Welcome to the world little parson piglets...

Squirrel whelped her 3rd (and likely final) litter of puppies overnight and it occured to me that whelping a parson is something of an experience, quite different to that of border collies or cockers...firstly the bitch often gets very agitated and restless just before the first pup arrives and is quite noisy about the whole thing then when the first pup comes she continues in this highly agitated state...often picking the pup up and holding it in her mouth while going round and round in circles and rolling around, doing headstands etc! It’s quite alarming when you first see it and you’re sure she’s going to hurt the puppy but she doesn’t; I do find that I have to get quite firm to calm the bitch down and make her ‘get a grip’ (a metaphorical slap across the face for hysteria! lol) so she is firmly told to put the puppy down and lie down (I do feel bad about being so mean at a time they are obviously in pain and discomfort but it really is for her own good!); by the time the second pup arrives she starts to settle and then just quietly gets on with popping them out, this time we had all 6 delivered in around 3 hours :o) They are also very quiet puppies, I have all my pups born and reared in my bedroom for at least the first two weeks of their life and they very often keep me awake at night, just squeaking and gurgling as babies do but parson babies are lovely and quiet and remain so right throughout the raising in the house...they never get gobby and demanding when it’s dinner time or they want out to play...just sit nice a quietly watching and waiting...they seem so easy compared to the collies and cockers!

so here they are, first sight of the new babies...lovely big healthy puppies :o)



There are 2 boys and 4 girls this time, very much looking forward to seeing how they grow up and comparing them to the last litter.

Preiously...on ER...

Ok, so in light of my appalling aptitude as a blogger of late I feel we need a brief recap on what has happened over the last couple of months else anything new won’t make a whole heap of sense! Kinda like the start of one of those ongoing TV dramas lol (cue dramatic intro music….)

Flyball
Several shows in the last couple of months, can’t remember what happened at them all now to be honest. My dogs in particular have suffered from my lack of time lately and are all a little ‘porky’ (by ‘porky’ I really mean FAT!) so aren’t running their best, with the exceptions of Aston, Mac, Maisie and Jovi who never seem to gain any weight no matter what their feeding/exercise regime (thankfully!). I also think this rapid weight gain is partly caused by the fact that I’ve started feeding them a lot more raw meat and bones, which they love but perhaps a bit too much!

The season has started slowly with a lot shuffling of dogs between the teams as we try to work out who is on form, who isn’t and which combinations are working best. We have also, in the last month, increased our number of open teams from three to four (eek!!) which is quite a lot of work for 8 people but we just have too many dogs to squeeze into 3 teams now (and lots of youngsters in training too).

Aston has been coming on brilliantly in training and has been running consistent 4.4’s in starters competitions (clever lad); he’s such a joy to handle…so motivated and focused, it’s very hard not to become complacent with a young dog like that and forget that he’s still a ‘baby’. He ran his first Open tournament at our very own show, Royal Umpire Caravan Park, Croston and was paw perfect bless him running consistent 4.2s/4.3s in our top team over 12” hurdles with Jovi as the height dog. We ran 18.24s which was 0.5sec faster than we have been running lately but Jovi didn’t run that well and actually came down with kennel cough after the show so I don’t think she was feeling 100%. Next time out (Eastham) we decided to try running Travis in the top team and the additional 1” off the hurdle heights (down to 11”) seemed to really suit Aston who ran 4.1s over this height all day helping us run a 17.95s despite Dylan being a little off form. At the moment we are running them Aston-Bailey-Dylan-Travis…this is because the team we’re running at the European Championships in Germany (sadly won’t include Aston as I never got him passported ) is a combined team with Cambridgeshire Canines which includes Merlyn who has to run start so Alison is currently perfecting her changeover into Bailey. Once we get back from Germany I anticipate that Dylan will go back start with Aston and Bailey following and then…whatever height dog we decide to run on the end ;o) Lots more to come from this team anyway.

There are a few photos of the dogs running at Eastham here

Tarka has taken somewhat of a backward step, after looking so promising in training I brought her out into open competition at Pontefract in May and it totally blew her mind and , as often happens with cockers, seriously dented her confidence . The last month or so have been slow confidence building exercises so we ran an NFC team in starters at our show, our planned Euros team which she really enjoyed and got very excited about. Our next show is at Osamston Polo Ground 2nd/3rd July where I am planning on running our second team (Demon Racers) NFC with the wings in to allow her to run and experience ‘proper’ racing without any pressure. From not doing any shows in July before we head to Germany we are now running at least one team every weekend for Tarkas’ benefit. Fingers crossed she gets the idea soon!

