Optimus Prim and her Autopups, and I digress a little !

A bit of fun with two photo's of Primrose. One of our son's said, "Look Mum, Optimus Prim. Transformers doggies in disguise ! "

We have  lovely photo's again of some of  Primrose's pups, (or should I say "Autopups") born September 2012. With the first photo's being of Archie settling into his home with the Hepple family. Thank you Jane for letting me know how much he has become part of the furniture already and that he is settling well with you all.

Now for Archie's brother Jenson. Thanks Nadine for the update and sleepy photo's of Jenson. Lovely to know he is going on well and I've put your update on with photo's below.

All is well & not one to be left out (I just read your blog!) I thought I'd update you on Jenson. 

I hope you had a good New Year and a peaceful one at that? 

Jenson is fantastic, he's doing really well and has settled into Dixon family life brilliantly. 

Sorry to read Archie was sent back, I can imagine that was devastating for his family. Good that he's been re homed though. 

I've sent a few photos of Jenson (see attached). Jenson is quite looney at times. Most evenings for 15 minutes he legs it round the garden like a complete loon. So fast, neither Ben nor I can catch him. 

He is a lovely dog and really smart. He's sitting to command now. We started dog training classes last week. He was a model student during the class. The instructor even used Jenson to demonstrate how to get your dog to lie down. Though when I came to get him to do it... Would he heck!

Jenson is great with my daughter and all other children, even the more reticent ones! 

Photos are of: Jenson in his Christmas jumper (didn't last long as he hated it)
And a few of Jenson resting after running round the garden!

Last of puppy update for now is Ruby, who is from Millie's litter born March 2012 with Reggie being her Dad. Thanks Lisa for the lovely update and photo's which I have copied below. Always great to hear that a Poundlane pup has become such a treasured member of a family.

Hi Jane,

I just thought I'd give you a quick update on how Ruby is getting on and attach some recent photos from Christmas, where you will see she was the centre of attention! She is a lovely natured dog, very cheeky at times but also very sociable and sweet. Whenever I take her to collect my youngest from primary school, when we pass the lollipop lady, she always says, "Here's the happy dog!". She is always desperate to greet everyone and she loves her daily walks in the wood and moor, especially getting wet and muddy. She's quite good at recall but when distracted she's off - so we need to work on that and walking to heel. But everything else she picks up really quickly and loves training and playing. She has brought so much to our family and we love having her, she's a real sweetie. She also likes stealing socks from the washing basket - seems to be in the genes and loves her food! We are looking into further training classes also to stimulate her mentally - she earned her first rosette for puppy training and passed with flying colours. Everywhere we go, Ruby attracts so much attention and we always get people asking what breed she is because she is so lovely.

