Barbet Club GB Breeders

This is further information for all those who visit my blog, some of you will own a Barbet and some will be researching the breed thinking you may want a hairy beast to join your family:)
It is early days for the breed in the UK, we are laying strong foundations by carefully choosing dogs for breeding that will give us a concrete future, the charactor and health of these dogs is paramount in those choices.
Betsy and Bepop have not been overbred even though they are both excellent dogs and both are a credit to the breed, so laying the foundation is certainly not about money, it is about taking care and waiting to see how the offspring mature before continuing.
Plan 1:
Betsy and Bepop are not related so sires were carefully chosen, so that the offspring would be able to mate.
This has now occurred with the recent litter from Novaforesta Eton and Novaforesta Dora, COI over 5 generations is 6.15%
 http://pawpeds.com/db/?a=p&id=1091198&g=5&p=bar&date=iso&o=ajgrep

Plan 2:
Betsy has had two litters, her first litter with Boree and her second litter with Bacchus, they are two brothers and it gave us a selection of dogs for our foundation that were 0% COI over 5 generations.

  http://pawpeds.com/db/?a=p&id=865894&g=5&p=bar&date=iso&o=ajgrep

Plan 3:
It has been important to produce sires in the UK that can be used by the International Barbet community, we obviously have a small genepool in the UK so some breedings will produce males that  will have limited use, but with a rare breed you need to share your genes.

  http://pawpeds.com/db/?a=p&id=1091190&g=5&p=bar&date=iso&o=ajgrep

Plan 4:
The importing of new blood is also vital, but this is carefully planned, as I have said before one quality dog is better than 5 of dubious quality.
The import of Ebene from Canada has been the most recent import, and a sucessful litter has been born, with 4.68% COI over 5 generations.:

 http://pawpeds.com/db/?a=o&id=832587&g=5&p=bar&date=iso&o=ajgrep

All the breeding dogs in the UK by Barbet G.B. Club members have been confirmed in France, that means that a judge has examimed the dogs including teeth, height, tail set and coat quality..Bepop has not been confirmed, had I known more about the proccess in France in those early years she would have easily been confirmed as she attended a club show and was ranked 4th with 3 different judges grading her as `Excellent`....hindsight is a wonderful thing. If I can fit in a confirmation show before she has her last litter, I will just for the paperwork.

So if you are thinking of importing a Barbet, please do get in touch as we would love to hear from you and to include you in the British history regarding the foundation of the Barbet in the UK.It is vital to make sure that the Barbet you are importing is from healthy stock, as at the moment we do not want to introduce problems to the foundation we have.
The Barbet breed must grow slowly in the UK, the lines we have will be bred together as this is of upmost importance to understand what health issues we may have and therefore what health issues need to be dealt with.
As most of you will be aware,  there are hundreds of dogs in rescue and no one  should just breed to make up the number of Barbets in the UK. I will try and write some questions that you should ask a breeder before you buy a puppy from them,

Hallie and training

Charamese Hermione aka Hallie

Grandma Be-poppy aka Bepop

Training a Barbet is not hard work, but you need to understand that you have to go at their pace and look at what they are good at and turn that to your advantage. I am learning about training once again with Hallie, she is very different to Effie who lived with me till 16 weeks old and so I had the opportunity to start early basic training. Hallie is very sensitive, showing any displeasure means she walks away in a huff and as you know training always has to be positive especially at a young age.At the moment she is very much a family dog, she loves us all and shows no real attachment to anyone in particular but the other day I did witness her showing a preference of trust. Julian and I took her swimming, the water was deep and the entry was tough for her as she had to jump in, Barbets can be very careful over water entry so we are just seeing if early jumping into water will make her less worried as an adult. So she became more confident as she jumped after the duckwing, however getting out the water was an issue as she needed to be hauled out by her collar. I was in charge of the camera and you will not see any photos of her getting out the water as she would only let me do it, when Julian tried to grab her she swam away, after three attempts I decided to intervene and bingo so we tried again and the same happened. I like to know my dogs and how their minds work, so this fascinated me, so when more quirky things happen I will keep you posted.   

 

Novaforesta Dudley and friends

 

Lovely photo of Dudley taken locally, we are so lucky to have such beautiful places to walk with our dogs.Dudley aka Ooli is known worldwide (ok-the barbet world is small but....) as he has sired not only pups in the UK but a recent litter in Holland with another Barbet, called Alba who also has worldwide recognition.To keep up to date with this litter then you just have to visit:

http://www.nuphars.nl/about%20us.htm

More puppies...Yippee

I cannot post a photo as I have not got one yet, but the good news is the safe arrival of 8 puppies and the new Mom is Novaforesta Effie.
She had 8 puppies, 5 females and 3 males on the 14th August, the majority are brown and some have white.
All are doing well......
So my Betsy is a Grandma yet again, and what a competition starting as both Betsy and Bepop have the same amount of Grandchildren.....27 each, and the same amount in the litter sizes.
Betsy
Denzil- 5 pups
Eton 14 pups
Effie 8 pups

Bepop
Dudley-5 pups
Dora-14
Dudley 8 pups

Isn't that weird.......

Barbets from Finland

It is not often you get the chance to see other Barbets that are not related to either Betsy or Bepop. On Sunday we had a lovely visit with the owner of these two beauties, they have driven all the way from Finland.
Not many barbets naturally cord like this female, so quite amazing to see her in the flesh so to speak. They were both lovely dogs, very well behaved.
There is so much happening at the moment, I am struggling to keep up with the news, so I will refrain from writing too much, other than Sunday was great, lunch was a pleasure and good company present.

Hallie is swimming like a trooper

However well she swims, she still has caution over where she enters the water. Yesterday we took her out and each time she huffed and puffed about going into the water and then she would just throw herself in, she did some impressive dives! and she loves putting her entire head under the water. So once she is a bit more confident we will take her to a lake where the water is deeper

A wild child !

This is a photo of Hallie, not yet 5 months but very obviously related to Bepop who also has this rather deranged look at times.
This photo is for Demi :)  

Hallie and her Dad, Eton the brave!

At long last, Hallie met her Dad and she loved him. It wasn't love at first sight as Eton was a bit too playful and she was a little scared but after a couple of hours of grooming she saw him in a different light and the roles were reversed and Eton was looking slightly harassed by a very playful daughter.