Mothers day tomorrow, thankfully I will be milking tomorrow morning, so will have to miss being force fed toast , coffee and orange juice in bed. As you might of guessed, I'm not a fan of eating in bed. My husband has found it hilarious watching me in the past on Mothers Day ( if I have not been able to wangle a mornings milking somewhere), sealed in bed by our six children sitting around me on the duvet, I'm not going anywhere until I've eat what they have proffered forward. lol. 
Although it was raining hard here last night and into the early morning by midday it was bright and on the patio nice and warm to let the pups out and to introduce them to the new toys I have got them. In the video you will see them using for the first time the ramp we put down, so they can get in and out easily, watch out for Mr Confident aka Little Brian as he just swans out hardly checking his stride.
 Little Brian's sty on his eye actually popped today, which I was glad to see and hopefully confirms its just a little infection from a scratch that was on his bottom eyelid, probably caused by one of his siblings. Now its burst I would hope to see it gone within a few days. Naturally any thing like this causes a bit of concern and now it has burst without any other spots occurring and Little Brian is bright hopefully it confirms it is what we thought it was, as the worry was that it might be a little growth or even worse a thing called head gland disease also known as puppy strangles which is a relatively rare and the cause is unknown. It can start with what seems like an innocent looking sty on the eye, so you can imagine that although I thought it was caused by an injury, this also has been in the back of my head and until its fully healed I suspect it will stay there.
I filmed most of the video we have tonight but then I let Molly have a go with the camera, so the ending is a bit like she was filming while on a rollercoaster ride. As usual with the children about in the video, its advisable to have the volume not to high. Enjoy !

Time is flying by now with Smudge's litter now over four weeks old and this last weekend and Monday saw the families having the three girls visiting, choosing and naming the girls. We where keeping a bitch back from this litter, but as Smudge easily gave birth to this litter, as we thought she might have to have a c-section as she did with her first litter, we now hope in time to breed one more litter from her with Henry our Brittany, which I'm very excited about, so we will not retain from the litters in 2014. We have to keep an eye on dog numbers and this year litters will be bred to maintain the pack financially and will go towards their health testing, so part of the operation is to fund the other. I have two Cavapoos retained at this time that we have bred and now I will look to seeing what we get with the Brittany cross and maybe merging these two lines at a future juncture. We have eleven dogs at this time, fourteen is the most we have ever had, unfortunately I'm not mercenary enough to get shot of all bitches once past their breeding life.
The girls are now all named with Kayla, Flora and Mollie. The weekend after next we will be visited by those having the boys. At the moment we have named one boy Big bob and one, Little Brian.
 Tuesday saw the pups have their first time outdoors. Although only just over four weeks old, it was lovely and warm outside on the patio as it gets like an oven when the sun is out being in a L shape, with being South facing and west facing, in the afternoon as the sun goes over it becomes a real sun trap. Smudge's pups are very forward and they had around ten minutes outside for their first time and we caught a few minutes of this on video.
Just been made aware that I'm calling Flora, Mollie in the video, sorry about that, I get muddled. Flora is the girl with the green collar, Mollie has the red collar and Kayla is in the pink collar.

So after that stress its time to rest, so the next video is of the sleepy heads after going outdoors for the first time.

