Barbet puppy plans

Snoopdogg will be having a litter this year, and I will post a photo later of her chosen  man with some more details. She is definitely ready for this new chapter in her life, and she has been a wonderful girl taking our two new pups under her wing. 

Happy Birthday to Novaforesta 'E' litter 5 years old

Time flies and these beautiful puppies are 5 years old today, proud parents being Betsy and Bachus.
November is a busy time for puppies born, as Bepops pups were 6 years old yesterday.
We still miss Betsy, so seeing her pups reach the milestone of 5 years is lovely, and of course her first litter will be 7 years old next March.
Lets hope all the Birthday boys and girls are spoilt today.

Barbet puppies have arrived, Novaforesta J litter

Welcome to the world, 11 beautiful Barbet puppies born on the 25th November.

The proud parents are  Charamese Hermione (Hallie) and Cooper du Pré de Redy.

The pups are very strong and healthy, and all very good weights and quite amazing that Hallie managed to keep them till Day 60. 

We have 7 girls 5 brown and 2 black and 4 boys, 3 brown and 1 black.

The webcam is up and running although it is misbehaving and cannot be viewed on internet explorer:
If it doesn't work the first time do keep trying as it does seem to have random blips

Barbet Puppy plans

Cooper du Pre de Redy

Charamese Hermione ( Hallie)

 This will be my next Novaforesta litter later this year.

Cooper is a beautiful brown boy from Germany who is about 58 in height, so a perfect size for a male and has A hips and a 0/0 elbow score. He has passed his character tests in Switzerland.

Hallie as I am sure you know is  not only beautiful in looks and character, but has A hips and a 0/0 elbow score and her height is about 56 (hard to measure as she has so much coat at the moment) and she weighs about 20kg

A  lovely combination to take the Barbet forward in the UK with some new blood.

Cooper and Hallie proposed pedigree

   My puppy waiting list has resumed its pace :)

Bobby the Barbet at 11 months

Another lively boy from Bepop and Jedi at 11 months old, this was blue collar boy now known as Bobby.
Be lovely one day to see this boy in the show ring in France, but perhaps a different show to Rugby as 2 excitable boys could be a handful. Actually by the time they have their 1st Birthday they will be calm :)

Obi at 11 months

Obi, otherwise known as red collar for several weeks is another boy from Bepop and Jedi. He has turned into a gentle chap probably because he lives with young children. His beard is like his Mum, who is coming up to 8 years old and has never had her beard trimmed.

Ralph the Barbet puppy at 11 months

Lovely photo of Ralph at 11 months old.
 Bepop and Jedi certainly produced some boys who like to pose. Nice place to walk a Barbet, it has everything. How lucky am I to have found such wonderful owners.

Update on Obi

Obi is a pup from Bepop x Jedi and is now 9 months and enjoying the wet weather, a very handsome boy.

Afternoon Barbet boys, Eton and Rugby

The boys are good friends, even though Rugby is rather a wild child :) anyway, first groom for Rugby last week and it was rather exhausting as he was not really very impressed but I think he will be better next time. Eton is well behaved for grooming so hopefully Rugby will pay more attention next time as to what to do when up on a grooming table and he will remember to keep 4 paws still. Rugby is already showing his natural ability to flush, so these two boys could become quite a team :)

Bepop the Barbet and puppies

Three weeks to go, and although she is slowing down on her forest walks she is still leaping gates!!! and still jumping up when I come home......naughty Bepop. She is at the manic ''Feed me'' stage though and her life is revolving around meal times. Anyway not long to wait now.

Bepops' son

Can you tell I am looking at puppy photos? I am preparing for more I hope!!
This is the lovely Doug now called Dougie from Bepops first litter. We had Dougie with us until about 5 months, although he used to go for mini holidays with his now owners during that time.So we sort of shared those early days.

Bepop and her Barbet wedding

We are back and what a wonderful weekend we had even though it was a little stressy at times. The journey of only 8 hours was uneventful and Bepop and Martha travelled in silence as they slept, although we did find out that the waterbowl had tipped over and their bedding was soaked!. but in true barbet style they perhaps enjoyed the wet bedding! Julian and I were so spoiled by our hosts in Belguim, we had the most fantastic meals and alot of humour, and Bepop had the most romantic time possible so all went well. We did have a slight change of plan but more about that later. I adore Bepop, she has such character and I can honestly say that I know her very well, and she knows me. However Martha is a different dog, she is 6 months old and rather wild at times, her best expression is WTF which is what I said we should call her when we picked her up at 16 weeks, so nothing much has changed and I can honestly say that at dog training they have also seen the look, so it can be verified!!!! The weekend was very good for Martha, she coped well watching the adult dogs and their activities, and she learnt all about automatic doors, staying in the boot of the car when it was lifted, being wormed at a vets in Belgium ( although she did poo in the surgery) and she coped with erratic feeding and general chaos. At the end of the day, Bepop has been mated and all went well, our hosts were tired and we were tired and the dogs were completely knackered, but we will have wonderful memories of our adventure.

Dear Martha in the garden

On Sunday we were up at 4.30 English time as we wanted to mate the dogs before our 3 hour drive back to Calais, Bepop and Martha would have happily slept for longer but they had no choice but to get up and eat breakfast. I have to admit that I don't enjoy dog matings, and because of that I like it to be as natural as possible, so the dogs were allowed as much play as they wanted while us humans froze waiting for the event. 

