Photos taken by our son Thomas

Yesterday I drove up to Cheshire and back to pick up a new addition to the pack. Casper is a Kennel Club registered two and a half year old Cavalier proven stud dog. He is recently heart examined, eye examined and has the two DNA tests recommended for Cavaliers which are Dry Eye/Curly Coat and Episodic Falling. 
First thing is he needs his teeth cleaning and maybe a couple extractions looking at his molars. Shame because for a Cavalier he has pretty good denture alignment, but unfortunately one of the symptoms of being brachycephalic is with the shortening of the muzzle that occurs with practically every brachycephalic breed teeth are more crowded and have poor dental alignment which makes them prone to a plethora of dental issues with plaque build up being one leading to Periodontal Disease so need extra care if you don't want them to suffer with plaque build up than non brachycephalic breeds. He is booked in for the 9th October for a dental and then it will be getting him MRI scanned in the near future.
He is settling in really well with the rest of the pack and as still getting over this bloody lurgy and also taking on more relief milking recently I've been a bit knackered come evening to be writing blogs of any length. Hope to be back soon though firing on all cylinders and will tell more about Casper and the plans we have for him.

After Donald Trump's most recent threats on Twitter to world peace North Korea crisis: Washington denies 'war declared' I think someone needs to start a petition on line calling for the banning of World leaders from using social media. Then get a raw hide chew and put Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un in a room and let them sort out the Deadlock like Toby and Blottie and no one gets hurt other than someones pride. 

With our son Bert now home most weekends and having to be back in barracks by 10 pm, Sunday evening, we have Sunday Roast at lunchtime most weekends now.

For dessert we had an Apple cake soaked in honey.

Still feeling pretty rough with the tail end now of the lurgy we have had going through our home. Leaving me with a cough (that seems to be instigated by just laughing), and a bunged up nose, but the dogs seem to appreciate the more lethargic me.  

The CavalierHealth.org website reports Chiari-like malformation (CM) is found in 100% of 1,020 cavaliers in Belgium and the Netherlands and syringomyelia in 39%.  "The authors see little progress in ridding the breed of CM without crossbreeding." If you have 100% of a breed with a health condition crossbreeding is the way forward.

We have been mostly eating this week ....

Millie (Maternal Grandmother to Bumble and Blottie) and Toby (Dad to Lily and Ernest)

Got this interesting bit of footage this morning of Toby and Blottie. Blottie had the chew first and then Toby decided he wanted it. I think he thought Blottie would give it up, but he judged the situation wrongly and we had a deadlock. Blottie shows us that she wants the chew more than Toby, even though she is backed in to a corner. 

Hopefully these two Blottie and Toby snuggled up asleep together will become lovebirds and produce one of the next two litters at Poundlane, which can be read about on The POUNDLANE Spaniel. page.

Our two Cavapoo girls Treacle (who is 4 years old and off heat now is back in the pack) and Belle (who is nearly six years old) rest together.

Wes Anderson has just released the trailer for his new film Isle of Dogs. This director produced The Grand Budapest Hotel ​which is one of my favourite movies. Can't wait to see this offering which has from the trailer very much the feeling of revisiting Fantastic Mr. Fox ground, which is also up there in very interesting films to watch and we don't have to worry about any dogs being harmed in the making of it. 

Apparently Climate change not as threatening to planet as previously thought (although climate change is not really a threat to the planet. It's more a threat to our survival as a species on it). Seems scientists got their modelling wrong. 

After my Cruel not cool blog another vet the Battersea Dogs and Cats Home’s head vet Shaun Opperman speaks out and asks, "Is this a breed that should be being bred?” about the craze for brachycephalic breeds like French Bulldogs and lays the blame pretty squarely Top vet: Celeb craze to blame for spike in abandoned French bulldogs at the door of celebrities pimping them on the internet. 

See Smudge can stand like a show dog for a split second, but if given the choice she just prefers to be a dog. Just after our son Alfie clicked that photo she sat down.

Yesterday I posted a blog Like mother, like daughters with a video featuring Smudge (a pure Cavalier King Charles spaniel) playing with her daughters Bumble and Blottie who are Brittany/Cavalier and mentioned her likeness to a Clumber ​ spaniel. So I thought I would put up a photo of a Clumber spaniel from when they were more working dog than the mostly show ring caricatures they have become today.

And then I have tried to get a photo of Smudge in a similar stance, which was harder said than done with a dog that if it sees a treat automatically sits or flops out. I think most can see why I jokingly say sometimes she is a Clumber cross Cavalier. 