Yesterday the pups went out for another ten minutes and the children where home and it might be advisable to keep the sound down and watch on for the incoming moss. Our little girl Tilly decided it might be fun to chuck a bit of wet muddy moss at the patio door, you may of already guessed from her cutting her hair off that she is a bit of an artful character, which needs to be nurtured not knocked, her sister Molly the other day looked at me bright eyed and said with great urgency, "Mum !" , I looked at her and said, "Don't ever lose that, will you Molly," she replied excitedly, "What Mummy, what ?" I said, "Enthusiasim, life will try to knock it out of you, but don't you let it." She laughed and said, "You're funny Mum."
Henry popped on to the patio to take a closer look at the pups and looks to engage in play, but he's a little bit big for these little pups to have as a playmate. Little Brian also shows that being first out of the whelping box is a good indicator that they are going to be first at most things.
Little Brian had his first car trip yesterday and it was to the vets. A couple days ago we noticed a little scratch on his bottom eyelid of his right eye which as developed into a white spot like a sty, so I just took him to the vet to just check it out and like me, he thinks its just a little infection from the injury and like me, as its not causing him any pain or irritation its best to try to encourage to drain by a couple times a day applying a warm towel flannel to the area and let his body heal it, but keep an eye on it. It actually looks to be decreasing. Little Brian was a star travelling to the vets on his own in a box on the sit next to me and very good in the vets, totally seemingly unstressed by it all and is enjoying the extra attention with applying the warn flannel to his face. Loads of ah's in the vets when people saw Little Brian.

A few photo's of the pups over the last few days and just wanted to say again, as getting a lot of enquiries about them, "Sorry, but they are all spoken for."

Now for a few updates from families with our dogs. The first is a few funny photo's of Charlie from Ysobel's litter born last year at the end of July and includes Roxy who Tracey got from us as well and was from Lucy's litter born the end of 2010. Thanks Tracey for sharing this. Reggie his Dad will do this as well with little encouragement.

'This will make you chuckle Jane...  Meet Charlie the rucksack lol he does this every time we get on the floor! Xx'

The next update is from Glenda who had Bayley from Millie's last litter born Spring 2012 on the 19th March. Last year Glenda contacted me about Bayley having an upset tummy and I said I thought it sounded like pancreatitis, which it turned out to be and thankfully with diet changes Bayley is back well again. Sadly it seems to be getting more common place for dogs attacking dogs, thankfully Bayley was not more seriously hurt. Just be carefull of dogs approaching and it might be wise when out walking with a smaller dog to carry a walking stick which can be used as something to distract the dog attack and hopefully the dog can be deflected to bit hold of the stick rather than your dog. Thanks for the update Glenda and hope you had a lovely day on his birthday.

Hello Jane,
 
with Bayley's approaching second birthday.  I thought I would send you an update on his progress.
 
After his bout of pancreatitis and colitis I have completely changed his diet to a frozen raw meat made by Natural Instincts.  He is so much better now and he has normal poo instead of mucus covered poo.  He has Lily's Kitchen Kibble and has vegetable based low fat chewys.  
 
He was attacked a couple of months ago by a Pitt Ball mix that wasn't on the lead so I assumed he was friendly.  He went straight for Bayley's neck and in the process left two puncture wounds on his neck.  The boy that owned him ran off into the woods before I could get his name and address.  Since then he has been very skittish when we are out on our own.  We belong to a dog walking circle and thankfully he is absolutely fine when we walk with them. 
 
He is a gorgeous little dog, and we are very lucky to have him.  He has a lot of the cavalier traits being very manipulative with those sad eyes.  On the whole he is very obedient, we have an issue at times with recall usually if he wants to say hello to someone.
 
I enclose a couple of photos taken to-day laying in the garden in the spring sunshine.
 
I still keep up with your blog and enjoy see photos of the new puppies, takes me back to when we were waiting for Bayley.
 
Kind regards
 
Glenda Moran   

Now for an update from one of Dolly's litter born last June. Thanks Karen for the lovely photo of your girl, Darcey , not long until she is one, where has that year gone ?



Hi Jane and everyone at poundlane

Just a quick update on our Darcey, as you can see she has been shorn recently! She spends so much time in mud and rivers we thought it would be more practical. The groomer does put bows in on request but I think our girl needs a Rambo style head scarf!

So happy to see the lovely puppy pictures makes me so nostalgic for when Darcey was little. And just to prove that "family ties" are for life, Darcey has a new best friend - an 11 week cavalier! I think that will definitely be our next dog when the time comes for Darcey to have a playmate.

