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,