Carol is the owner of Jedi and Deejee, I cannot express our gratitude enough as she was so amazing and nothing was too much trouble. Carol appreciated our journey to Belgium for a mating, she understood that it was for the breed and the genes for the future. Sensible matings will save the breed, those that breed for the showring or colour will not!

Martha,Jedi and Bepop

           

Eye test results for Barbets

Yesterday Bepop went to our vets and had her vaccinations, she is normally rather quiet and a bit subdued at the vets. Well, this time we met a new vet and she loved him and he fell in love with the breed as he used to own a Hungarian Puli, it is always good when you can show off a new breed and they like what they see. Anyway Bepop passed her MOT with flying colours, she is the perfect weight and heart and lungs etc.....all good. As you may have realised, I am always looking at why dogs do certain things and I was trying to work out why she loved the vet so much, as all the vets make a fuss of her. Then it dawned on me that when we entered the vets, there were 2 cats in  baskets who were coming out of the examination room.....BINGO......the vet smelt of cats, so it just goes to show that there is always a reason why dogs behave as they do. I suspect the next time we go to the vets Bepop will be desperate to go into the examination room, she never forgets so i just hope she will not be disappointed and at least for me, I have a very willing dog at the vets.
Today we have been to the eye specialist to update her eye certificate, and as expected she has passed with flying colours. I am very pleased as we had made an appointment with Mr Mason, who is the Chief Panellist of the BVA/KC/ISDS Eye scheme, although he was very busy he still had time to offer us advice over how often we should eye test the breed and what we should be doing as the dogs get older.      

Barbets and a pose.

This photo made me smile this morning, it is Deejee and his Father Jedi. When I saw this it made me very excited about using Deejee on Bepop as this is the sort of thing she would do as she is a bit of a poser for photos!.

Happiness is.......

Martha and Betsy

Dog Beds

I am beginning to accept I have an obsession with dog beds. I have a couple of hard beds for the dogs and 100s' of vet beds/fleeces but with 5 dogs in the house there is always competition for the most comfy bed. I waste hours looking at dog beds on the internet, why? I always think that if we were to win the lottery (which we don't even do!!!!) my first purchase would be dog beds, money no object. The highlight of a pet shop visit for me is to seek out the dog beds, and check out how soft, how thick, how comfortable they are and I dream out which ones I would buy for each dog as they all like slightly different sleeping positions. The girls definately need a soft but waterproof bed that is raised,  dear Jazz at 13 years old needs something like a memory foam bed, Bobby needs something he can curl up in. I did buy a lovely bed for Bobby, but as they have all used it  the big dogs have bent the sides flat and it is not machine washable.At the moment this tub chair in the photograph above is the most popular dog bed in the house, located behind my PC chair so the dogs are still nearby, and as soon as one dog leaves it another one jumps up.However, the tub chair will get ruined by wet dogs, I have tried a throw on it but Martha removes that and drags it round the kitchen  So my intention after my litter with Bepop is to treat all the dogs to a new bed, how exciting is that........  

say hello to Deejee

It is always good to hear about youngsters and their health reports. This boy Deejee (all being well) will in 2013 be adding to the UK Barbet population........apologies to Caya as his wife Bepop is going to be unfaithful. Official news soon to be released, but with A hips everything is looking positive for a good combination.

Are you ready for a Barbet puppy?

Barbet puppies are not destructive as a rule, I have written that many times and told many new owners but I may have to change my view. Hallie is a very good puppy, she is obedient, she is very clean, she is very affectionate, she is very playful, she is quiet when left on her own, she has so many good points ..........and I love her very much.
However  in her former life  she was either a magpie, a thief, a hoarder or even a womble.
In the  last 24 hours this list has been her achievements:

Edible

 3 stock cubes, my sandwich and a packet of jaffa cakes.

Not-edible

Three shoe soles

A packet of post it notes

Various bits of paperwork, now beyond recognition.

A paintbrush

A dustbin pan ( my new one which replaced the one she chewed last week)

2 grooming brushes

I wood comb.

 

In the last week:

The list of items removed from her mouth which I considered life threatening

Stanley knife

 my best scissors

My mobile phone

2 x remote control

House phone

Numerous leads

Numerous collars

Screwdriver

2 nails

 

Hallie is at the moment fast asleep, but this used to fool me as I know when I leave the room she will leap into action.

Betsy Bonheur and puppies.

Esbjorn,Alba and Betsy

Well we finally managed a trip to meet the new man in Betsys' life, he is Esbjörn S.T. Da Capo, a beautiful male living in Germany with a family and born 27th April 2008. We hope that the mating will be a success as it has been at a planning stage since 2010 and he was certainly worth waiting for.

We had no time to meet many friends as the travelling was hard work, it took 12 hours to get there, and 14 hours to return home. But we had the pleasure of meeting Anne and Wouter, who are the breeders from Holland who have used Novaforesta Dudley on their rather beautiful girl Alba, they have kept an amazing puppy called Lotus.So for now we will keep everything crossed and we should know at the beginning of Oct whether we will have the patter of tiny paws. 

Its Daddy Eton

Lovely photo taken of Eton, he really is a handsome chap. Becoming a sire of 14 pups has not changed his outlook on life which is based around fun.Certainly one of the best things about breeding a litter, is  remaining in contact with the new owners of puppies. I have seen Eton shown in France, achieve his working test, I even witnessed his first marriage to Bonnie, and to beat all that I saw him being born.  Eton is a well loved dog and beautifully groomed if I say so myself.