It ain't that ridiculous to suggest she may have some Clumber blood coursing through her veins as the Blenheim spaniel which was amalgamated in to the Toy king Charles spaniel came from a working background originally known as the Marlborough spaniel and it is thought that the Clumber (you have to remember the Clumber originally was not the over done heavy, fleshed, droopy eyelid dog we now see produced for the show ring) and Marlborough may of had a few clandestine meetings in each others development and as both favoured by the British aristocracy it is highly likely before type turned in to breed that Smudge somewhere in her linage had some Clumber genes just waiting to be expressed and would explain her exceptional nose for scent and although slow she has relentlessness when going through dense cover and just listen to the description of the temperament of a Clumber,  "Gentle, loyal and affectionate. Enjoy curling up on the couch, eating and sleeping." Basically a bigger Cavalier.

Saturday morning I received a sad email telling me that Lucy's time to go had passed from Sue and Jim. Lucy aka Lucinda was a beautiful Ruby Cavalier we re-homed in 2011. Lucy came to us as an adult girl nearly 2 years old and we bred one pure Cavalier litter from her with Charlie Spring 2010 (just before I started the website up) producing 6 lovely pups. In 2011 with more of an idea of where I was going as regards using cross breeding in our program, we decided along with Bonnie her sister who we had also took on when the previous owner (who was a hobby breeder) decided to sell them as adults, to re-home them both and we also felt that Lucy and Bonnie would both enjoy life in a smaller pack. We found Bonnie a home with a family in Cornwall, and Sue and Jim took on Lucy. Lucy over the last 6 years came back to us regularly though when Sue and Jim visited their daughter and her family in Australia, and recently with Dolly's time to go Sue so kindly rang me and we had a chat. From that chat I surmised then Lucy's time was nearing. Lucy had Mitrial Valve Disease (MVD) and she had reached the stage of Chronic Heart Failure (CHF). To many of us have been there with this awful heart condition. She had been on medication to ease the progression, but Sue and Jim on Saturday morning knew it was Lucy's time to go and as Sue told me in her email, "she is at rest now no more struggling to breath we did it because we loved her so very much." She also thanked me, "Thank you for letting us have her for 6 years she was a joy. xx"
The thanks though should also be on Lucy and my part as you gave Lucy 6 wonderful years of life, secure and loved.  It is never easy to let them go. Love though is not just roses and pretty butterflies. When it came to the hardest act of love you will have to do for your dog, you did not fail her and gave her a dignified end. Which as Margaret who contacted me on hearing about Dolly's time to go puts it, "what a wonderful thing we can do for our
animal friends at the end of their lives,  that we cannot do for our human family
and friends." 

Poignantly Dolly and Lucy together looking out our front door in 2015

Finally got a bit of footage of these three playing. I noticed Smudge giving the cue to her daughter Bumble for a bit of playtime and managed to get all the other dogs out the way without stopping the play  and then rush and got my camera to catch a couple minutes of their playtime. Notice at the beginning of the filming Bumble comes along the wall and if you look closely you will see her hackles up (the ridge of hair along her back standing up) her Mum and sister Blottie are behind her and I'm just hoping the play is still on and thankfully it is, as Bumble drops from the wall and they resume the chase. I have always noted that daughters for the best part will play respectfully and submissively with their Mum even if like Blottie and Bumble they are bigger than their Mum.
​Smudge is nearly 7 1/2 years old now. I always laugh and refer to her has my Clumber Spaniel cross Cavalier girl because of her heavy set, but she is a pure Cavalier and although chunky looking, if you run your hand over her back her ribs are easily felt and she has waist when viewed dorsally. She has though been a phenomenal stock bitch carrying 3 litters producing and rearing all of her 24 pups with seemingly little effort, with her first litter being 9 pups, second 6 pups and last litter another amazing 9 pups. All born good sized, not one  misle draft (runt) pup amongst them and she never needed any help rearing them as she always had loads of milk, but unfortunately her fertility producing big litters and her prowess producing milk for her pups has left her with a bit of a lowered undercarriage. 
Look out for Blottie at the end noticing a fly and catching it. 

A bit of video of litter siblings Ernest and Lily playing together this morning.

Last night for dessert we had a cake off with our son Alfie making a moist chocolate cake and me making another blackberry and apple cake. The acid test was what would husband David when he got in from work choose, as he is more of a chocolate dessert person than a fruit dessert person. He obviously enjoyed the blackberry and apple cake the other day that he surprised me and had a piece of it rather than the chocolate cake.