Henry shows us he is a gentleman

Henry

Today Smudge has been mated for the first time with Henry (Take a look at the "Future Litters" page for more info on this union). Followers of this blog will know Henry well and know this is his first time being used as a stud dog. Henry is nearly two years old and when bringing on a male dog as a stud dog health is of course important but also on an equal par must be temperament and often as not a good tempered male dog will make a gentlemanly stud dog. 
I'm not going to go into the finer points about Henry's exploits today with Smudge because that's between them, me and the four walls around us, but I will just tell, that his calm approach to the job, especially waiting to become untied from Smudge was impressive for a young dog being used for the first time. Always a relief to know that a young dog is up to the job. He will be mated with her every other day now until she goes of her mateable period during her heat and this can vary from bitch to bitch, some just are on for a couple days and some can be mateable for a week or so. Now it's fingers crossed he's fertile.
Funnily now, he's watching my every move and following me around like a shadow, along with Reggie as he always does when bitches are on heat, because he now like Reggie knows that I'm the gate keeper. Lol

---

Toby and Primrose

Primrose thankfully seems to be holding off coming on heat. She is due around the end of March, but with three of our bitches coming on heat a couple months earlier than expected, I was worried, she might follow suit. She is as tight as a button and she's just gone out of coat, which would bode with coming back into coat in a few weeks time and then coming on heat the end of March. So fingers crossed. If she comes on heat now before Toby is MRI scanned and we have his grading, we would wait to her next heat. This would then mean puppies around the end of the year going into Winter, which is a bit of a pain, but hopefully she will hold off coming on heat before we get Toby's MRI scan grades.
Now for a funny story about working in the animal sex industry. Believe me if you are at a do and someone asks you what you do and you reply, "I work in the sex industry," they always say, "Pardon," so you follow, "To be correct, the animal sex industry." They then will say, "Pardon" again. Lol
Some will know that I have worked a lot with horses and that includes working in one of the biggest horse studs in the South West.  I have also owned my own stallions and one of my sisters has a small horse stud, breeding competition horses mostly eventing, showjumping types.
When I was working for the horse stud. One day we were bringing in mares to tease up, which is when you bring a mare near a stallion with a barrier between them and the stallion will be able to sniff the rear end of the mare safely, to see if the mare is ready to be served.
I was trying up a mare and she was dead on ready to be served. The person who owned the stud, Graham, told me, "Put her in a stable, Jane. I have got to ring the owner, as they want to see her served." I then replied, "That's a bit weird, what they going to film it ? and laughed. Graham replied, "He got given the mare by his brother to breed a foal and wants to see the process from start to finish." I put the mare in the stable and got on with my work whilst Graham went indoors to ring up the mare's owner.
Graham returned and said, "They will be here in about an hours time." The hour passed and the man who owned the mare turned up in a brand new Range Rover with a woman who spent most of her time giggling and leaning into him lifting one leg, which amused Graham and me. Graham directed them to where we covered mares and he walked back round the barn towards me smiling like a Cheshire cat and said, "You were right, Jane, they want to film it." 
Graham thought this funny and told me to lead the mare up into the barn and as usual he would follow on with the stallion. 
Now I go into the barn and notice the owner of the mare with his lady friend leaning into him giggling with his camera yet to have the camera lens cover removed. I positioned the mare, and then myself facing away from them, pulling my collar up and basically trying to obscure my face. I could hear the roar of the stallion and the clatter of his feet, as he approached, less than a minute later the job was done and the mares owner had not even managed to get the lens cover off his camera. He said, "I did not think it would be that quick." I don't know what he was expecting ?
 Graham thought it a funny old job and after they left without any video footage of the event, Graham asked me why I seemed to be hiding my face during the process and I told him, "You don't know where that sort of footage could end up." We both laughed. I will  tell you though that the stallion that day was an experienced old boy in his early teens with the name Rapid Pass and you could say, "He was not  just Rapid by name but also Rapid by nature." Lol

---