Hope you and the pack are well

Karen Lorenz xx

Now for a bit of a special update for Tinkerbell. This is the Tinkerbell from Ysobel's litter born back the beginning of November 2011, she has become a Mummy. On the 9th March she gave birth to three Cavapoo pups f2's. Michelle who owns her has a parti black and white, first cross male Cavapoo who is around a year older than Tinkerbell and when getting Tinkerbell she did say she might like to breed one litter from them together, as they are such nice pet dogs. Tinkerbell's parents are Ysobel and Reggie. I must confess that I don't know any thing about the breeding of the Dad of these pups. Michelle is looking to keep one back and if interested in one of these pups and want to know more about them  Michelle can be contacted by email at [email protected], she is in the Bristol area of the UK. The emails are from when they where born and then about a week ago. They are around three weeks old now.

Hi Jane
Just after sending you the email letting you know Tinkerbell was expecting puppies, I realised I gave you the wrong date.  Puppies were in fact due around Saturday 8th March.
At around 1.30am during the early hours of friday morning after a few signs the previous evening, Tinkerbell gave birth to her first puppy, a black girl with a white blaze under her chin.  45 mins later a gold girl appeared (very much like Tinkerbell was), and around 45 minutes later a white/black girl.  All healthy and weighing around 8 oz. 
As with her first litter I was concerned after reading some of the horror stories on the internet and was duly concerned when, after licking the first baby she left her in her bed whilst she went off elsewhere.  I had the emergency vet number on standby but kept putting the pup near her and set the heated blanket up.  Luckily after pup no 2 she showed more interest in nursing and all puppies thriving.  The first was slightly lighter than the others but weighs slightly more than them now!  All between 121/2 and 133/4 oz.
Will update you as they go on and upload some more pictures.
With Best Wishes
Michelle





Hi Jane

Glad to read all is well in your household and see how fast the pups are growing.

As you can see from pictures, Tink's pups are doing very well and have almost tripled in weight.  Tinkerbell is a very attentive mummy and is keeping them spotless.

Have spoken to the vet about worming and a health check before they leave for their new homes (if they leave!). 

Charley is showing some interest if he can hear them squeaking he has a look to check all is ok.

Have been enjoying looking at your videos and amazing to see how big they are.

With best wishes

Michelle 
 

Nearly at the end now and thought I'd just get on some photos of the pack in. They all seem well at the moment. We just have a couple more days now for Jessica and Treacle to be off heat for sure and then the pack can run as a whole again. Primrose is now around two and a half weeks pregnant and well in herself. Nearly forgot, I finally have made a start to 'The POUNDLANE Spaniel' page, which might interest some, its a work in progress and will add to when time and grey matter allow.

And lastly a photo took by my son last night of Saint Henry it seems. Lol

Friday saw us putting collars on the pups at 26 days old. This helps for identification and it also gets the pups used to wearing something around their necks and putting collars on at this age seems to cause little stress other than a bit of scratching. Pups having a collar on for the first time after 8 weeks old can sometimes display a high level of stress, so we find the earlier they get used to having something around the neck the easier they except it, causing only a mild stress to them.
The video shows them on Friday just five minutes after putting the collars on and as you can see other than a bit of scratching, they are really unperturbed by their collars. 
The little boy in the video who plays with my hand I must confess to calling, Little Brian, he is a bit of a character and this weekend saw the first pup named and that is the one we have been calling Big Bertha, she is now called Kayla. As they get named I will then start to try and name them in the photos.

In the video I slightly get the collar collars wrong. The girls are one in a pink stripey collar, one in a red collar and one in a green stripey collar. The boys are all in blue collars with different patterning.

As I said on the previous blog that its been a busy weekend with children's birthdays and families visiting to see Smudge's pups. I try not to blog at the weekend, but as tomorrow we have another busy day with a family visiting to see their pup from Smudge's litter I thought I would get puppy footage up to date tonight. I'm finishing on Birthday photo's because we have noticed how Henry seems to get into a lot of photo's intentionally and as you will notice with Tilly unintentionally. I must admit I'm very taken with Henry. His sense of fun and making a fool of himself is a joy to watch. I love playing with him, his trust in me as I throw him about is humbling and he will keep coming back for more. That's one of the joys of dogs, you can be as daft as a brush with them and they will try to be even dafter back. The only thing you have to be able to do, to see this side of your dog, is the ability to be daft.

