seem to do them any harm, other than them being rather fragrant smelling. The photos are of some of the pack with tell tale fermented grass stained faces, unashamed of their fermented grass eating habit.
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The photos are of Henry showing total submission. He knows he is somewhere that he is rarely allowed to be and not sure he should be there. The inner sanctum of our home the bedroom, or to Henry where the leaders of the pack sleep on an amazingly big luxury dog bed. I had just been putting some laundry away and had seen Henry sitting patiently at the threshold of the hallway (as someone had left the door open), awaiting my return. So I gestured for him to come forward and we stole a moment of rest together. Thomas caught the moment, as he was just passing with his camera to go outside and take some photos. Over at the gold mine for Cavalier health research Cavalierhealth.org they bring us conflicting veterinary views on when pimodendan aka vetmedin should be given to a dog with Mitrial Valve Degeneration (MVD). First we have Cardiologist Philip Fox claiming EPIC Study makes echocardiography optional in prescribing pimobendan before heart failure. "In a Fall 2016 newsletter column, USA veterinary cardiologist Dr. Philip Fox (right) asserts that in determining when to start administering pimobendan to MVD-affected dogs under the EPIC Study, either x-rays orechocardiography may be used. Specifically, he writes: The editor of Cavalierhealth.org notes that their greatest fear has happened after the EPIC Study report "There you have it. Our greatest fear about the terribly flawed EPIC Study report is that it would encourage veterinarians to skip echos entirely and diagnose heart enlargement solely based upon x-rays. (See our March 2017 blog article, "Will general practice vets cut corners to prematurely prescribe pimobendan to MVD-affected cavaliers?", for more details.)" But then Cardiologist Mark Rishniw says "Not so fast!" in prescribing pimobendan to all heart-enlarged MVD dogs. The editor of Cavalierhealth.org tells us that Cardiologist Mark Rishniw "questions the basis for the EPIC Study authors' optimism about starting all heart-enlarged MVD-affected dogs on pimobendan, regardless of the extent and/or rapidity of the enlargement. From the EPIC Study authors' viewpoint, he writes" "Essentially, the risk of developing Chronic Heart Failure (CHF) or dying was almost halved, regardless of how bad the dog’s disease was going into the study. On the face of it, this sounds great. Based on this information alone, every dog with MMVD and left atrial enlargement (correctly identified!) would benefit from pimobendan treatment. Not so fast! The decision to treat a dog requires additional information to be considered. First, the baseline risk of developing CHF needs to be determined, i.e., what is the chance that this dog will actually develop CHF at some point in the future?" (Emphasis added.) "He then takes into account the statistics from the study and asks this ultimate question:" "Is 'earlier' treatment better than 'later' treatment? The survival curves provide clues to this answer. ... Now, if there was a clear benefit of 'earlier' rather than 'later,' we might expect the survival curves to diverge, ie., continue to move further and further apart. But they don’t. For the majority of the study, they remain parallel. So, the benefit with more severely affected dogs is about 300 days, and the benefit with the least severely affected dogs is about 300 days. This suggests that taking the more measured approach of waiting until a dog exhibits evidence of disease progression before instituting therapy is not compromising that dog nor reducing the benefit of the drug. And, dogs that were never going to progress to more severe disease and never develop CHF would not be subjected to needless drug administration (and needless expenses)." (Emphasis added.) A significant number of Cavaliers that are diagnosed with a murmur do not progress to CHF and with suggesting as Cardiologist Phillip Fox does, that just an x-ray can be used for determining when to prescribe pimobendan with heart enlargement in all dogs, regardless of breed, using a VHS value of 10.5+, is a measurement so low that most Cavaliers that don't have MVD could be considered a candidate for being prescribed pimobendan. I think the more measured approach of Cardiologist Mark Rishniw of the dog exhibiting evidence of disease progression, which "is not compromising that dog nor reducing the benefit of the drugs" is certainly a better option than dogs being "subjected to needless drug administration (and needless expense)."
for laundry the bane of my life Sisters Blottie and Bumble Sasha shows us in this video that she is certainly Henry's daughter.
 The only ever litter I have bred that was all the same sex, four little boys and also all born backwards. Penny Two who was tricoloured was their Mum, with the Dad being also tricoloured and was a dog owned by a local breeder of Cavaliers. This photo is from around 1996. The Blenheim in the photo with them is their Grandmother Lucy.  This photo is of me with three of our Cavaliers back in around 1989. From left to right is Jemima (Blenheim), Baldrick (black and tan) and Penny One (tricoloured). Jemima was the Great Grandmother of the four tricoloured boys in the first photo.  Smidge at 13 yrs old And in the first photo, the tricoloured pup on the left of the photo was my handsome old boy Smidge who I lost in a Tragic accident in 2010. His life can be read about on the page In Loving Memory. Just over a year later I would also lose is best mate Pupster, to cancer at the shamefully young age of only 7 years old Yes, you were only a dog ! Once they touch your life, I promise you they never leave you.
and her new place to stash chewsBlottie has decided her new found sleeping place, is also a good place to stash chews.
Our son Thomas decides to eat his lunch (a Marmite sandwich) sitting under the Willow tree and attracts rather a crowd.
Just found these rather cute photos of Bertha on the memory of a camera. Taken on the 19th October 2016, so she is about 3 months old.  From left to right on my lap: Bumble, Ernest and Blottie, who I have just booked in for their MRI scans at The Downs Veterinary Practice in Bristol under the BVA - CM / SM scheme. Booked in for the beginning of August, as the two youngest are broken up from school for the Summer then, so I can get someone else in to look after the rest of the pack, and use the time waiting to pick the dogs up after being anesthetized to be scanned, for some time out with the family.
I was striking whilst the iron was hot, and rung the other veterinary surgery that is local that the Cardiologist vet does clinics at to get their heart examinations booked, but the nurse who handles the booking of those clinics is not in until next Tuesday. So we start the road to the next step in breeding of The POUNDLANE Spaniel.  Henry sits in front of the potted plants I put up and do for my Mum.
Blottie and Bumble are now both two years old and are from our first Brittany/Cavalier litter Smudge has nine little Hudges. We just need to get them MRI scanned and Cardiologist heart examined, along with Ernest, who we hope to be the Dad of their litters. All going well, there next heat we will breed from them. They will be due on heat again October/November. I'm hoping they might hang on coming on heat a couple months later, but they both seem to travel on around 7 months between heats . If we wait for their first heat 2018 this may not be until May/June, which will be getting a bit late in the year. So there is a slight chance that we could have a litter born just in the end of 2017. We will be putting are Ernest who we bred last year (Thankfully all is safe) to them, and we have had to really think about this, as Ernest will not be 2.5 years old, as recommended in the MVD protocol for breeding Cavaliers. We had thought about putting our Brittany/Cavalier girls back to a pure Cavalier this time, maybe using this offspring with Ernest in the future, but I feel we have to be careful in keeping as much length of cranium and muzzle with each pairing. We could of just done with breeding Ernest a year earlier, but knowing the heart history of his parents and Grandparents, and this will only be two litters (we are not studding him out producing multiple litters), as we will not use him again then (All going well with his first litters) until he is nearly 3 years old. So late this year or the beginning of next, we should hopefully have our first litter 5/8 Cavalier, 2/8 Brittany and 1/8 Poodle pups or you could say 7/8 Spaniel, 1/8 Poodle pups.  Ernest  As I tell my children, "It's the thick educated beggars that you got to watch out for."
 Lily squeezes in behind me whilst I'm on the computer |
“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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