Eye tests, picnics, Roxy and lamb stew !

Reggie and Primrose visited the vet in Tavistock this morning and as hopefully expected both pass another year with clear eye tests. Was very interesting talking to Christopher Warren who does my eye testing for my dogs as he has a friend who is a leading vet working on stem cells being used to repair degenerated retinas in dogs. This vet works in Ohio, USA and they are having amazing results. He said that dogs that where blind twelve months after treatment have regained sight. I know people have reservations over stem cell use but stem cells can now be harvested from bone marrow. This is amazing news not only for dogs but many species including humans.
After visiting the vets Reggie and Primrose got to have a run over Dartmoor with the children. It was a bit damp but all had fun and we put the seats down in the MPV to have our picnic in the back  out of the occasional showers.
We were away from home around 4 hours and had left our guest Archie in the kitchen with Toby and Jessica (Jessica is now of heat). Archie had not had any accidents whilst we where out and seems to be clean all the time. We will miss him when he leaves next weekend as he certainly is a little character.
We have Belle and Lucy on heat at the moment, so having to be very careful who's with who and would expect Dolly, Ysobel and Smudge to be on heat in the next month and with none of these dogs being mated this time it takes a bit of strategic planning making sure there's no clandestine meetings with Reggie or Toby, as Toby has turned into a very handsome young man and at 10 months old certainly is showing a keen interest in the girls already but he will have to wait a while yet.
Tonight I have put on some lovely photos from Tracey of her Roxy who Lucy is the Mum and my sister's Poodle Rollo is the Dad. Roxy will be two the beginning of November which does not seem far away. Where did those two years go Tracey ?Thanks for yet more lovely photos Tracey especially the portrait ones done by the person at the pet store and as we already discussed, "you can really see her Mum in her in those photo's." I also love the wet and wind swept photo of her in the Peak District when you where on holiday.

Lastly this evening some random photos of the pack and as you will see Archie has settled into the fold discovering the dishwasher. We had leg of lamb yesterday and stripped the leg to have lamb stew tonight, so the dishwasher had a certain allure for the dogs as we loaded it up. Probably did not need to put it on a wash cycle. Lol. Lamb stir fry tomorrow night !