Mickey Mouse Mollie, can't see hand in front of your face and Reggie disgraces himself

It's Sunday evening and as the children trickle off to bed, I'm grabbing a moment to blog. First is a very sweet update from Mollie. Thanks Rhian for the update and glad that Mollie is fully recovered from being spayed. Good idea using the babygrows if your dog gets upset and distressed by wearing the collar, to stop them pulling at the wound left after being spayed. Lovely to see Bobbie and Mollie together, thanks again, Rhian.

Hi there Jane

Sorry we haven't been in touch we've been galavanting around the country with the caravan, and so here is a little update on what's been happening, written by Mollie.

Hello Auntie Jane and all my brothers and sisters

I have been very busy lately, we have been on holidays quite a lot. I made lots of new puppy friends, and although I shout at them when I see them first because I get so excited, once they meet me properly they all love me and we run around and have lots of fun. Mum and Dad say that I am like a headless chicken, I don't know what that is, but I hope it is something nice!!! We have just come home from Yorkshire and now I am waiting for my next trip in the caravan, I am very very good in the car and I go to sleep straight away, and
only wake up when my Daddy stops the car. I sit in the back with my Bobbie (my big brother) and we wear our seat belts to keep us safe.

I am sending some photos of me in my Mickey Mouse outfits, I had an operation before we went away and I didn't like the lampshade they gave me to put on my head, and so Dad bought me two babygrows instead and I think I looked really chic, and they were so comfy to wear that I didn't complain once and I couldn't reach my tummy to scratch or pull out my stitches. I wasn't very well for a day or two but after that I was running around again like I did before. I have just been weighed and I am 6.9kilos and on two meals a day, and so I have my food the same time as Bobbie, but if he doesn't eat his quick enough I run over to his bowl and finish it for him ( so we eat on different sides of the kitchen) and mum and dad watch me ('cos I am really fast on my feet)! Something I love doing is running upstairs and getting shoes and then chasing around the house with them, mum laughs so much she can't catch me, it's a really good game. Another game I like is taking treats from Bobbie because he is quite old and quite slow now, and so I eat mine and then if I'm fast enough I can get to it before mum
can stop me. I love ice cream and so does Bobbie, and when we have ice cream we share, one spoon for me and one for him and we take it in turns. Mum took a photo of us last week when we were sharing and we had got to the end of it, so we are sending you a photo for you to see how good we are. 

As you can see I am allowed to sit on the settee, and when mum or dad get up I jump into their place and then they have to move me for them to sit down, but they don't mind. I can be a little bit naughty sometimes but it's because I get really excited and forget my manners, and I get told off and then I have to be extra good for a little while before doing something naughty again, but most of
the time I am VERY good. I have got a new bed now because I kept going in Bobbie's bed and he was jumping into my crate which I wasn't very happy about, and so we have a nice bed each for the day and then I sleep in my crate in the night, and I sleep until 8.30 in the morning. When we were on holidays in the caravan I slept until 9 o'clock one day. Mum and Dad say I am marvellous, but I know that anyway.

My paws are getting tired now so I am going for a sleep. Sorry I went on so long!!!!

Lots of love to all of my brothers and sisters

Mollie

This morning I was milking, so up early and caught a couple photos of all the Cavalier girls cuddled up together.

After milking last night, as I was leaving I asked the person, Adrian who I was working for, if he would mind me taking a couple photos of Shep and Belle to put on my blog, as I mention them occasionally  on my blog and it might be nice to put a face to their names. He thought me utterly mad, but was happy for me to do this. So this morning camera in hand, I got a couple photos of Shep waiting for me at the Dairy door, as I get the Dairy ready for milking before setting off up the road to get the cows in.
Belle is Shep's canine companion on the farm, being a Springer Spaniel and both dogs are neutered. She has little interest in herding but Shep has a lot of interest in hunting with her and her two brothers that often appear from the other farm, Adrian's brother has.

I also tried to get a bit of video footage of getting the cows in, but this morning we had no moonlight and a very heavy mist, so what I got was me talking a lot with the occasional glimpse of Shep and the cows. The field I walk out across is normally strip grazed, but as we get into the later part of the year and grass growth and quality has dropped, the cows now run larger areas as we wait for the weather to break and they come in for winter. It has been such a good Autumn here in the UK, it's hard to believe it's October in a few days time and for farming hopefully this will make the Winter seem shorter. When the weather breaks this late now, it may be a bit of a shock to the system, as we plunge from almost Summer temperatures during the daytime, straight into Winter.
In the video I talk about cow lameness and the fact that if you keep many heads of stock, you invariable will have health issues such as lameness and we don't see animals in the wild that often lame, because if you become lame being a prey species, you soon will be prey. I won't deny though that lameness in Dairy cattle is a very big problem and some herds, it is shocking the level and amount of lameness they have in their herds, many factors are involved from genetics, enviroment, feeding, husbandry and infectious causes.  I could write a lengthy piece on this, having milked cows for 27 years now, but I will spare you that rant though.
I mention how lovely the silence is of the morning, I know it is not zero silence, but in this time when constant stimulation and noise seems to be the elixir of the masses, it is silence. I like silence.
If you watch the video right through, as unfortunately there is not much to watch, you don't have to worry that suddenly Freddy Krueger is going to appear behind me. I have been walking around the North Devon countryside in the dark hours since a child and have yet to see or hear anything unusual, not even the odd alien and I am pretty approachable, I think.

