First tonight a couple updates with the first from Sue, who has Lucy aka Lucinda and she is a bitch we rehomed, is it three years ago now ? Lucy comes back to us every now and again, when Sue and Jim go on holiday or visit their daughter and their granchildren in Australia. Thanks for the photos Sue of Lucy with her ribbons and hope the house moving is finally moving. Hello Jane Just thought you might like to see a picture of Lucy after she had won two first prizes at the Winkleigh Dog show (1 for the most adoring eyes,1 for the best senior!!! As nearly 7!!!) Hope all well at Poundlane and that you have enjoyed the holidays, sure it's a nice break now you are puppy free , interested to read you may breed Cavaliers again next year!!! We ok still waiting on the people at bottom of the chain to have their mortgage finalised , banks don't exactly hurry these things, hopefully it will get sorted this week. Hope all the family are well Best regards Sue Next is an update from Lynne, who has Kayla , who is from Smudge's litter born this year on the 24th February. She has just been spayed and the photos are of her just returned from the vets. Hope all is going well with her recovery and that pretty pink collar is going to make a fun hat when Kayla's finished with it. Dear Jane Just to let you know that Kayla was spayed this morning and she's now feeling very sorry for herself poor thing. Regards Lynne Children are all back at school now after the summer holidays and I thought I must get on with getting all the dogs craniums measured, so with good intent yesterday I set about trying to remember and find the measuring calipers I had bought for the job and such was the cunning that I had displayed in hiding them, that I could not for the life of me lay my hands upon them. In our home, we have six very curious children and on bringing this measuring caliper home, much interest was shown in it, so in our home with said children, if it ain't been nailed down, when you come to want to use it, the chances you are going to find it are prettty low and if lucky enough to find it the chances it's still in one piece or still workable is probably negligible, often it has been morphed into something else or is part of something else. So when I have something that I would like to use again and know that it has aroused interest amongst the children, I hide it and as in this case and is often the case, time had passed and I could not find it, looked in the usual places that I might hide things from the children, but with a son now taller than me and my hiding is normally a case of putting things out of reach, I was coming to the assumption that maybe the place the measuring caliphers had been lying, may of been reached by the children. Before starting the interrogation of our children, I had one avenue to still explore and that was to ask David my husband, if he knew were it was. As his mobile phone has died at the moment I would have to wait until evening to consult him on the whereabouts of the measuring calipers. Evening came and David arrived home from work and come late evening I remembered to ask him about the measuring calipers and he went and put his hand right on them. Seems I have been guilty of that male trait, manlooking. The measuring calipers were where I had first looked, sitting just under a book, which I had not thought to look under, duh ! So now measuring calipers in hand and children in school, I will start to measure the craniums of each dog and will try to get some side and dorsal photos of each dogs head alongside measurements and work out their cephalic ratio. Started on the blog for this and will show how you calculate a dogs cephalic ratio and show you a chart to know which skull shape they fall into. Might interest some to take a look at the Pedigree Dogs Exposed blog http://pedigreedogsexposed.blogspot.co.uk/ tonight as Jemima Harrison who writes it has just published details of a new paper from reasearchers at Massey University in New Zealand about the breathlesness we see in Brachycephalic Airway Syndrome (BAS) and how it is a significant welfare issue, sadly in the report they put the welfare impact of severe BAS in the same category as the feeling of drowning or being deliberately asphyxiated. "Introducing breathlessness as a significant animal welfare issue" by NJ Beausoleil and DJ Mellor, New Zealand Veterinary Journal, July 2014. This paper covers across the board breathing problems in dogs and cats, not just conformation, but they are preparing another paper exploring the extent and impact BAS has on welfare in dogs and cats. Photos tonight of the pack feature a couple with me with Toby totally chilled out lying on my legs. Toby will be three years old this November and he will go up to Bristol the end of November start of December to have his first MRI scan. Not looking forward to this, so want him to be 0b and if you see how athletic he is, it's hard to imagine he could have any level of Syringomyelia, but we will have to wait and see, with fingers tightly crossed. Toby is a sweetheart and such a gentleman and a proper sporting spaniel that still has a nose for scenting and loves flushing a cover. As all our dogs, Toby has a couple name derivatives, Tobleroneous and the other is Tobylucious. A funny story about my name calling of our dogs and a little rude, is about how I gave Millie the double barrelled name Millie Milf, without realising that Milf is also a rather rude abbreviation. If you don't know what that is an abbreviation for, look away now if easily offended and for those who can't help but look, it stands for "Mother I'd like (to) F--K", I'll let you guess that last word.Lol. Thankfully our oldest son was aware of this abbreviation and thankfully told me about it before I called it out in a public place, whilst summoning Millie. Lol. Seems I still have a bit of innocence about me and from now on any names I come up with I'm running them past my son, to make sure I don't offend anyone. Hope everyone caught the last super moon of the year on Tuesday night, I milked Tuesday morning and it was pretty super that morning, as I brought the cows in and one of those times I wish I had my camera with me. Shep the Border collie at the farm I was milking at, was waiting for me as I arrived and I don't know if it was the moon, but he was master keen for me to get my leggings on before heading out to bring the cows in, barking at me at the parlour door to hurry up, which is not his normal behaviour, maybe with the light of the moon, he thought I was running late ? Shep is a character, at first meetings you might think him a bit aloof, but drop to your knees and the offer of a chest rub he can not resist and thus, then becomes the most loving dog and often will give me a little lick of the side of my face, in appreciation of my advance dog massage and scratching skills. He shares is life on farm with Belle a Springer Spaniel and he is visited most days by two other Springer Spaniels which come over from the other farm they own, where the other brother lives. Most days this time of year, Shep does his getting the cows in duties and when I leave he often can be seen setting out across the fields with the three Springer Spaniels to spend a few hours hunting. Herding and hunting are one of the same instincts. I often wonder what Border Collies think of herding stock loyally to their masters and what they think when their master, never makes a kill, so I'm going to finish on me imagining what two Sheep dogs make of all that herding, but their masters never seeming to make the kill, hopefully you will see the humour in this. Sitting in the barn on the farm was Old Sheepdog and Young Sheep dog. Young Sheepdog says to old sheep dog, "I don't get my master. Every day I run, and drive those sheep to him. Carefully I go, just whispering them, by his toe. Yet does he ever catch one, so that we can feast, together as friends, not foe. The answer is simply, no." The Old Sheepdog replies, "I know what you mean, our masters are quite dumb, it seems. Let us be thankful, for the cupboard of never ending dog food. That seems to re-fill, at free will. Filling our tummies, until we still, and in our slumber, we can dream, the master makes the kill, and reigns supreme." Lol Some may notice the day after I posted the "Old Sheep dog and Young Sheep dog" bit that I have added a bit more to it, posted it late last night and brain was starting to shut down. Comments are closed.
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“The greatest pleasure of a dog is that you may make a fool of yourself with him, and not only will he not scold you,but he will make a fool of himself, too.”
― Samuel Butler Me (Jane) with Puddin' and Teagol, waiting patiently to flush a patch of kale, December 2019
AuthorHello, I am Jane! Archives
March 2022
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