After taking three attempts to load up the video my enthusiasm to write a blog tonight as waned some what, so it's going to be just a puppy update tonight.
This last weekend the pups past seven weeks old and come this weekend they will be micro chipped and start their primary course of vaccinations. 
They have now become really active and enjoy having adventures outside the confines of their pen and the patio. Characters are really starting to show, with Maddie being called Monster Maddie and Lottie is Lottie the licker. 
The video tonight starts with some footage my husband, David recorded yesterday of Lottie and Maddie in the dog bed in the back house with an apparently out for the count Henry. Henry is very good with the pups and in the slideshow you will see some photos of Lottie snuggled up with Henry.
The rest of the video was taken this afternoon, mostly filmed by our daughter Florrie. 
Been a bit busy and my email inbox has become a little burdened, but will hope to get back to everyone in the next few days and will back on here soon with a blog comparing the before and after when cross breeding and I have not forgot about measuring my dogs skulls and will hope soon to get those measurements done and loaded up. That's all for now, hope to be back soon.

Primrose and her six Cavapoo pups are well and this last Sunday saw the sixth pup meeting his family and being named. We now have a Buddy, our first Buddy. All the pups are named now Lottie, Maddie and Dotty for the girls and Colin, Henry and Buddy for the boys.

Time is coming to get the pups out past the patio gates and out for a couple car trips. They are a lively little bunch and their characters are starting to show, with Maddie being the bravest of the girls, followed closely by Lottie and Dottie seeming at the moment the most gentle natured of the three girls. The boys are pretty evenly matched in bravado with maybe Buddy slightly the most adventurous when meeting new things.
The video tonight we have managed to catch the pups at a time when all of them are awake, hence the title of the video. At the start of the video, the excitement is because I had just stood filming for five minutes, well, thought I was filming, but just had it on standby. Also please excuse me saying the word "bloody." In Devon calling something, "A bloody fine thing", is a term of endearment.

On Monday I booked Dolly and Jessica in to be spayed today. Dolly is nearly seven now and is retired from breeding, so to stop the chance of an accident happening of her getting pregnant and her not having to kennel outside when on heat for around 6 to 8 weeks each year because we have three male dogs, we decided to get her spayed. Dogs unlike humans do not go through menopause, their fertility gets less and their seasons may be furthur apart and if a dog mates them there is every chance they will get pregnant and often because of lower fertility one big pup and ending up with a c-section.
Jessica has been spayed because she has had a leg amputated, she will now not be bred from and it takes away the risk with male dogs on the premises of her accidentally getting pregnant and she won't have to kennel outside because she won't have heats any more. When our bitches are on heat, they kennel outside to stop driving the males round the bend and to reduce the chance of an accindental mating.
Spaying at the moment seems to be getting a bit  PC not to do it, as some think it is barbaric to remove the breeding organs of a dog. It does not effect the look of the dog, so has no effect on communication of a dog, unlike docking or ear cropping, so to compare it with those practices, as some do, is wrong.
 Most people I know, although spaying is often sold to you on it's health benefits, will spay a female dog to take away the risk of an unwanted litter of pups, because you can be very careful and think you got your bitch over her heat without a blip, to around six weeks after her heat notice her stomach looking a bit full and remember that day you nipped to the shops and left the window in the kitchen slightly ajar because it was very warm and when you came back you thought the wind had blown it off the latch, unfortunately that was the neighbourhood lathario of the dog world who did that, when nipping in for a clandestine meeting with your bitch.
I have weighed up all medical arguements against and for spaying/neutering and my only concern is the age a dog is done. I would not neuter a male or female dog until over six months of age or the dog has done most or preferably all of it's skeletal growth and this does differ with the size of dogs, with the bigger the dog the longer it takes for them to reach full skeletal growth.
Dolly and Jessica are comfortably convalescing and will be crated together for a couple days, to keep them from over doing it. Dolly I can confirm today at a couple months off seven years old, still has no sound of a heart murmur and Jessica at two years and 8 months old is in good heart as well.

Thought I'd get this video up on the blog before the weekend, of Primrose's pups who will be six weeks old tomorrow. As one of the places I milk was picking up silage yesterday, instead of milking Friday evening, as I normally do I milked yesterday evening and my husband David was in charge of family humand and canine.
So the first bit of the video was taken yesterday evening by my husband and is the yet to be named boy with the camouflage collar chewing the foxy toy and then Maddie comes over and joins in with him and they have a little dispute over the toy.
When you see camouflage collar pup, who I refer to as Camouflage man with Lottie by the childs scooter that is from today and I started filming because they were both sitting on the scooter, but by the time I got the camera, I had missed the moment, but decided to keep filming.
As I film the two pups near the scooter you will hear a pup squeaking and that is Colin trying to sleep, but being kept on with by Dottie. We then see Maddie who has Roxy, who is a Moshi Monster, one of the childrens toys which they have given up to the pups. We then get a bit of rough and tumble with Maddie and Lottie over who's toy it is, with Granny Ysobel, Dad Reggie, Toby and half auntie, half sister Belle looking on from the patio wall. We also get to see big half sister Treacle playing with Henry.  
Whilst I filmed this, Colin as his wet face shows had just had a suckle from mum and the end of the video shows him very much in sleep mode. Warning : Keep the volume down for the video especially at the end, as it seems the children were having, a who could make the loudest scream contest and I do say the word bugger in the video.