Its been a busy weekend with people visiting Smudge's pups and our youngest child's and oldest child's birthdays. Just goping to up load a couple videos and photos from the last few days starting with a video I took on thursday night just before going to bed. The pups where 25 days old in this clip.

Smudge's Cavapoo pups are now 24 days old and  the video tonight is of one of the boys getting a bit of individual mother love. Our daughter Molly was a bit enthusiastic with her back ground music, but did stop when asked, and then you will hear her brother telling her to get out of my way, which she also does, but can't resist getting her foot in the footage.

Some more photos of the pups taken today. Smudge is tending her pups with ease and is amazingly relaxed about the other dogs looking in on them or even going in with them. Primrose is off heat and loves all the pups, and now back indoors fulltime can be found most times when asleep beside the puppy pen. She went in yesterday with Smudge to sniff the pups and Smudge was unperturbed by her presence in with her pups. Primrose got to get her puppy fix of sniffing Smudge's pups and cleaning a couple of their bottoms. Its lovely to see such trusting pack ties in our dogs.

Over the last couple weeks we have had five bitches on heat and only one, Primrose we wished to mate with Reggie. We just now have Jessica and Treacle to come off heat in the next few days and amazingly through all the hormones about, Henry and Toby are still the best of friends and the photo below could be titled, 'Two heads are better than one.'

Final update on pups is this video taken five minutes after their release. You will see them all asleep, as coming into a new enviroment, even just outside the whelping box would of put them under stress, so shut down and sleep. This is a coping mechanism in animals. Shut down under stress is a mechanism animals use to protect themselves. They are now confident in this area and the next big leap will be around six weeks, going outdoors. Around six weeks bravado sets in and pups will become very adventurous and from this time its good to start opening the bounderies each day for them, but being mindful not to push to quickly and give them overload.

Caught this bit of puppy footage Monday morning after delivering all the children to school, hence not much background noise. Later that day we released the pups into the pen.

Sunday saw the last day in just the little puppy house and I got this footage of them awaiting Mum to feed them.

This video was taken on Saturday evening. I had just arrived home from milking and the puppies decided to have a very lively moment. Might be best to keep the volume down, as we all get a bit excited when the pup finally makes it over. You would think this was the first time we have seen pups doing this. Lol

And the film I'm trying to recall in the video, "Gremlins"

Sorry for the long five days break in coverage of the Little Puppy House, but Saturday my computer went offline and thankfully I know a lady who has a rather clever son. It took three days but he has got me up and running again. I say three days, after fiddling with the computer at our home for a couple hours on Sunday morning and no luck, he asked if he could take my hard drive home with him and work on sorting it out there. The lad works, so he worked on it for two evenings and finished sorting it last night. I popped in to see his Dad this morning to hear him say, "Yes, he's sorted the problem out." Relieved by this I said, "God, I could give you a hug for that," the look of fear in his eyes when I said that, I decided it was best not to proceed with a big hug.
I could now rant on about why do people want to put things on other peoples computers just to cause them hardship, but it would not serve any purpose other than to please them. People say, "Curiosity killed the cat," but I say,"Curiosity did not kill the cat , but it made him very careful what websites he went on in the future." Lol 
So its going to be a puppy over load day, starting with the photo's taken of Smudge's Cavapoo pups over the last five days. Saturday we saw the first pup breaking out from the Little puppy House, so by Monday we took down the door and the pups now have the freedom of the pen area in front of their Little puppy House and as you will see from the photo's are enjoying the freedom. They are now twentythree days old and have started to show an interest already in Smudge's food and have been seen drinking from the water bowl. Smudge is now eating Lily's Kitchen Puppy Food and up until yesterday was on purely Canagan which is a 60% meat products, 40% vegetables and botanicals dry dog food. I stumbled across this dog food product in our local Gardening Stores a few months ago and have been pleased with the dogs on it, no runny tummies, even when changing on to it, It can be ordered online, more info can be found at www.canagan.co.uk . Our dogs like Canagan and I mix it with Burns Chicken and Rice just to lower the meat ratio a bit. I use Lily's Kitchen for the pups and also use their food as a mixer with Canagan. The only problem with Lily's kitchen is the biggest pack they do is 6 kg and it makes it very expensive buying for a lot of dogs. The dogs seem to be thriving on using these three brands of dog food and its good to give your dog a bit of variety in taste in their diet.
Enjoy the photo's and I will start to get video footage up that has been taken over the last five days.

