Charlie and Hallie puppies

The 2 beautiful pups from Charlie and Hallie have now left to their new adventures with their new families. Amazing the difference with only 2 pups, Nightfall was a staggering 8.4kg at 8 weeks and Nightstar 6.1kg at her vet check.

Douai Dog Show June 2016

This year there will be 6 or possibly 7 Barbets from the UK heading to France for confirmation and to take the TAN. Our weekend in Douai is a social trip, and is certainly not about winning a dog show.
Our Barbets will be judged, and then the critique that they get will be used along side their height for confirmation. Although our Barbets born in the UK have pedigrees from France, we still go over to a show for confirmation as that is the French way of working . So at the moment there will be 3 dogs from Hallies litter in 2014, 3 dogs from Marthas litter last year and a French boy who lives in the UK ( who has to go through the French system as he was born in France)

Novaforesta James Brown at 4 weeks old

Novaforesta James Brown (brown collar) and yes another pee photo, but I am thrilled with puppy pads :). James Brown is a cool dude, and totally unflappable at the moment.

Novaforesta Janis Joplin at 3 weeks

Novaforesta Janis Joplin is the brown female with the white chest, she is one of the quieter puppies and very similar to her brother the male with the white chest.

Hallie and Cooper Barbet puppies 1 week old part 1

3. Brown male with white chest

1.Brown girl

2. Black girl

Reeds Fowling Amelia- Barbet dog

Look at this beautiful Barbet, she is the sister of my Martha.....

Dog shows in France-Calais 2014 Novaforesta Dora

Well what a result, Bonnie (Novaforesta Dora) came 2nd in group 8, our fist podium win for a Barbet born in the UK.....well done Julie, and well done Bonnie as they both looked good in the ring. Charamese Hector, son of Bonnie and brother to Hallie got the best male, so the challenge for Best of breed was between Mother and Son, how cool is that? A very proud day for Julie and Richard.
Another achievement was the wild child Rugby (Novaforesta Investigator) was confirmed, and he was actually rather well behaved, and looked fairly relaxed in the ring

  

I can definitely say that Calais is an easy show to get to, and well organised by the Club St Hubart du Nord and the judge Mme Van Brempt was just lovely with the dogs so a good visit with an excellant result. I will save my news about showing Martha and Pi......

Interesting dog trim

Also another image :
http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k65284336/f379.image

Not a Barbet, so do not get confused, but if you search through the 100s' of photos of Barbets you may see 1 or 2 dogs trimmed in this manner. When I first bought my Barbet, I was told this trim was the 'hunting' trim, luckily I didn't go down that road :)
  

Hallie is in season

The sweet Charamese Hermione aka Hallie is in season which means in our household big excitement.
As I said before, trying to catch up but with a Husband just off mountaineering and my Mother deciding to go to Canada at the drop of a hat, life is never normal here!. Next week I will have 6 dogs and 2 cats living here :)

Martha and her sister officially retrieving Barbets

Martha and Lili are sisters and a proud day for both owners.

Barbet dogs, and ponds

Bobby on fish watch

Bepop on fish watch

The dogs are completely fascinated by the fish, I fear it is only a matter of time before someone takes the plunge. The fish went in late last night, so it is early days.

Martha was playing it cool this morning as she had found a stick that was more interesting than the fish so I had thought.

CLA Game Fair

Keeping cool 

We are back safe and sound from an amazing weekend with the dogs. I have to admit it was very hot especially on the Friday, but as all the dogs love swimming (well they should really!) it was easy to keep them cool, most of the dogs were not so impressed with being put under the water tap but they coped.
This year we managed to have a grand total of 11 Barbets throughout the weekend, and 99% of the time we had a male and female in the pen on display showing the difference not just of the sexes but also coat colour and coat length. The CLA Game Fair attracts people who like the great outdoors, not just those that shoot and work their dogs in the field so the visitors to our stand in the sporting dog pavilion are generally interested in what are Barbets like as a breed .
The most common questions I was asked were:
What is a Barbet like to live with?
Do they require much grooming?
Where do they come from?
What are they like compared to a labrador/Beagle/Spaniel/poodle/Spanish waterdog , the list was endless!

This year was perfect, we only had Barbets on show that have coats maintained by their owners, and having Barbets with different coat lengths was definately a real talking point.

I have to admit that Hallie and Martha were a joy to take, they were definately both tired on Sunday, but three days meeting the public and being stroked by all ages is hard work for youngsters, combined with the heat. In the evening however they would both come to life and letting off steam in the fields with the other Barbets was wonderful for them

Rugby relaxing on a break from pen duty

  

Barbet dogs

Barbets just love to rest their heavy heads, be it on your lap, your shoe or even on the bottom stair. As you can see Obi has started already.

Goodbye to Novaforesta Iron Duke

Once known as red collar, then Novaforesta Iron Duke, now called Obi. He has joined a lovely family a long way from us, but I know I will get lots of updates and photos.

Little girl Barbet puppy at 5 weeks

She just loves Bepop this little girl, still very playful and seems to get pleasure from flooring her brothers!, she plays mostly with the solid black boy. Considering my camera is playing up, the first photo here of her just melts me, I will have so many beautiful memories of this litter.

Cute puppies

Now I think from left to right is purple,red and Blue

Barbet puppies at nearly 5 weeks

Mother and Daughter

fun times

Can we really go out !

Bite the Bullet

2013

2008

Bepop likes to have an incentive now to go into the pups as they are quite full on. She did this with her first litter but when the pups were older, she doesn't eat the food until she has finished feeding the pups, nor does she consider the thought of giving the food to the pups.

Barbets meet and greet

Charamese Hermione (Hallie) and Charamese Hector, with Bonnie in the foreground. Brother and sister were so happy to see each other yesterday that it was hard to capture with a photo!. A big day yesterday as they were both having their hips and elbows graded, so we await the results.

Two weeks old Barbet puppies

Little girl

Black boy solid black

Brown boy blue collar

Brown boy green collar doing a roll

Brown boy purple collar

Big Brown boy red collar

Black boy with white stripe


The pups are doing really well, they all have their eyes open, and are now starting to bite and nuzzle each other as Bepop is taking more time out, although is only ever lying by the box.