Hope everyone has a lovely weekend. Here in England this evening we are out of the World Cup, but as our son so eloquently put it, "You should never let an injured animal suffer, you should put it out of it's misery quickly", so thanks Costa Rica you certainly did that this evening for us, else we could of had our suffering dragged out until tuesday. Never mind, we got the Rugby World Cup to look forward to in the UK next year.

It's been a busy few days here and finally got everything loaded up on the blog, so I can now start a written account of things that have been going on around the place at Poundlane. Last Friday I blogged and pre-empting the busy time ahead for the next few days, I did birthday greetings and wished all the fathers doing the Dad stuff a Happy Father's Day. This weekend that passed was a full weekend milking and is where I milk just under a hundred cows and as the cows are block calved, we are now heading very quickly towards starting to dry them off for the Autumn calving, so the milking is just two and a half hours in the morning and around two hours in the evening. This herd is a lovely herd of Dairy cows, really good herd health and although I know they appreciate me milking for them every other weekend, I must confess I appreciate milking for a farm that looks after their cows so well. Both herds I milk for luckily are nice people with nice cows and that makes working for them nice.
So both Saturday and Sunday saw me having a 5 am start and both mornings with the pups, I was greeted with a pen which is best described as poo city, not very pretty. Primrose has decided to decline from cleaning up after her pups, since they now are eating puppy food full bore, unlike most of our other Mum's who happily pick up the business until around 6 weeks, Primrose has decided five weeks is her drop out time from that duty. She is happy to nurse them still, but any thing coming out the back end, no way she cleaning that up, unless she grows opposable thumbs and I hand her a toilet roll. Lol
Well, I cleaned up the mess and washed a couple pups off, as they had decided tap dance through the stuff, as well. The amazing thing though is that Monday morning came and the alarm went off for my husband to get up 5 am and I jumped out of bed like a greyhound out of the traps ( My husband is a very tolerant man, but cleaning up a puppy pen of puppy poo at 5 am in the morning before going of to work for 14 hours, could try the patience of Job) to find a clean puppy pen, quickly put the pups out and since Monday other than the odd pee, we have had a poop free puppy pen. Hallelujah ! The pups seem to of got the hang already of going out side to poop and we are now just getting pees in the pen.

This weekend the Smelt family will visit us to see the last pup on this litter being the boy with the camouflage collar and we will hopefully have names for them all then. This last weekend saw the first two boys meet their families and they are now named Colin with the blue collar with a white stripe and Henry with the blue striped collar. The third girl is now named and she is called Dottie with the pink striped collar. So the names so far are Colin, Henry, Lottie, Maddie and Dottie.
The video was taken this afternoon and mostly done by our daughter Florrie who was right, it was Colin, I'm not very good with names and I get a sharp reminder from the pups,  that wearing flipflops around puppies is not a good idea.

Last Friday as I said above I blogged Birthday greetings for Treacle and her siblings first birthday on Saturday. Treacle is from Dolly's with Dad being Reggie obviously born June last year. So next is greetings from four of her seven siblings. THanks everyone for emails and photos and good to hear all is well and how they have brightened up your world.
The first is from Michael who has Sasha. Thanks Michael and enjoy your holiday in Italy.

Now fora lovely update and photo from Karen, who had Darcey. Thanks for letting us know how she has helped you to recover.

And here is Treacle's almost identical twin Dotty, who has helped Caroline's daughter over come her deep, phobia of dogs. Thanks Caroline for keeping me updated on your daughter and Dotty's progress together, means a lot to see them together in the photo's, especialy with your childrens smiling confident faces when with her.

Dear Jane,
Hope you, the family and pack are well!  We are very excited about Dotty's first birthday tomorrow - she had a joint 'party' with a neighbour's puppy who turned one a couple of weeks ago, and she has lots of presents waiting for her in the morning! 
We feel very blessed to have such an amazing dog - she is loving, friendly, cuddly, fun and more!  There hasn't been a moment that I've regretted having her, despite all the hard work involved in having a puppy at times.  We continue to go to training with her, and she is generally very obedient, and definitely seems to have an awareness of the situations she's in - behaving beautifully and being very calm when she needs to be, and mad as a hatter at other times.  She loves her runs in the park with other dogs each morning, and recently in the hot weather she has taken to a little swimming in the lake.
Hope Treacle, and Dotty's other siblings have a great birthday!
Best wishes
Caroline, Simon, Annabel, Louisa and Dotty x
PS will send some pics in a minute
I will send you some recent pics

And last of the first birthday updates tonight is for Molly who I last saw flying off into the distance on her way to live in Jersey. Thanks Lynne and Andy for keeping me updated on Molly and good to hear she is getting over being spayed quickly.