Ending now with a bit of a red face. Treacle and Primrose are on heat at the moment. On Saturday morning, I had my first morning of from milking all weekend for the last four weekends, so it was nice to wake up without one of us jumping out of bed to go milking. When we had done breakfast and run the dogs out and fed them, I had to make a trip to Mole Valley Farmers for dog food and bulk buy toilet roll, as they sell packets of 24 rolls of a good brand toilet roll a lot cheaper than any where else. With six children, we tend to go through a lot.
I set off thinking that Primrose and Treacle were safely secured in one of the stables, but on my return, my husband greeted me with the news that, he on my leaving had gone indoors to use the toilet (as he was outside sawing up wood and splitting logs when I left) and had made a cup of coffee and on coming outside to the stables, he was greeted by Treacle with Reggie tied to her. Reggie is Treacle's Dad !
David, my husband had already rung the vet to find out about injecting her, which terminates any conception that may of happened and told me that she should be injected from 21 days on heat and no further than 40 days from coming on heat and it's two injections 24 hours apart. I then stomped around like a bulldog chewing a wasp, muttering how did he let that happen and berated my husband, of course it was every one elses fault but mine.
I then jumped in the car and drove off, not in temper, but to go and pick up six chairs I had just negotiated buying from my husband's Uncle Pat, on my way back from getting dog food, who owns an Emporium at Umberleigh selling antiques, bric-a-brac and and general household items. This gave me a twenty minute cooling off period and I saw reason, that if any blame was to be pointed it probably should be at me, I put them in the stable and did not check that all bolts were well enough secured, that a bit of rattling and a nose pushing the kick bolt over would suffice in gaining entry and I had done rather a good deal in getting six chairs for the kitchen table, I wanted to share my successful acquisition with my husband. So when I returned I apologised for berating him so, my husband knows that I struggle to stay angry for any length of time, and I had some chairs I wanted him to look at. Lol

One of the chairs I bought

I got six of these chairs for £30, which I think is a bargain. These are from a cafe clearance and Uncle Pat said, "He bought them with a job lot which did not cost much" They are very sturdy chairs and ideal for the kitchen table where the children do painting, glueing etc. There were twelve all together and husband and I think the other six might come in handy for when we have family, friends around, so Monday might see me offering Uncle Pat £20 to clear the other six for him.
So, I got my head around the fact that Reggie had mated with his daughter, accidents can happen and now it's taking her in the day after her last day of her heat and getting the two injections 24 hours apart, which is around the 8th October. My only concern is that this may have an effect on her future fertility, but there is no way she is going to proceed with a pregnancy when her Dad is the father, although only up to a few years ago matings as close as this, was accepted by the Kennel Club, you might get away with it once, but the problem is when you repeatedly close mate within lines.
This happening to me for the first time ever with my dogs, reminds me of a story told to me by a top Show Poodle Kennel owner (The owner used to Judge all around the world) that also did a couple other breeds, one being Cavaliers and that is how I knew them, due to using their stud Cavalier dogs.
This gentleman told be of a Cavalier that stayed with them for a couple days, to be mated with one of their Cavalier boys and all seemed fine and the pups were born and as the days went by, the pups started to look like Dad might of been more Poodle than Cavalier. When the owner of the bitch contacted them conveying their concerns of parentage. He said, "He visited the litter and it was apparent that they were not pure Cavalier pups and as the bitch had been kennelled with them, the only way a Poodle dog could of got in with her, was it climbed the very high fence to her kennel mated her and then climbed back out before anyone noticed, probably over night." 
So tonight I blog a bit embarressed by Reggie's behaviour, he though has no shame.Lol. Seriously though, I blogged about this mishap, so that people understand that even if your bitch accidentally mates with a dog, you have plenty of time to stop the pregnancy, as soon as off heat the bitch can be injected to stop her carrying the pregnancy. As the vet said to my husband when he rang them about Reggie and Treacle, "This can happen to the best of us"  

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