Spark has also really come on great guns since we started weekly training and I am so pleased with his progress. He’s been running starters most weekends and I’m so happy with every aspect of his training; his box is superb (he has done all his training and starters comps running on the chute), he is doing lovely tight changeovers in and out and has even been running start dog and maintaining his focus too. I think part of his progress is the fact he has been training and racing with Aston and they have a very healthy competitive relationship! Lol

I’ve also started training Flint who is doing surprisingly well. He does lovely fast runbacks for his tuggy and loves fetching his tennis ball too. He is gradually tightening up on the chute, this is going to be our second biggest challenge as there is a lot of him to turn! Our biggest challenge however is getting him to run while there’s another dog running…this is currently a work in progress.

We’ve started doing little bits of work with the babies… Jellybean is just doing a few runbacks each session. I’ve spaced the hurdles at 5ft intervals so that she learns to hurdle…as her little legs grow we will gradually move them further apart. At the moment she’s doing well and running back nicely for her tuggy…until she sees another dog…hmmmm…she is definitely a terrier! Preston is also doing restrained runbacks and is currently looking F-A-ST!! Need to make sure we get everything right with him as he’s looking very promising, I anticipate his issues will be dog chasing and ball dropping so we need to make sure those habits do not develop. Half of the battle with flyball training is anticipating the problems you might encounter with a particular dog and nipping them in the bud at the start.

Showing
EABCC isn’t even worth talking about so I won’t bother (lol), SKC was marginally better… Spark was a pillock (too busy thinking about nice girlies in season), Faith went nicely and was shortlisted as was Jovi but neither were placed, Viva was the most settled she’s ever been in the ring and went really well, she came 2nd in a really strong class so has now got her Crufts 2012 qualifier :o) Last show was Blackpool on the 26th June, I never seem to do well at our ‘home ground’ but, against my better judgment, was persuaded to enter under this particular judge…the Blackpool curse struck again as the judge was changed at the last minute (typical!) and as I expected…we came home with nothing. Viva was shortlisted (junior bitch), Spark and Faith were both binned (open dog and limit bitch) it was an absolute SCORCHER of a day with no shade in the rings and the judge has us moving around the big ring again and again, which under normal circumstances I would be quite happy about but it definitely took its’ toll on poor Spark who was just not a happy bunny at all bless him. I had headed taken him for a walk round to toilet just before he went in the ring and gone to fill up the water bottle at the same time, there was a large plastic paddling pool under the tap which he promptly attempted to climb in! I just managed to grab him at the last minute so he only immersed a single front leg but it was a bit of a mad panic to get it dried off and prepared again before hitting the ring. Poor Spark was most confused since I actively encourage him to get in the paddling pools at flyball to lie down and cool off between races lol I actually had a nice day nonetheless, just enjoying the banter around the ring with everyone :)

Faith at Blackpool



Viva at Blackpool

(photos by Wendy Lawless)

Puppies
We’ve had three litters born over the last couple of months, well I say three…what I really mean is two and a bit! Lexie whelped a single puppy at Easter; this was always going to be her last litter as she is 8 in October and I just really wanted something else from her so one puppy suits me just fine. Gambit (Bryning All the Right Moves) is now 10 weeks old and a really lovely boy. Lexie struggled to produce milk with just having the one pup so I hand reared him ‘til 4/5 weeks old. He came everywhere with me as a result so is a very happy and confident little chap indeed. He then actually ‘moved in’ with Dazzle’s 7 puppies by Fynn who are 12 days younger than him. These pups are now all spoken for apart from a single black/white boy who injured a right hind leg at 7 weeks old, after numerous examinations and x-rays it thankfully just turned out to be a bad sprain but he’s still here until I’m happy he’s completely sound. I have kept a blue merle bitch pup from this litter on breeding terms, hopefully she will prove to be as good a producer as her mum has been.

Bryning Dare to Dazzle (Fynn x Dazzle)


Mercy whelped a litter of TEN puppies, now 5 weeks old and beautiful. I must get some new photos of this lot. Eight bitches and two dogs, I have yet to find the perfect homes for all ten of them though.

And we have two new additions of late in the form of Charm who is a super blue/white Spark daughter bred by Pat Ward at Starside She is such a character, so bold and bright…I just love her!