Last Saturday I blogged and said  "I was failing" and when I woke up on Sunday morning I was covered in a rash from head to foot. I had for a couple days noticed my glands up at the back of my neck and a bit of stiffness in my neck and had generally been feeling very tired last week, falling asleep at a drop of a hat and by Sunday evening my joints in my hands, wrists, ankles where feeling very sore with a slight swelling of the joints, so Monday saw a doctor with my oldest son who also had started developing the same symptoms and was told that it pointed towards me having  Parvovirus also known as Slapped Cheek or 5th disease and is nothing to do with the type of Parvovirus dogs get.
Five of our children now have varying symptoms and in very young children the symptoms are mild but in my oldest son nearly 13 and me we have been getting inflamation of our joints, basically acute arthritis. It comes and goes and I actually find if I keep myself moving then I'm better but sit still for a while and getting out of bed first thing in the morning you are a little seized up. It takes around two weeks on average to run its course but have felt a lot better today and hope Im on the mend, the rash is nearly gone although feeling itchy still. Looking on the positive side, I thought I was showing my age last week when so tired but now I know it was that I was actually coming down with something. I sailed through childhood with only a rare ill day and thought myself quite clever, I got Chicken Pox  as an adult which was like a dose of flu and now this and think that maybe it was not so clever not getting a few more of these illnesses at an earlier age. Lol
Well thats my health and now some news of health of our dogs. Just before Christmas Lucy came on heat, so in between Christmas and the New Year I popped Dolly, Ysobel and Lucy to our vets to check for any sound of a murmer on their hearts before booking these three girls in to see the Cardiologist Vet. These three girls are all five years old and breeding their last litter hopefully.
Its always a bit nerve racking as the vet listens to their hearts and unfortunately at five and a half years old Lucy has got the very first signs of Mitrial Valve Degeneration (MVD). Ysobel and Dolly though no sound could be found at this stage, so they now have been booked in to see the Cardiologist vet at South Devon Referrals, so fingers crossed for the 9th February.
Doing health tests means that at times you are putting yourself up for a fall but you have to look at this as 50% of Cavaliers are statistically forecasted from records to have MVD by the age of five, I took three Cavaliers over five to the vet and at this time only one has been found to have the early onset of MVD, so at this time we have had a result over 66% clear of MVD at this stage. A Cavalier having only the early onset of MVD at the age of five and a half is unfortunately not that bad for a Cavalier and I'm not saying its right though.
With MVD in Cavaliers it would be lovely to say where trying to breed to eradicate it but its not that simple. MVD is the most common heart disease in the old dog population and in an old dog is seen as a natural change , basically the heart get worn out and the valve begins to fray and not work efficiently, so we are not going to eradicate it but what we can work towards in Cavaliers is putting MVD back in its right place an old dog problem not a young dog problem. I would hope and statistics would suggest that the two litters we have bred from Lucy both being cross breeds with the Miniature Poodle that some of these pups will not get MVD and the some will not get signs of MVD until way past five years old.
Lucy came to us as an adult dog from a home where she had been the only dog, so she is happy living on her own but has also shown she is social and can live within a pack. The Lawrence family visited us the end of last year and where hoping for a pup from Lucy but while here also mentioned that they would be happy to home an older dog and they come from owning Cavaliers before and all three had MVD come the end, so I asked them if they would like to foster Lucy and knowing her history and having had Cavaliers before thery are taking her on for me. She will weather permitting leave us this weekend. Lucy will be going to a lovely home and I'm sure she will love being the center of attention, as she is very idependant and enjoys her own company.
So this year has already started with a few ups and downs and we are now waiting on the heart exams of Ysobel and Dolly and once they are given the green light we will hope for Dolly on heat around mid Fenruary onwards and Ysobel following on from her with pups ready for homes around June/July time.  We will hope for one more litter later in the year  from Primrose but that is depending on the timing of her next two heats and of course her health test results
I'm going to digress now with a money saving tip (nothing to do with dogs) and hopefully you will see the humour or my madness. Being a lady in my forties, last week I watched on Channel 4 a programme about midlife crisis for woman and the journalist making it meet woman dealing with this. One was one who had gone down the surgical route and she was having botox injections. The man doing it was a GP Doctor and he also had this as a sideline business which I think is quite common now for GP's. The journalist asked him if she needed any thing doing and in his reply he said something which got my mind thinking. What he said was "If you cannot see it at a social distance, then you don't need any thing done."  So I thought why have botox done when you could just simply adjust your social distance.  I've worked mine out and its around two metres to two and a half metres depending on the eyesight of the person looking at you. Someone standing at that distance from me I have no visable wrinkles.  I worked this out standing infront of the mirror and just backed away until no visable wrinkles, its amazing. So no need for botox or surgery, you just need to adjust your social distance but you might ask, " Jane,what about having a cuddle," and thats easy turn the lights off, no wrinkles visable in the dark.Lol. You could even use this term if having a bit of time apart from your partner or you have split up, saying "We've just adjusted our social distance." Instead of a restraining order you could have a social distancing order. The use of the phrase social distancing seems never ending but I will end it there though before I look totally mad.
Nearly forgot my ephiphany. I am in the process of reading a book called "In the Defence of Dogs" by John Bradshaw. Now anyone out there who would like to understand their canine friends better its a must and for those breeders stuck on rewind with eughenics and purebreeding, please read this and hopefully as you do it you might actually start to extract yourselves from your own backsides. I digress yet again and in the process have probably brought upon me the wrathe  of the purests yet again. 
I read the preface of this book and thus my ephiphany came to me and I saw the way I wish to move forward and I'm going stop holding on to the  side of the pool, I'm going to let go and instead of breeding dogs as a breed, I'm looking at breeding my dogs as a type. A type of dog that can function as a dog in the modern world as a companion dog , so health is on the list, temperment is way up on the list, as dogs in todays modern world need to be low aggression, sociable creatures with a calm demeanour. So we will not be breeding Cavaliers for the forseable future but I will be looking to breed a type keeping with the size and temperment of the Cavalier and in doing so may look more towards the Cavalier in looks than the Poodle. Maths was never my favourite subject at school but with breeding maths comes very much to the forefront which helps in planning a way forward but also the ability for an eye for breeding the right dogs together as types has its place still to. I'm going to finish  for now and hope this has made some sense .
Just popped on a couple photo's taken of Reggie and his daughter Belle today. Reggie showing he has good confirmation under his fleece when its trimmed off and he is not just a pretty boy !