Martha and Murdoch puppies are 7 weeks

Before you all panic, I will be posting individual photos soon but just thought you might to see the gang in action together. I have been lucky enough to have had so many visitors over the week and some very special ones too, as one of my puppy owners from Croatia is on holiday and popped in to see the pups which is also the reason why I have these beautiful photos ( thank you Malik) As for telling you who they all are.....hmm......I can identify Gloves!. This litter has been a dream so long may it continue, the puppies remain very contented, they sleep very well and they are a quiet bunch, so even if they become hooligans this week I will forgive them and so far only one ( no not saying who) that bites your ankles!

Novaforesta Joy Division at 7 weeks

Novaforesta Joy Division also known to us as Sweep, A very busy little girl, always exploring.

Barbet puppies

Now I am going to let you know a secret, but firstly I was lucky enough to go and get puppy cuddles on Saturday as this beautiful litter are now 4 weeks old. These are the children of Ebene and Ooli, a repeat mating and you will probably remember Claude from 2 years ago with whom I went to Amiens with.

 So my little secret is that one of the pups above is still available, but be quick.....and speak to Annette or visit her website http://www.netisspinone.co.uk/

welcome Barbet puppies.

Welcome to the world, 6 beautiful healthy boys and 1 delightful girl. All are very strong and healthy and Bepop is very settled with them. They started to arrive in the  early hours on the 17th April, and it was a tough labour for Bepop. She started huffing and puffing all day on the 16th and was very restless and not eating, and the first puppy arrived at 2.10am  on the 17th. The final puppy arrived at 10.30pm on the 17th. Sadly we lost two puppies during delivery which upset me more than Bepop, and yesterday we lost a very small weak little girl but on a positive note the 7 puppies we have are so strong and robust that is now what is important.

Mummy Ebene

Ebene as expected is being a lovely mum to her 6 puppies, 4 girls and 2 boys and all are doing very well. Keep in touch with their progress by following : http://hairymob.blogspot.co.uk/

Puppy time for Ebene

I am very pleased to write that Ebene, the lovely girl from Canada is laden with puppies and they are due in the middle of March. The Father is Eton, the productive boy who sired a litter of 14 in the UK last year. The GB site is being updated with the news and contact details for Annette who will be the trusted guardian of mother and pups.
Ebene and Eton are lovely Barbets, so this is a good combination to take the breed forward.
We will of course have many Barbets in the UK that are related but as only a few will go on to reproduce this is not a problem and it means most owners have dogs in common with each other; one big happy family.
 Related dogs in the UK, also means that anyone wanting to breed  in the future will have to travel or import new lines, and that is good news for the breed.
The choice of sires, is not a twinkle in the eye of a Barbet......it is normally hours of discussion.

When I imported my two girls in 2007 the plan was to breed them both to different lines so that the offspring could mate together. Novaforesta Dora (Bonnie) and Novaforesta Eton are the resulting pairing that produced 14 pups last year with a very good COI, and from that mating I have Hallie (Charamese Hernione)  who is the grand daughter of Betsy and Bepop, So the plan set out in 2007 became reality in 2012. 

Netis Hazzah aka Claude with Hallie

Annette (Netisspinione) is the owner of Novaforesta Dudley a.k.a. Ooli and who imported Ebene, from Canada as the perfect match for her boy. A beautiful litter was born last year, with one pup in particular making the headlines.There are not many white/brown Barbets in the world, and not only is he rather dashing but he is also training as a gundog.

Dogs and hotels

Bepop loves travelling so she is a pleasure to take anywhere. Our hotel had a very low mirror which was different to our mirror at home so when we first booked into our hotel room she greeted the dog in the mirror and was quite mystified by it.

Once bored with the mirror, she then realised we had a view !

Champdogs

It is always frustrating to log onto The Kennel Club website, and search for our Barbets on their 'mate select'  page. The Barbet information is there, I have spoken to the Kennel Club numerous times, one day it works and yet another day, nothing can be found. The Kennel Club have all the hipscore records, or should I say the hip scoring done by the BVA, these are cross referenced with the DNA profiles that the Barbets have, also held by the Kennel Club. Anyway, I have taken the plunge and joined Champdogs, I really like the fact that they ask for copies of hip scores/eye tests before it goes online. They basically are checking out the breeders........that can only be a good thing in my opinion.
So Novaforesta is now on the site, and the only dog so far entered is Be- Poppy with her health tests (her recent eye test is being reviewed as I type) and that took me hours!!!.
I am not putting the Novaforesta link for Champdogs on this blog, see if you can find it?

CHAMPDOGS

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!.

Martha hiding from the mad snow dogs

She so wanted to play but it was definately safer under the trees, even Bobby ran inside when the girls started boxing in the snow. Betsy and Bepop play real rough, and most games end up with Bepop getting into such an excitable state that she mounts Betsy.....so the game ends and poor Betsy looks rather bewildered!

Family dog = The Barbet

Well the sun is out and all 5 dogs are in the garden with bones which will give me PC time I hope :)

I am asked all the time whether Barbets are good family dogs, so it is nice to be able to share clips like this

The Barbet- a family dog

Hallie and dog training

Well, Hallie has now been enrolled in weekly dog training classes and after two weeks she has settled in nicely amongst the labradors which outnumber her by 5-1. I am helping out at the classes as I am very interested in not just the training but also the behaviour of pups and Hallie at not yet 6 months old has to lie down and watch the first class for an hour. To be honest I didn't think it would be possible that Hallie could be that good!.
The first week we sat together and watched the puppy class,  a group of 6 puppies ranging from 6 months to 8 months, it was very noisy, but  Hallie remained relatively calm throughout. Hallie then joined the older dog class and behaved extremely well and was much steadier than I could have hoped for as training with other dogs especially for a pup is very distracting.The second week she was tied to a piano on the stage, with my coat as her blanket and I sat near her whilst the first class was held, and after intently watching the class for awhile, she then lay on her side and slept. I woke her for her training session and once again she excelled, and her three dummy retrieves were all to hand :) So she is learning to chill amongst chaos, and she is learning to work with distractions and what is best of all for me is that when the classes are finished, she turns into a complete hooligan and wants to play and cause chaos with all the dogs. So she is not just a perfect puppy that is easy to train, she is learning what is expected of her in different situations.Fingers crossed for our third week, I will keep you posted.  

Hallie at 15 weeks

 Hallie is growing fast, she is such a delight and such an easy puppy, she even asks to go to bed at night, although I think that may be related to the bonio she gets before bed . She has made some good friends at puppy classes, a labradoodle who is a little smaller than her, a chilled golden retriever, and a wonderful spaniel/labrador cross. Its a lovely class, and the puppies have a structured play session rather than a mad romp which is so much better than puppy classes I have attended before. So Hallie is easy, but I had forgotten that owning a pup is hard work and very time consuming as it is vital to socialise them as much as possible especially the more intelligent ones.She has a good run in the forest only twice a week, the rest of the time we are walking the streets or attending an event. Last Saturday she sat outside Sainsburys trying to get votes for Nightstop a local charity, today she will attend a Country fair at our local town.

What Hallie does do with relish is eat horse/cow poo, so she is not perfect and the strange thing is, she is fussy about which pile she eats. I can only think that as its not the texture that attracts her so it must have something to do with what the animal has eaten. Luckily it doesn't seem to upset her stomach, nor  do the unripe greengages that she eats in the garden