Last on updates tonight is from Lucy and Alan who had Flora from Smudge's litter born this year in February. I get lovely photos from everyone, but you get every now and then a real beauty, as we say in Devon and the photo of Flora below sniffing the flora is in that catergory. Thanks Lucy and Alan.

Dear Jane
Just to let you know Flora is doing well - due to " graduate" from puppy training class this week!Have attached a couple of photos of Flora on a trip to Hever Castle taken this week , and just one of her with spring flowers from our first couple of weeks with her  living up to her name. Hope all is well with you all.
Best wishes
Lucy and Alan

A quick end with a photo of my husband David taken Monday night after he had been milking each end of the day and in between ripping up one of the concrete yards were he milks to, as they are putting in a new parlour, a rapid excit 20/40. He milks at the moment in a 24/24 parlour, but hopefully with the rapid excit milking time will be quicker, mind he can on his own get 220 cows through the old parlour in three hours and it is a block calved, high yielding pedigree Holstein herd.
Any way back to the photo and that is him trying to stay awake watching some of the World Cup football with Jessica cuddled up with him. Jessica after having her leg amputated is doing really well. Time for me to get some shut eye now.

As you can see, Henry photo bombing photos with a Birthday Cake in it, is becoming a regular occurrence. I know he might happily eat the cake, but he also seems very interested in the candles when they are alight on the cake. If you look closely you will just see the top of Smudge's head just under his, but Henry has the height advantage. He is actually very good and I have yet to catch him nicking any thing off a surface, he just likes to see what we are up to and often when I am cooking and doing prep in the kitchen he will put his front two paws on the surface beside me and rest his head on them and intently watch me working away. The reason he does this is not because he is some how favoured over the other dogs, it's because he is the only one tall enough to do it.
This weekend coming we will see a milestone of one year reached for the pups from Dolly's litter last year, which includes our Treacle. I like to mark a year in pups that leave us lifes on the blog, as this is an important milestone to reach and to look at your dog and assess what you have achieved and if any areas of your dogs behaviour needs some time and work put to it. I also like it that you understand I'm here still if any thing goes wrong. Birthdays after one I'm happy to mention on the blog, if you wish to give me a gentle nudge, to remind me with an update on your Poundlane pup. So any siblings of Treacle, it would be nice to hear how you are as you reach your first Birthday. 

At the weekend the three girls from Primrose's litter meet their families and two are now named. So we now have a Lottie who has the red collar and a Maddie who is wearing the green collar.
Lovely to re-meet and meet every one this weekend.
As promised yesterday more photos and a video to catch up with Primrose's pups, now thirty days old. It's only just the next day and approaching midnight as I type this, due to the video being a pain to load up, but we got there in the end.
Before we get to the video I have loaded up a group of photos our son, Thomas took of Primrose's pups all asleep in a row, which are very cute.

As it's so late this is going to be short and as this last bit involves a very chocolatey cake, sweet as well.
The link between the cake and video is our daughter Molly, who filmed most of the video of the pups having their first time outside and it's also her Birthday tomorrow and she was most definate that she wanted a hedgehog cake, so this evening after cooking the sponge earlier, we started the task of turning sponge and butter icing into a hedgehog. I've got the body and tomorrow it's a quick trip into town to get chocolate flakes and other confectionary to make spikes and facial features. Before we started on it, to get the artistic ideas flowing, I put in the Google search bar "Hedgehog Birthday Cakes," and went to images. If you want something to put a smile on your face and have a laugh with your children, I suggest if you have not already done so, you should search, "Hedgehog Birthday Cakes," some of the Birthday  cakes obviously are done by perfectionists, but the fun ones are done by the ones who thought that a hedgehog resembles something the dog left behind after eating a bag of almonds and looks like it's on an acid trip. I'm just hoping the child that blew out the candles on that cake, is not having nightmares now. Lol. 

Forgot about this video sent to me a few days ago, just remembered it and finally got it to load up on the blog after several attempts. Thanks Lynne for this clip of your Kayla, who is from Smudge's litter born 24th February 2014. Kayla is a very pretty girl.

Although I blogged earlier, you can never get enough puppy photos, so emptied the camera again for some more photos of Primrose's pups all rather sleepy and are four weeks old tomorrow.

