Bertha and Bumble are both Brittany cross Cavaliers. 

A couple photos of Henry watching me making pies a week or so ago, taken by our son Thomas.

Taken by Thomas

Taken by Thomas

Lovely update in my inbox this morning for Harvey, who is now 3 years old today. He is from Smudge and Reggie's litter of Cavapoos born today back in 2014 Its six ​
So a Happy 3rd Birthday to Harvey and his five litter siblings Kayla, Mollie, Flora, Chester and Jake. Hope you, and your families are all well.

Storm Doris might be still with us, and took off part off the roof of one of our sheds over night, but at least the sun has returned. 

Last year I experienced my first ever puppy being born with the condition  Hydrocephalus and it was decided when he was around 3 weeks old to put him to sleep Tiddler was not an angel.
Our son Alfie had become attached to his little "Garry Baldy", as he called him, but understood that he was not a well puppy. When the vet came, he went to the shed, and I could here hammering. Alfie, I thought was dealing with it in his own way. He then emerged when the vet had left. He had made a wooden sign for the graves of the dogs we have buried here, and had left a space for his "Garry Baldy." He did not realize that I was letting the vets have "Garry Baldy" for medical science. He was okay about it, when I explained why. The space though is a reminder of "Garry Baldy" more than if his name was hammered in to the sign. 

Received a lovely update for Harley a couple days ago from Sarah. Harley is from our Brittany/cavalier litter born last year in July One day under their little belts

"Good to hear that you are both enjoying the Gundog training. Gundog training is about focus, and giving purpose. If you really enjoy it, unfortunately crossbreeds cannot compete in Official Field Trials and Gundog Working Tests in the UK, but you might like to find a local shoot, and see if he enjoys working in the field. Starting with a bit of beating. Game shoots depending on what they are shooting run from anywhere between August to February. You get a few prats, as you do with a lot of things, but generally, you get a pretty nice crew of people beating, and you will be surprised by the cross section of life they come from. The smaller shoots of around 6 to 10 guns a day at the most, that are run for a day out enjoying shooting, than being concerned with turn over and bagging high numbers of birds, are the best places to start off. Your trainer might know of a good shoot to start at, if interested in getting Harley out in to the field. 

Nice that you have contacted Heather at Munchkinmay | Custom pet portraits . They are a lovely family, and Heather a budding artist. Would love to see what she comes up with for you.

Kind regards

Jane x"

The only things I tend go right in in town for these days are banking, bras or books. Yesterday, we went to Barnstaple town to replenish the book shelves.

A couple weeks ago I took Dolly to the vets, to take a look at a lump I had found in her neck, and I wrote about it in the blog We may be playing out the endgame. In August last year Dolly had a  Squamous Cell Carcinoma removed from her throat, which I talked about in the blogs Dolly in the wars and  Dolly and the big "C" On visiting the vet, the lump was not sore or painful, and with Dolly's history, and her age, it was decided that it most probably was a resurgence of the previous tumour type, and she was put on a course of steroids.
Dolly's nearly 10 years old and she has had a really healthy life until now, and really did not want to make this about keeping Dolly alive as long as possible, it's about quality of life. and this morning I popped her to the vets again for another check on how the lump was doing. The lump in the last couple days had suddenly got bigger again, more proud, being about the size now of half a golf ball, which had slightly been compressed,  which was a bit worrying, but Dolly was still not showing any discomfort or distress with it.
The vet on looking at it this morning, was under the same opinion as me, that it was bigger, and we discussed options. I had decided before seeing the vet this morning, that without an response to the steroids, it might be good to get a biopsy, so to be sure what we were dealing with, as there was a possibility that it was involving the lymph node. The vet then said, "The next step would be referring me to a specialist, which would then possible be chemo, but I will talk to a vet I know, and ask them if we could use a tablet form of chemo." This would an attempt to contain for as long as possible.
So the vet took Dolly off to take a biopsy from the lump, whilst I waited in the waiting room. Someone I know in passing, who breeds and shows sheep, came in with a lamb with Entropion (Inverted Eyelid) and I stopped talking to him, and found out that the little fella was a couple day old pure Texel ​with impeccable breeding, and he was hoping he would make a good stock ram. See it ain't only Show dog people who are mad. The lamb has a very painful inheritable eye condition. Madness in my mind to breed from such an animal.  
Anyway, around 10 minutes later the vet walked in to the waiting room with Dolly, with a big smile on her face. She said, "I'm going to look a total idiot now, but you are going to be happy that I am though." When she took Dolly off to take the biopsy, so not to cause to much disturbance to the lump, she had opted to use a needle and syringe to extract cells, and as she went to pull the syringe back, what surged in to the syringe was puss. The lump seems to be an abscess. I told her, "If you look like an idiot, so do I then." The lump is now about half the size, and she has a course of antibiotics to take. The main reason for the misdiagnoses, is Dolly's history of Squamous Cell Carcinoma, along with her showing no signs of pain, heat to the area, or any change in her general demeanor. She's just an old girl, who gets on with life, and hopefully she has a few more games to play on me yet.