Charm - Starside Sparkles at Bryning


And Boomer, a lovely red/white boy from the Nice of You to Combye kennel in the Netherlands. Boomer is currently being fostered by friends in Belgium and should arrive in the UK early next year. I will see him when we’re out at the European Championships in Germany later this month though…can’t wait!

Boomer - Nice of You to Comebye Boomerang Boy


Think that’s about it for now!

November...in a nutshell...

Crikey moses, another month without a blog update and such a lot has happened in that time too!

Where do we start? Well the two pups (Flint the ‘lurcher’ and Aero ) are growing fast and have become best of friends already. Aero is very much like his father Mac in a lot of ways but his ear carriage isn’t one of them! Think we’re definitely going to have pricked ears on this young fella but at the moment they’re a little out of control! Although as you can see, he is in good company with this! lol



Beginning of November saw us heading up North to the Scottish Border Collie Club show; we usually go for the weekend each year doing the Working and Pastoral Breeds of Scotland show the day before and staying overnight somewhere but this year we could only do one day as I had no-one to look after the dogs at home. I had entered 8 dogs (!!) but since Paul had taken Jack (Bryning the Jean Genie) after I’d entered the show he was taking him so Gemma and I just had the two pups, Viva and Vogue in Minor Puppy Bitch, Faith in Limit, Dottie in Open and the 3 boys, Aston in Puppy (his last puppy class), Fynn in Yearling and Spark in Limit. It was going to be a busy day with the dog and bitch rings running simultaneously. We were a bit rushed with the girls in first as the judging started with bitches contrary to what the schedule had stated, they hadn’t travelled very well and needed cleaning up on arrival and Gemma was still out in the carpark getting the other dogs sorted when the class started so I had to grab my friend Pat to take Viva and I took Vogue…the class was HUGE and the ring was TINY so the class ended up being split into 3 groups. Had I known this in advance I would have handled each of my girls separately! As it happened they were both very naughty on the move and neither got placed. Having two in the same class is never a good idea and I had never intended to keep both these girls, just really struggled choosing between them! As fate would have it a friend of Pat’s had been watching and was really rather taken with Vogue and looking for another pup to campaign having recently lost his old girl so…problem solved; Vogue went home with Terry and I kept Viva. Their brothers, Jack and Gene, faired rather better with Paul and Pat in the Minor Puppy Dog class with a 3rd and 4th respectively. Next in was Aston in Puppy Dog, in hindsight I wished I’d put him in Junior as he has grown into a really big lad already and towered over the other puppies! He took a bit of time to settle on the move and the small ring isnt’ best suited to his long stride but if I just move out and don’t look at him he moves out much better, if I make eye contact he tends to crab round to keep looking at me! On the whole he went well and he’s certainly starting to relax a lot more in the ring; he came 3rd again (as he had at NWBCC) so I was pleased with that. If I can get some more weight and coat on him he should do well in the older classes but for the time being I think he needs some time out of the ring to mature. Next in was Fynn, he is such a fidget bum! He wasn’t placed and definitely needs some more ring practice but he did move out nicely when he was concentrating. Faith was unplaced in Limit Bitch, she was a very giddy kipper moving out with the others…she finds showing far too exciting! Spark went really nicely in Limit Dog and won his class which I was super pleased about. He won his class (Junior) the last time he was out under this judge so it was nice to see that she still thought highly of him now he’s a bit more grown up and in with the ‘big boys’. Dottie went beautifully (as always) in Open Bitch and placed 4th in very good company which was really nice too :o). All class judging and the bitch challenge completed and it was time for the dog challenge so Spark and I headed back into the ring with all the other class winners, some really nice dogs in the challenge line up and all a very similar type so I had a feeling it was going to be a close call, after a few more circuits of the ring and a closer examination of each exhibit I was absolutely over the moon when the judge called Spark out for the Challenge Certificate! What a fab end to our showing year which started out with his Reserve CC at Crufts back in March. We’ve just got LKA left on 12th December, I only have Spark entered although Vogue will be there with her new owner too :o)

That same weekend saw Sally and Digger (Bryning the Golden Ticket) competing in the KC Starters Cup Final at Discover Dogs which was taking place at Earls Court; a real nerve racker with busy bustling halls and big crowds. The pair managed to hold their nerves and a double clear in the jumping and agility saw them coming away with a very creditable 3rd place :o)



11th November, Armistice Day, saw Teal delivering her 2nd litter of puppies and a first for our young liver roan cocker boy Travis. 6 beautiful healthy puppies…2 blue roan and tan boys, a blue roan boy, a lemon roan boy, a lemon roan bitch and a blue roan bitch. I say ‘roan’ at the moment but I believe a few of them may well stay open marked; although this is the less common, recessive pattern in cockers, the open marked gene is present in both Teal and Travis’s lines and at the moment there isn’t a lot of roaning going on! There are pics and details of this litter HERE with updated photos to follow soon.

babies at 18 days old...


