Four little dots in a row and yet another sleepy video

Smudge

Smudge is yet again a wonderful Mum and is rearing her nine pups easily. The pups are now six weeks old and are a lively and inquisitive bunch. I started worming them again this morning and gave them their first treatment for fleas, using Frontline.  So for the wormer, I weighed them and they are all around 2 Kg in weight. Which at this age from Smudge, makes them around the same size as the Cavapoos she has had in the past at this age. 
The first photo of the pups is one I've singled out because it is four of the five pups, that all have what is known as the Blenheim thumbprint. 
To explain the Blenheim thumbprint I have copied this from my page' About The Cavalier.' 'The Blenheim or Marlborough Spaniel owes its name to the fact that this red and white spaniel was bred for many years at Blenheim Castle by the first Duke of Marlborough and legend has it that Sarah Duchess of Marlborough is supposed while waiting for news of the Dukes Campaign at the Battle of Blenheim to of nursed and stroked one of her spaniels who at the time was in pup and when the pups where born they all had a thumb print mark on their heads, so the starting of this legend of the Blenheim Thumbprint, spot or lozenge, which is so attractive and desirable in the Blenheim Cavalier.'
The Blenheims or as the first Duke of Marlborough would of known them the Marlborough Spaniel, were known for their sporting prowess and were used for flushing dense cover. This litter is more reminiscent of those little spaniels of yesteryear and I think if the first Duke of Marlborough was to suddenly appear, he would recognise these more readily as his beloved spaniels, than the Blenheims we see trotting around the show ring today.

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Four little dots in a row

Yesterday I got some video footage of the pups and this video is another one of them, yet again asleep. In the video I make a joke about the bullcrap that often is attached to breeds. Us Cavalier breeders have the Blenheim thumbprint. One of the most popular bullcraps is the rolls on a Bulldogs nose being to keep the blood out of their eyes when biting into a bull, that is total bullcrap. Another one is the story of which breed of dog was under the petticoats of Mary Queen of Scots when she was executed. It was said to be a small black spaniel, but it also seems that the Skye Terrier Club, also claim that one. Now as at the time the small spaniel was the court dog of the time and the Syke Terrier was not, I suspect it was more likely a small spaniel. There are many more bullcraps out there about breeds or legends as the breeds tell you.

So I thought I would make up my own bullcrap, sorry I mean legend for the Poundlane Spaniel and rather than a smudge on the lip being undesirable, we would make it sound most desirable and call it a mark of being kissed by mother nature and this signifies that the dog is fertile and a nurturer. I might even put it in my breed standard. Lol

The last thing on this blog is a slideshow of the puppies over the last couple days.