As a parent you have many functions, one is creating magic, and one of those bits of magic is the idea of a "Tooth fairy." The tooth fairy in our home being in a rural location, normally takes around 2 to 3 days to collect a tooth, and on one occasion when the tooth fairy was having a real busy spell, did not arrive for over a week. I tell the children, "Tooth fairies are busy fairy's, not only do they have to pick up all the children's teeth in the whole world. They have to get the shopping, do the cooking and cleaning in the fairy house, and they also have the little baby tooth fairy's they got to get to bed at night before getting out to collect your teeth."
​I'm always making up stuff with the children. When the two oldest boys were younger, I told them that our old boy Smidge, had "Super underpants", and at night could only go out helping those in trouble, when they got to sleep. It would nearly be bedtime, and Smidge might look up, and go to the kitchen. I told them, that this was him sensing someone needed his help, and he was looking for his "Super underpants." They spent hours looking for his "Super underpants," funnily they never found them. They also thought Smidge thought diddlies (Their penises) were sausages, and they would rush to get dressed after a bath, just in case Smidge accidentally eat them. Smidge was oblivious to this, and Smidge would approach them when they were naked, and I wanted them to get dressed. They would run off naked giggling, Smidge thought it a game trundling on behind them. They would get dressed pretty quickly, not quite sure if he would eat their diddlies or not. The two oldest boys recall the tales of Smidge with great fondness. I don't think I mentally scarred them for life.
Last night saw our youngest Tilly, now 7, after three days of having a wobbly front tooth, with a quick tug from her, the tooth finally came out, just before we sat down for supper. Much excitement, and I told her to swell some cold water to stem the bleeding. I also suggested that she flush the tooth down the toilet. She told me, "That you don't put it down the loo. You put it under your pillow for the tooth fairy to collect." I jokingly said. "Have you not heard that the toilet is the tooth fairies "Express tooth return service."
Tilly's Dad arrived home, and she rushed to tell him about her tooth coming out, and then she went to find it, and that's when it came apparent that I had actually flushed the tooth down the toilet. Tilly has been leaving bits of blooded toilet roll around the home for the last couple days with her wobbly tooth on the verge of departure. So when I saw a bit of toilet roll scrunched up on the window sill in the kitchen, I did not think, and disposed of it down the toilet. Tilly's tooth had been in that piece of toilet roll.
I told Tilly what had happened, and she ran off crying to her bedroom. I did not run after her. She would not see reason, this was a time for a bit of magic dust to be sprinkled. A couple minutes passed, and I shouted up to the bedroom for her to stop being silly, it was an accident, and she should come and brush her teeth. She emerged from the bedroom, red faced and tearful, but a couple seconds later a different child emerged from the bathroom. On the cistern of the toilet she found a little package wrapped in toilet roll with a tag attached saying, "Express tooth return payment. Thanks for using this  service." Inside the package was £3, £2 more than she usually gets. I told her that, "Using the Express tooth return service, cut down on admin, so they can give you more for your tooth."

I asked her, "Are we good now?" She said, "Thank you Mummy, and I must go and write a letter to thank the tooth fairy now, and put it under my pillow." I tried to persuade her to write it on toilet paper, and flush it down the toilet to them, but she was having none of it. She knows who the tooth fairy is, and she wanted to make sure they read her note.  

Yesterday evening I was milking, so the Roast chicken supper, was left in my husband, David's capable hands. He has been trained by the best though, moi!

Henry loves a good cuddle and rub when I come in. One thing he does love as much as his "buttocks" being scratched, is his front legs being stroked. Hence why he keeps pawing me. The one nice thing about Henry (and all my male dogs), is that for all the cuddling and scratching I give him, he is not a male dog that gets sexually aroused by this kind of contact with a human. Often male dogs, can get over excited by this kind of intimate contact with humans, and again this comes down to imprinting and conditioning of a dog from an early age. I don't  have issues with my male adult dogs interacting sexually with humans, this is probably down to having enough contact with their own species, so they are more species sexually orientated than most domestic dogs, and that from a pup, any time they show sexual arousal when interacting with a human, it is discouraged. Any behaviour as a pup may seem funny, but as an adult dog can become a nightmare.
​​So when your pup does something funny, before encouraging that behaviour, by laughing, and trying to make them do it again. Think would you want them behaving like that when an adult dog? Doing that behaviour every time they get the cue for it. Like they dry hump the legs of every visitor to your home, they bark and circle frantically every time the door bell rings, hang off your trouser leg when you try to walk across the room, or go ballistic every time you want to go out the door. Those are all things that people have thought cute as a puppy, but then they have turned in to a nightmare as the puppy becomes an adult. So think before you laugh, before you encourage and reward something funny that your pup does. Will you be laughing at them doing that 12 months down the line?