Last Saturday (20th) I took Tammy and Dottie to be scanned and both were confirmed in whelp, due the week running up to Christmas…should be fun! We also had several of the young flyball team dogs rabies vaccinated in preparation for travelling to the European Championships in Germany next year, including Travis, Tarka, Maisie, Pixie, and Tiger. Fingers crossed they all get positive titre test results in a couple of weeks time. We went down to the playing fields and did some training in the afternoon, I was particularly impressed with Fynn and Jovi who both seemed to have moved up a gear, more training required me thinks! On the Sunday we travelled over to Gap Farm near Doncaster for our last flyball comp of the year. Fergus (Bryning Virage) and Pixie (Bryning Russian Doll) were due to make their starters debuts having turned one earlier this month but it became apparent that Pixie wasn’t quite ready so we put her away until she is. Hopefully she will be ready for the starters comp at the end of January. We borrowed Eabha (Bryning Prime Time) from Rotherham and ran Travis, Tarka, Fergus, Eabha and Spark…with the exception of Travis an all Bryning bred team of dogs :o) I was pleased with the progress they all made, Spark managed to run with a new boxloader (he is funny about who is boxloading!) and Fergus made a very promising start, especially considering how little training he has done so far. I was also very pleased with both Jovi and Maisie who ran on the top team for the first time. This was only Maisie’s second ever open tournament and she was paw perfect bless her. Jo ran much better than she has been and even remembered how to run in the red lane, much to my relief as she also picked up her flyball dog certificate so there’s no going back into starters now! Several of the dogs, including Jovi, need to do some serious box work over winter though, far too many ball fumbles costing us races :o( I also picked up Squirrel’s flyball dog certificate and Pip finally picked up her Ice Blue Moon award :o) We went to look at a new indoor training venue earlier in the week, fingers crossed that turns out ok.

I think that’s about it for now!

Yet again 8 weeks seems to have flown by...

So, now 8 weeks old I FINALLY decided which Dazzle puppy is staying and it’s not the one I thought it would be from the beginning but I just can’t get past this little man’s ‘look at me’ attitude and bizarrely, I think he’s the one that looks the most like daddy!

So here he is… Aero aka Bryning Aero D’namic…


The others have also all been chosen, Blue and Yiria are both going abroad and their new owners were as keen and excited about this combination as I am so leapt at the chance of having one. Ripple has already left, he is staying in the UK and is destined for flyball and Revel has headed over to the Isle of Man to join a growing little band of Brynings out on the island where he will hopefully do a bit of everything at Ramsey Dog Training Club.

Blue – Bryning Blue Smartie


Yiria – Bryning Wispa’Inn Yiria


Ripple – Bryning Chocolate Ripple


Revel – Bryning Revels in Chocolate


It is a little bemusing that a couple of interested parties in the UK have been funny about the fact they are from a merle to merle mating, despite the fact they are not double merles and are therefore genetically the same as any other puppy born from a non merle mating (as I explained in a detailed posting on here when they were born) but you can only tell people the facts I guess and to be honest, I feel that these pups are far too good to be going to people that don’t fully understand or appreciate what they’re getting so there’s no way I’m going to try and convince someone otherwise. People looking to import a puppy are usually very keen and intelligent breed enthusiasts that are already very knowledgeable and are prepared to do their research and ask questions about things they don’t fully understand which is one of the reasons I always enjoy dealing with prospective puppy owners from overseas. I am so happy with all the homes these pups are going to and I wish their owners every success with what have been, and I'm sure will continue to be, a very special litter indeed :o)

A (hard) lesson in colour genetics

So…last weekend I’m out with the dogs and Dazzle’s coat looks an absolute disgrace, all this rain we’ve been having isn’t great for a dog with a huge coat that acts like a sponge! So I decided a good bath and groom was in order when we got home. She’s always like a little barrel, like her mother before her she is prone to weight gain, despite me cutting her food back, which is not helped by her great thick coat either. Well, I got her in the bath and soaked her and…what’s this?? OMG…Dazzle is in whelp...panic!! I looked back at when she was in season…around the time my grandad died, so the week she must have been mated was the week of the funeral when we had a whole load of family staying in the house and everything was a bit of a blur!! I just had no idea who the sire was, since I had no inkling that she’d been mated at all it really could have been anyone and no matter which way I looked at it, none of the options were particularly favourable but Spark was probably ‘worst case scenario’ being her son and a merle too :o(