Its day  eighteen in the little puppy house and I'm a bit worried I am creating puppy adicts out there. At the moment we have now five bitches on heat on the place with Treacle starting her first heat a couple days ago. Reggie and Primrose had a romantic rondezvous on Monday and again on Wednesday. We will see if romance is still in the air tomorrow and if it is I would suspect it to be the last dance for Reggie with Primrose and then we will start to count down to scanning Primrose in around four weeks time.

The video tonight plainly shows that the pups eyes are open and you will see Reggie and hear me talking to him. When bitches are on heat Reggie becomes my shadow, unlike the two younger lads he knows I'm the gate keeper to any romantic interlude. You will also hear our oldest son start to sing the "Reggie is so cool", song. We have a song for each of our dogs and we sing to them. Everyone has a song for their dog and sings to them, don't they ? Our son does do requests. Lol

Quick catch up, as its a bit late. Computer curfew of 10 pm is rapidly approaching.

Video tonight is of our youngest in with the pups, some breeders would have puppies watching this, but I believe human imprinting especially with children is pivotal at this age and if you wrap them in cotton wool you will only make them think they are fragile. Tilly does make a pup give out a yelp and its out of surprise. Its actually good for them to have low level stress at this age to actually become more adapted to being around humans and the enviroment outside the whelping box, believe me in about four weeks time the tables will be turned and Tilly will be engulfed by pups when trying to sit with them, nibbling and trying to lick her. You will see and hear  that our youngest already knows anatomy quite well.

Lastly tonight because I should clear my inbox and people kindly sent me most of these photos a couple months ago, here is mostly photo's of dogs we have bred from the families they are with. We have photo's of Big poppy who is one we bred and photo's of the one litter that her family bred from her, as adult dogs. They are 3/4 Poodle ( Reggie the Dad) and1/4 Cavalier.  Also a photo of Lucy relaxing a cavalier bitch we rehomed a couple years ago who will be coming to stay soon whilst her owners go on holiday. Thanks everyone for the photos and updating me on how you all are.
That's 10.10 pm I'm off outside with the dogs.

Finally since trying from yesterday evening, I have got this video to load up and its the unedited version I'm afraid, you will hear my daughter's dulcet tones as she calls for someone to wipe her bottom and you will hear her telling me what she has just done, after she managed to wipe her own bottom. You will also hear me chuckle at my own remarks, showing little things please little minds, just has little pants fit small behinds. Look out for the milk mustaches on the pups and you will also in the back ground hear the first half of England playing rugby against Wales yesterday.
I'm going to have to be very careful now about what I say about the rugby. Lol. I did not get to see the second half though due to milking. I got milking yesterday to find the cows yarded up and the machine ready to go and thought there had been a mix up about a couple evenings I have changed around due to children's birthdays, but it was because it was half time for the rugby and they wanted to get the yard scrapped and back into watch the second half. I did jokingly say, "You go and watch your rugby whilst you leave poor old little me to milk the cows." Which did make them laugh and later they returned to give me the news that England had won and I can't believe its been eleven years since they won a triple crown.

