Taken by our son Thomas

Smidge's rose looks good this year.

Blottie (Brittany/Cavalier) lies with her head over Treacle (Poodle/Cavalier). Treacle's son Ernest we hope will be having pups with Blottie the beginning of 2018. 

Litter siblings Bumble and Blottie are 1/2 Brittany and 1/2 Cavalier. Their Mum is Smudge and Dad is Henry. We hope to have our next litters from these two girls (the beginning of 2018) with Ernest our 3/4 Cavalier 1/4 spaniel boy.

Bertha is 1/2 Brittany and 1/2 Cavalier. Her Mum is Primrose and Dad is Henry.

Playing cards last night our son Bert has his seat kept warm by Henry, until his return. Henry loves cheese.

Interesting bit of video of Blottie and Bertha. Both are Brittany/Cavalier. Blottie is from our first litter of Brittany/cavaliers and is over 2 years old. She is an adult bitch and her mother Smudge and Grandmother are both high ranking bitches in the pack and she is proving to follow in their footsteps. Bertha is only 11 months old and up to a little while ago was still being allowed puppy privileges. Puppy privileges are when the adult dogs allow them a bit of slack, as they are only a pup and are in the process of learning pack etiquette. Now though, as the video will show, that time has passed, and she is learning that if a dominate dog wants something and gives you the death stare, it is in your best interest to give it up eventually.  
Watch out for the funny moment Blottie's Mum Smudge looks to come past them and decides it's best to turn back and leave them to sort it out between them. 

Henry, Toby and Ernest decided to have a digging session this evening. I forget to mention that not only do vowels and mice frequent that bank, but more often than not rats also regularly try to take up residence there.

In this heat you have to be careful that your dog/dogs are kept cool. Providing them with a shallow pool to paddle and lie in if they wish will help to cool them off. Be careful though as very flat faced breeds that struggle to breath and regulate their temperature with the heat due to having no muzzle, can often collapse from over heating and lack of oxygen and drown in shallow water. So do not leave them unattended. Also make yourself aware of which direction is East and West, as the sun travels over from rising in the East to setting in the West changing the direction shade is cast and at around midday it is at it's highest casting no shade. So if you plan to leave your dog for a couple hours outside, be aware that as the sun moves over, what you thought was a cool shaded place to leave them, may be like an oven in an hour or twos time as the sun moves. Be careful, keep dogs cool.

Up with the sun this morning to set off for milking. Photos from the front of our home and from a gateway in Pound Lane on the way to milking.

The cows I milk, run through the cow kennels every morning to bring them in, and have the option to lie in or out over night. When it is really hot, like now, you rarely find them lied outside when you arrive to milk them. It's a lot cooler in the cow kennels and in the shade of the shed less flies. So I did not need to bring them in this morning. Which gave me sometime to catch some video footage of them enjoying the back scratching facilities. The herd of cows are mostly at least half way or further on to their next calf being born. They are Autumn calved. calving in all the herd by Christmas. The first cows to calve
​ in the Autumn were Dried off last week and each week now will see the cows coming in to parlour reduce, until calving starts in earnest again. 

It has been really hot here today in the UK. Only mad dog owners take their dogs out in this weather. It's early morning, late evening for exercise until the heat breaks, which the dogs seem happy about.  

And I just caught these photos of the Poundlane Daddies and Daddy to be hanging out together in the shade of the willow tree. It's going to be a scorcher here today. Have a lovely Father's Day!

With Sasha finally having her first heat she is now kenneled in our stable block. Obviously, we are not breeding from her on her first heat, but the boys don't know that. Being the gate keeper to romantic meetings. When we have a bitch on heat they don't let me far out of their sight. 

Yet another study confirms brachycephalic breeds (Dogs intentionally bred with the condition of Brachycephaly) are more predisposed to health issues. This time it's Corneal ulcerative disease in dogs under primary veterinary care in. 1 in 20 pugs out of the 1000 pugs in the study suffered with the incredibly painful condition of corneal ulceration. Spaniels also came up high, but data shows that this was pushed up due to the Cavalier King Charles spaniel being included in the group, which is also a brachycephalic breed. Although many of the show spaniels like cocker and clumber spaniels suffer with Entropion and Ectropion which can lead more often than not to corneal ulceration. 
​The conclusion of the study was:

So basically stop breeding dogs with bulging eyes and with loose eyelids. Interestingly is with Ernest our 3/4 Cavalier 1/4 Poodle we have achieved a vast improvement in periocular anatomy than that of a pure Cavalier. Looking at the photo of Ernest below between Bumble and Blottie, who are first generation crosses of the Cavalier with the Brittany and we are hoping to produce pups with him.