Now normally when I have a bitch due to whelp it’s been a long awaited event that results in lots of excited anticipation. This last week I have to say has been one of nervous dread, waiting to see what arrived. So…she whelped Monday night and when the first pup was born…a chocolate merle…I briefly thought they might be cocker crosses (sired by Travis) but they were the size and shape of normal collie pups with neat little triangle ears, another choc merle and then the third one…an almost all white choc merle…a double merle…and I knew for sure then that the puppies were Mac’s, he is the only dog I have here that carries chocolate and he is obviously also a merle; probably second worst case scenario :o(

We finished up with 3 ‘normal’ (heterozygous Mm) choc merle boys and a ‘normal’ blue merle boy as well as a choc/white boy along with the ‘double’ (homozygous MM) choc merle. I spoke with my vet and we agreed that the kindest option was to have the white pup humanely put to sleep. The risk of deafness, blindness, lack of eyes etc was just too great to justify rearing this poor baby and there was no hesitation from my vet that this was the most sensible course of action, as sad as it seems now I’m sure we made the right decision but that doesn't actually make it any the less tough.

the unexpected arrivals...


I am totally unsure how I feel about this litter now…they certainly weren’t planned or expected and their arrival is tinged by sadness, guilt and regret but the five remaining pups are beautiful so I can’t help but smile when I look at them and I’m also quietly excited at the prospect of Mac babies; something I had resigned myself would never happen again so this is an unexpected surprise, it’s all so very bitter/sweet and I feel guilty again about being a little bit excited. The irony is that when I took all my dogs for gonioscopy testing last year, I had planned to mate Dottie to Mac so I could keep a puppy. When Mac failed the gonio test my hopes were dashed and I was desperately disappointed. I asked Stuart (opthamologist) whether it would be possible to use him again at all and he pulled his face but suggested that if I really MUST use him again it should be to a bitch with completely perfect eye structure and drainage angles, such as Dazzle (who he claimed has the best drainage angles he’s ever seen) which I obviously pointed out was never going to happen since they were both merles! I did contemplate having Mac castrated at the time but decided against it because I didn’t want to upset the hierarchy in my pack; all my boys get along so well with Mac being the ‘top dog’ amongst them and because he’s not really one for bothering when we have girls in season I’ve never found him being entire a problem (huh!).

So, here I am, well read and experienced in breeding and colour genetics and a staunch advocate against merle to merle matings, in the situation I never imagined I would find myself in, it just goes to show…you never quite know what’s around the corner in this game!

So I’m just going to share a few facts about merle to merle matings and double merles as I'm sure some people reading this will have questions.

Merle is a dominant gene and as such a dog only needs one copy of the gene to exhibit the coat pattern. So the vast majority of merles are heterozygous for merle Mm (that means they have two different genes on that allele…one for merle M and one not for merle m). When you mate a merle to a solid coloured dog the merle should (statictically) pass on the merle gene to 50% of the offspring and the non merle gene to the other 50%, so half the litter will also be heterozygous merle (Mm) and the other half will be homozygous (two copies of the same gene) for non merle (mm).

Problems arise when two merles are mated together because you now have the probability that 25% of the pups will inherit the merle gene from both parents so statistically 25% of the litter will be homozygous non merle (mm), 50% will be heterozygous ‘normal’ merle (Mm) and 25% will be homozygous ‘double’ merle (MM). The effect of the double merle gene is to drastically dilute the colour pigmentation so you end up with a puppy that is almost entirely white and this is where the problems lie. The colour pigmentation cells are involved in the development of optical and auditory systems (sight and hearing) so the lack of pigmentation can result in a whole host of deafness and eyesight issues.

What this means is that the fact that these double merle puppies have issues is secondary to the fact they are mostly white (if that makes sense)…the genes themselves don’t cause the problems, only the fact that the genes result in a lack of pigment so, while the double merle pups themselves will likely have health issues, the rest of the pups in the litter are perfectly normal healthy puppies and should a double merle be retained and bred from (whether it be deaf and/or blind itself) it would not pass any of these issues onto it’s offspring. It was (and probably still is in some places) common practice for ‘colour breeders’ (those breeding solely for colour and nothing else) to deliberately do a merle to merle mating and retain a double merle pup as a stud dog. Being homozygous MM means that a double merle, when mated to a solid coloured bitch, can ONLY pass on the merle gene and therefore can only produce merle puppies. It is also much more commonplace in breeds where merle is more prevelant, such as Australian Shepherds and shelties.