The weather was glorious over the weekend and seems set for a few days like this and last evening when milking saw me removing my fleece hat whilst milking and getting down to just a t-shirt and jeans under my milking waterproofs, so I guess Spring is here. Its been so wet its just lovely to see the sun and for it to be dry but some might site, " t'is not good for March to come in like a lamb, as you risk it going out like a lion."  I'm just glad to have less washing, as the dogs when its wet like it has been, it has been a labour of love cleaning up after them and that's easy to find, just follow the wet muddy dog prints.
The pups are now two weeks old and we will now start them on our worming programme which is every 2 weeks until they leave us with Panacur Liquid for the first, as they can't spit it out at 2 weeks old, but by 4 weeks old because they then get good at expelling liquid wormer from their mouths, we then use Panacur Paste as they can't spit that out very easily. 

I have got things to be getting on with, but the pups do create much distraction in our home and I'm easily persauded to be distracted as the video shows.
The title of the blog is not going to mean much to some unless a child during the seventies, so I loaded up this link :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qq0OQBdIhsc , so the wibble wobble comments might make more sense. 
Watching that advert did take me back. Those where the days of catchy jingles. My favourite was the R.Whites secret lemonade drinker jingle                                                      
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qq0OQBdIhsc
we used to sell the stuff on the milk rounds, my parents had a doorstep milk  deliver business and you got a 5p refund on return of the glass bottle. I can remember going out with my siblings looking for bottles, as people would just throw them in the hedge and we would find them, then walk 2 miles to the sweet shop, get the 5p refund and get a bag of sweets. Those where the days, when you could get a bag of sweets for 5p. Health and safety have a lot to answer for. Lol.
I bare the scars of glass bottles for milk, when I was 5 years old and was carrying a pint of green top to a customers door with my Dad, I missed the step, dropped the bottle and promptly put my hand out to save myself right on to the broken bottle. Cut open my thumb and it looked like a banana being skinned and cut a two inch gash across the palm of my hand, a bit  of local at the A and E and it was stitched up and apparently (I don't remember saying this, its my Mum's memory) on coming out of  the hospital and seeing my Mum waved my good hand in the air and said, "Its okay Mum, I can still deliver milk with my other hand." Health and safety today would faint at the thought of a five year old carrying a glass bottle, let alone the issue of child labour. Lol . Enough of  the nostalgia, enjoy the video of the wibble wobble puppies, we have just started to see that their eyes are starting to open which is hard to see in the video, but you will see they are getting very mobile.

Feels like Spring might be arriving, very mild today, so mild infact that I removed a layer of clothing tonight when milking, so if we wake up with two foot of snow tomorrow on the ground, you know who to blame. Forget the Spring Equinox, the first day of Spring is when I remove my fleece hat when milking. Lol
Smudge's pups are now eight days old and if you compare the photo's tonight with the ones from when they where just born, you hopefully will see how much they have grown, especially if you look at how much space they take up along Mum now when suckling.

Another video of Smudge's pups at the milk bar, don't think you can get to much of a good thing when watching puppies. I must confess to a bit of an addiction of smelling puppies, they do smell so gorgeous at this age and happily when holding them close against your face they will try to suck your nose or the children let them attach themselves to their earlobes.  Smudge is just so laid back about it all and this will fare well for the pups as they grow and interact with Mum and learn from Mum how to take on the world outside the whelping box.

Smudge's Cavapoo pups are now a week old. From the photos you will see that their noses are darkening up and the eye lids have darkened and definition can be seen around the eyes. By the end of the week we should start to see their eyes starting to open. Once the eyes are fully opened at around 14 days old, pups will not be able to fully focus until around 28 days, so the world at first appears a bit blurry. Their ear canals will now start to open and should be fully open by around 14 days old.
I have taken a few group photos of just the girls and those photos are labelled.  Smudge is doing these pups with exceptional ease which is a testament of her relaxed temperament inherited from both her parents, Millie and Charlie.
The journey towards our next litter is about to start as Primrose is now on heat and this will hopefully be a litter born around the middle of May, ready for homes July time. The waiting list is full enough for this litter that we will not be opening the waiting list again at this time and if any pups do become available, they will be put on our website here.