You can see how lovely and tight everything is around his eyes. Blottie and Bumble's eyes are not bad, but would not hurt to be a bit tighter from the periocular anatomy that Ernest has inherited from his Poodle ancestry. Ernest has a lovely tight elegant head still retaining the distinct look of a spaniel without the caricatured look that has and is still happening with the Cavalier in the show ring. ​

Just booked in Ernest and sisters Blottie and Bumble for heart examinations the second week in July with the Cardiologist vet Jo Harris at her clinic she holds at a Bideford veterinary surgery. Ernest is booked in for the full works auscultation and echo cardiogram. With research data like Dr. Borgarelli's ongoing mitral valve shape comparison study starting to show that "The MV of CKCSs is flatter and has reduced tenting compared to the MV of other breeds. These morphologic features could confer a mechanical disadvantage, and play a role in the predisposition of this breed to the early development of myxomatous mitral valve disease." It becomes ever more important to have breeding stock in Cavalier breeding programs hearts echo cardiogramed before breeding from. To collect data and to exclude dogs showing extreme morphologic features of the Mitrial Valve (MV) from breeding. 
I booked in Blottie and Bumble just for an auscultation (examination with a stethoscope) and when coming off the phone I had a conversation with myself, about why I would not also be having their hearts echo cardiogramed. I'm sure I could of probably pulled some sort of bullshit out of the hat to why, but if truthful to myself it would be down to cost. I think though that I can wiggle a few things around. My birthday in July, so I'll have their echo cardiogram examinations as a birthday present. Sorted.
​So we have heart examinations the second week in July. Fingers crossed, all going well with them. Then it's up to Bristol the first week in August for their MRI scans. Those two tests will stand me in around £2000 before I even know that any of these dogs will be viable to breed on with.
Some people ask me (although I think they are just picking for a fight and their issue is more to do with crossbreeding than the price) "How can you justify the cost of your pups?" which are £850 each. I guess those people have not taken the time to actually read this website before contacting me, and they obviously are unaware of the exotic bully market ​Dezinerbullz.co.uk (Yes, this horrific type of breeding has come to the UK shores) where they sell dogs being bred specifically to be disabled and to suffer to people with more money than sense for  thousands of pounds. Why don't you go and ask them to justify themselves.
​See I have no problem with what Dezinerbullz.co.uk or anyone sells their pups for. That is not the issue here, the issue is the deformity they are breeding in to these dogs and the suffering these dogs have to endure through their lifetime that are shortened due to these deformities. They are being treated like things, not sentient beings. It breaks my heart to see dogs bred like this. They have at least 20 stud dogs (Wanking dogs off and draining them of semen is where the real dosh is in dogs. Mind, I doubt if many of their stud dogs could stand the physical strain of a natural mating with a bitch) and 14 bitches, the mind boggles at the suffering this breeder is producing. If like Dezinerbullz.co.uk ​their website tells you that the dogs exercise needs are only going to be"A nice brisk walk for about 10 minutes 4-7 times per week" we are talking really seriously health compromised dogs, if that is all they need, and for all their mentions about breeding for health, nothing about the health checks they do prior to breeding, but plenty about DNA checking for the colours they carry and could produce. We seriously need legislation in the UK against Qualzucht aka torture breeding. We really could do with a Steven M. Wise here in the UK:
"The Problem with Being a Thing" in Rattling the Cage,by Steven Wise
"For four thousand years, a thick and impenetrable legal wall has separated all human from all nonhuman animals. On one side, even the most trivial interests of a single species — ours — are jealously guarded. We have assigned ourselves, alone among the million animal species, the status of "legal persons." On the other side of that wall lies the legal refuse of an entire kingdom, not just chimpanzees and bonobos but also gorillas, orangutans, and monkeys, dogs, elephants, and dolphins. They are "legal things." Their most basic and fundamental interests — their pains, their lives, their freedoms — are intentionally ignored, often maliciously trampled, and routinely abused. Ancient philosophers claimed that all nonhuman animals had been designed and placed on this earth just for human beings. Ancient jurists declared that law had been created just for human beings. Although philosophy and science have long since recanted, the law has not."
Don't look to the RSPCA to sort this out as the Terrierman reports Charity Watchdog Threatens to Take Over RSPCA and Third Sector Says the RSPCA is a Dog's Dinner

In the photos on the left is Bumble (Brittany/Cavalier), then Ernest (3/4 Cavalier, 1/4 Poodle) and on the right Blottie (Brittany/Cavalier). Ernest is the size of an average Cavalier and he should hopefully bring down the size of Blottie and Bumble. I am at the moment also seriously looking for another male line (Don't want to put all my eggs in one basket with Ernest) to bring in to the program. I've seen something today that sounds promising and is a crossbreed, but would be interested to hear from anyone with a pure Cavalier male pup or a bit older. Preferably a tricolour, but would look at a good pigmented Blenheim.

Husband David relaxing with Sasha on his torso and Blottie snuggled up on his legs.