Here are a few interesting links regarding double merles but let me just clarify that I WOULD NOT EVER recommend a deliberate merle to merle mating; intentionally producing defective puppies is not my idea of good breeding practice and having to make the heart breaking decision to have a newborn puppy pts is not something I would wish on any other caring and conscientious breeder.

LethalWhites.com

Double Merle Genetics

Deafness in White Aussies

Just Dogs Live & East of England Champ Show

We arrived at Peterborough showground on the Thursday afternoon for 3 days of breed showing, flyball and agility at ‘Just Dogs Live’ which incorporated East of England Champ show. I kinda wished I hadn’t bothered with the show, Aston got a 4th in Minor Puppy dog but I was really pleased with the way he went at his first show. The class was won by Teddy, Starside Shameless, a ’Viggo’ son who also went on to win the Puppy Dog class too. I missed Jovi’s class, decided not to take Faith in as she was so out of coat, Dottie and Spark were both ‘binned’ (shock, horror!)

Teddy on the move….

Aston on the move…

Spark on the move…

Dottie on the move…


The agility was well, painful with Teal; she just isn’t enjoying it at the moment so I’ve decided no more comps with her until we can commit to more training and she can learn how fun it all is again. I actually really enjoyed running Faith, no clear rounds but she is getting better at listening to me and concentrating on the job in hand! I think we could get it together and make a decent little agility dog of her if we could get some regular training in!

The flyball was good, we had all 3 teams running but boy was it hot! I wanted a cool coat for Teal but they had sold out when I arrived, the very kind lady on the ’DryDog Coats’ stand loaned me one for the afternoon and it made a real difference, she ran SO much better; unfortunately by that time all the collies had started to flag a bit so we didn’t gain much but I ordered 3 of the cool coats to be delivered, 1 for Teal and 2 collie sized ones. They are by far the best cool coats I’ve ever come across and very reasonably priced too; I would recommend them to anyone. I also picked up one of the dry coats to use on Spark for his pre-show bath and this is really effective; lovely flat dry coat although he does look very funny wearing it bless him! lol

Some more photos of the dogs in the showring, some stacked pics of the puppies taken at the same time and a few pics of the dogs competing in the flyball (courtesy of David Flood) HERE

Better late than never..

Well, Lori’s pups finally put in an appearance on Monday night…3 days overdue to her second mating!! I can only conclude that she ovulated a couple of days after her last mating which would make sense since she did continue to stand during this time and was positively throwing herself at Spark who just plain refused to mate her again! (stud dog’s perogative I guess! lol). With all of this and the fact she wasn’t that big, I expected a relatively small litter (she has whelped 8 pups in her last two)…I was wrong! After (what felt like) a very long labour she finally produced the first puppy at 6.30pm then got a bit of a spurt on, producing 5 puppies between 8 and 9pm! Number 7 came around 10pm and Number 8 arrived around 11.30pm and I thought she was done and went to bed only to be woken again at 3.15am by a very restless and agitated Lori who…produced puppy number 9! I am sure that she definitely ovulated well after she was mated and Spark must have very long-lived and active little ‘swimmers’!! :o)

Final Tally is…
• three blue/white girls…1 is classic, the spit of Eabha, 1 is classic but less collar and the other has classic face and collar but white flashes up her hips and small patches of white over her bum.

• Three black/white girls…1 classic and the other two very flashy with a lot of white and the white patches over the body too.

• Two blue merle boys and a slate merle boy, all three classically marked with pale powdery merling…all very like Spark to be honest.


All in all a very nice litter that I have no worries Lori will make an excellent job of rearing, just as she always does :o)

And then there was one...

The last parson puppy, Fagin left home on Sunday so now I'm just left with little Esther who looks like she will be staying :)

Here's the two of them snuggled up on the sofa for the last time on Saturday evening...

And here's Esther snuggled up with mum the next night...bless...

She is a lovely little pup, not as bold and outgoing as I would normally choose, she probably is the quietest in the litter to be honest but I'm sure she won't stay that way living here! lol

Here she is playing in the garden with some of the big dogs.


and 'striking a pose' in the garden...


I've really enjoyed this litter, lovely quiet easy puppies, far less demanding than the collie litters and such fabulous little characters...love them!