Also forgot to say earlier that Lucy arrived this morning as a house guest until around the 16th, whilst Sue and Jim go on holiday. As she was here around a month ago, the dogs really have taken little notice of her entry back into the pack. Have a lovely holiday Sue and Jim.

Primrose's pups are now a day away from being four weeks old and now when they suckle Primrose is almost submerged fully, looking under siege, by each little liege.
This morning I put collars on the pups and we have a pink collar, red collar and green collar on the girls and the boys all have blue collars with different patterns. For a few days the pups will be easier to recognise in photos before they got more hairy and then it becomes hard to see the collars. So as luck had it, I have managed to catch individual photos of all the pups and as the girls all get chosen this weekend, I managed to catch a nice individual shot of each of them with their eyes wide open.
 Busy weekend here at Poundlane and will be nice to meet again one of the families having a girl and to put faces to the voices I have spoken to on the phone of the other two families having girls. So by Monday we should hopefully have names for all the girls as well.

Just finished our oldest daughters Birthday Tea and as usual photos with the cake and as seems to becoming the norm, Henry photo bombs the occasion. This time though my husband caught the just before he and another of our daughters decide to get in on the photo. Until I loaded them up on the computer I did not see Henry's nose lurking at table level and less obviosly another daughter is hiding just behind me, you can just see her hair, before the next photo they both appear.

Primrose's pups took to coming out of the whelping box so well, today I opened the puppy pen fully out, so now Mum can come and go with them as she pleases. The only thng is now it's a bit harder to get photos as they all get more active. They certainly are on the move now and also have been very interested in the food. Four weeks is around the time it is advised to introduce food and we play it by ear, with size of litter playing a part in the timing of food being offered. The bigger the litter, normally we will start offering food any time from three weeks old and this also depends on how forward the pups are. Primroses pups are forward and as six pups for this size bitch, is a good size litter, food was available to the pups since yesterday at twentyfour days old. The puppy food we use is Lily's Kitchen and only needs a bit of moisture to disolve in the mouth, so is easy for the pups to masticate and digest.
Already we can see they are eating some, not just paddling through it, as you can see the change in the colour of their poo. Mum has been brilliant in keeping the pups clean and as they go onto solids most mum's start to be less keen to clean up after their pups, you do though get the hardcore mum, who will happily lick up her pups deposits until the day they leave.
 We try to discourage the mum from cleaning up behind the pups once they are happily going outside around six weeks old, as it's a bit past the call of duty. The way we discourage mum doing this is just to get there before her, with a piece of toilet roll to pick it up. Keeping the pups clean is very important, so they don't aquire the habit of eating their own feaces and if they see mum doing it at around six to eight weeks old, this can also cue them to do it, as learnt behaviour from mum, so another reason to discourage mum from this, once the pups are going outside.

Received a message from Caroline yesterday, who has Dexter from Ysobel's last litter born 31st July 2013 and is Charlie's brother who came to visit us last Saturday with Roxy. They look more like twins than litter siblings. Thanks Caroline for dropping me a line and sending me the photo of your lovely boy.

 This funny photo of Lucy a girl we rehomed a couple years ago with Sue and Jimarrived in my inbox today. Lucy stays with us when Sue and Jim go on trips away and this Friday she will be with us for a week or two whilst they pop over to Germany, I think it's Germany, sorry if I've got that wrong. Thanks Sue, it did make me chuckle, at first glance it almost looks like you have got her a space helmet. lol

Lastly tonight is an email that I just found in my inbox and is the Chester and Jake reunion. Chester and Jake are from Smudge's litter that just left us and luckily for these two boys, they went to families that are also friends with each other, so this Friday after being apart for nine days they got to meet up and have a sibling reunion and from the account of the meeting, they had not forgotten each other. Dogs recall each other mostly through scent and as the parting was only nine days, this would be within the bounds of the pups memory to recall each others smell to be familiar, so I do think that Chester and Jake genuinely recalled each other. Thanks Sarah for sharing their reunion and lovely to hear that Jake has his paws firmly under the table in your home and hearts. 

Got home late from milking tonight, so a quick blog to catch up with Primrose's pups now twentyfour days old. Today I moved the whelping box out of the pen, so they now have more room to roam about in. They already have been licking at the puppy food and as they approach four weeks old we give them adlib access to food to start to reduce the pressure off the mum.
The footage is the pups getting used to their changed surroundings. Enjoy, I'm now probably going to fall asleep on the sofa, as I'm full as a tick after eating a rather large plate of delicious lamb stew and dumpling cooked by my husband from some of the leftover lamb and gravey stock from yesterdays roast. You know when you eat something and it's just really tasty, well that's what I have just had. I asked my husband what spices and herbs he had added , but he said, "none," as the stock already tasted so nice, he felt it did not need it, so my daughter Florrie cheekily piped up with, "then it tastes nice because of mum's stock, not your cooking."