Parson babies at 5 weeks old

Here they are, like tiny little toy dogs :o)

Although they're active and playful they're much quieter and easier to manage then either collie or cocker pups and a real pleasure to have in the home.



There are still a couple available to the right homes, I think they'll make fab little flyball and/or agility dogs but equally just make super little family pets...just love 'em!

A sad day...

The little parson baby passed to the Rainbow Bridge last Friday. I took her to the vets to see what Stuart thought and he immediately noticed her exagerated head shape, after chatting about her behaviour and symptoms it seemed most likely that she was suffering with hydrocephalus and that the resultant lack of co-ordination was the reason she was struggling to feed properly, even when bottle or hand fed she was taking on very little. This had already left her tiny and thin and permanently hungry so we had to make the difficult decision to save her from any further suffering; she passed peacefully away but it was a very sad moment, having watched her fight to survive and start to develop her own little personality over the last four weeks...sleep well little girl x

What I hadn't expected was Squirrels reaction, she spent the next couple of days searching round the house trying to find her and was very quiet, almost depressed, for the next few days. I brought her and the rest of the puppies downstairs as a distraction and thankfully she seems to be ok now. The rest of the babies are doing really well, new photos to follow...

The heartache of breeding

I’ve done it again, fallen way behind in my blogging, I was sure I’d have much more time for blogging over winter but I just don’t know where it goes??!!

I’m going to do a couple of separate postings to catch up re. different things rather than another mammoth one ;o)

On a general note, the parson puppies are all doing great guns (4 weeks old tomorrow and I really must get some new pics) apart from our little ‘squidge’…at this very moment I am struggling to make a decision on her future, she is gaining weight but so incredibly slowly, she hardly seems able to take on enough food to sustain herself let alone grow and yet she is relatively bright, she sits up and is on her feet and toddling around with the others but she just looks so pitiful. She is painfully thin, a real tiny scrawny little thing and her coat is rough and disheveled despite being kept immaculately clean by Squirrel. She makes attempts to feed with the others but my feeling is that there is something wrong with her gullet or epiglottis that makes it virtually impossible for her to swallow correctly so while she is hungry, she can only feed for a very short period at a time and seems unable to take on enough before she starts to struggle. Poor Squirrel knows there is something wrong and is trying her best to care for her, she even picks her up and carries her to me like she’s asking for my help and as the other puppies grow bigger and stronger and more boisterous I worry that she won’t cope amongst them all for much longer. Early on I had decided to let nature take it’s course, if she lived she was meant to and if she didn’t then she wasn’t but now I am really concerned that she is surviving and suffering, hungry and weak and struggling to breathe. I’ve obviously grown very fond of this baby and don’t want to let her go and despite her best efforts to stay alive I wonder if the kindest thing I can do is make the decision for her. It’s a really tough call and one that is testing every emotion I have.

The whole of December in one go...

Gosh, a month without a blog update, I think that must be a record! I have just been so busy at work and at home with the puppies and Christmas and everything else that I’ve hardly even found time to sit down, I’ve done no Christmas cards…electronic or otherwise and I don’t have our 2010 calendar done yet either (it’s a poor show I know) so really no time for blogging or catching up on friends’ blogs either…ho hum!

We’ve seen two birthdays with Squirrel turning two at the start of the month and Ethan turning four a couple of days later; with that and Christmas on top the toy box is over flowing although, as always seems to be the case, several toys have already been demolished and consigned to the bin


(this is just one of our THREE toy baskets!)

So, what else has been happening? Well quite a lot when I look back actually!

Flyball
The weather has been so bad (wet, wet, wet!) we’ve really done no training at all for a couple of months, the same with agility. Gemma had been up at the end of November and taken the training chute to do some work with Fynn and when she came back up at the beginning of December the work she’d been doing was evident. He is now much more focused on his ball and is doing some nice jumps on and off the chute, we decided to try him on the box to see what he would do and he took to it fine, the motion is initially quite slow as he’s having to think about what he’s doing but he’s not bothered by the movement and noise of the box and is looking promising. We also did a little bit of work with Jovi, she is keen as mustard but is definitely more hesitant than Fynn, I think her technique will improve as she grows in confidence.

Fynn’s first go on the box…

Make video montages at www.OneTrueMedia.com

A week or so later and Gemma was back up, this time with Alicia and Lola so we set up a couple of jumps and the box in the garden and did some work with all 3, I was really pleased with them all. Lola has already been doing runbacks and has a lovely hurdling action; her main issue at the moment is focus (she is SO like her mother!). Fynn still needs to think about his co-ordination a little more but I was pleased with the way he was running up and down the hurdles and doing the box nicely too. JoJo is very keen still and was eagerly running up and down and taking the ball from the box but her box technique is still not great. I think time and practice will be the key to this because she’s keen on a ball and she also wants to get back to me asap so she has the key things that make up a good fast turn once we sort her technique out.

Agility
We’ve done no agility training (apart from the odd bit in the garden) for months and months. I did make a set of weave guides to finally press on and finish teaching both my girls to weave. I’ve been training them on channels but really struggled with the transition to normal competition uprights. I could kick myself for not having made these guides sooner! They have absolutely done the trick!

Faith first time with the guides...


Teal first time with the guides..


5th December saw our second agility show with Faith and Teal; I was very undecided about whether or not to run them both as I really hadn’t finished proofing the weaves for competition but I ran them through in the garden a couple of times and decided to go for it; it is only 5 mins down the road after all. When I arrived I had missed Teals’ first class (graded 1-2 agility) and when I looked at the 1-2 jumping I decided against running either girl on the course, it just wasn’t the nice flowing confidence building sort of course I was looking for. I had also missed walking the small combined 1-7 agility, I watched a few dogs round the course and decided it was something Teal and I could tackle, even if we weren’t going to stand a chance against the higher graded dogs it would be good experience. It was a nice flowing course with a couple of little ‘handly’ bits here and there but it was going to be a bit of a blast and I hoped Teal wouldn’t be too crazy and start missing contacts. She did a nice calm startline wait and then we were off…jump-dogwalk to start (again!) and she nailed the running contact (big smile) then off over a series of jumps which she ran fast and accurately then a straight tunnel and out over a jump into an empty space, there was another jump in line that she had to come back over while I had decided to also put a reverse turn in to get on the other side of her…it was only when I actually got there that I realized how big the gap between the jumps was leaving a serious risk of her coming through the gap and getting 5R and I dithered…the lack of any command at all saw Teal land the jump and then run straight to the scribe who was sitting on a chair directly in front of her! I moved across and put the turn in as I called her back and she thankfully ran back and over the jump and we continued the course, over the A frame another star of jumps and then straight down a line of tyre, seesaw and jump home…our first clear round!! I was so pleased with my little girl!! It was only looking at the results later that I realized how close we had been to a place and how dearly that hesitation had cost, there were 100 grade 1-7 small dogs in the class and places to 10th, despite it being a combined class Teal was only 0.5sec off being placed and ran a faster time than quite a number of grade 6/7 dogs that had run clear. I am certain that she would have placed top 5 without that ‘blip’ mid round…that’ll teach me to get there in time to walk the courses in future! Live and learn I guess!

I did walk the graded large 1&2 agility which was a really lovely course that I really wanted to have a go at with Faith, it was right up her street and I thought we stood a good chance of a decent clear. I decided to adopt a different technique in keeping her calm so Veronica queued for me and I brought her in right at the last minute and wouldn’t let her watch. This technique proved to be entirely the wrong one. I set her up on the start line just as a springer spaniel started running in the next ring and she just couldn’t take her eyes off it! As I released her it ran up the dogwalk that was alongside our ring and Fi crashed through the first jump (since she only had half an eye on it!), ran through the tunnel, over jump 3 and then kept going in the direction of the next ring!! I yelled her back and set her up to continue but her neck was craned back looking toward the other ring, there was no way she was going to concentrate so I picked her up and carried her out...arghhhhh…sooooo frustrating! I think maybe we need to leave indoor competitions well alone for now, get some more training in and come back to agility again when it’s outdoors with bigger rings and less noise. I also think it may well be better to let her watch as much as she likes before running her, let her get it out of her system; we’ll see I guess!

We managed to get a small amount of training in just before Christmas when we went down to Oxford to stay with Joy and Becca for the weekend while going to watch Becca and Teal (Bryning Time to Shine) competing at Olympia. It was a fab weekend, Olympia was great…a day out with friends…agility, showjumping and shopping…what more could you ask for?! Poor Becca had been in bed all week with tonsilitis so was not on her best form and struggled on the huge courses but the girls did really well, the clear round in the morning saw them place 16th and into the pairs final in the afternoon where they came 3rd, fastest time but 15 faults between them…a real shame.

There is full footage of both the semis and the pairs (and in fact the whole competition) on the Horse and Country channel website...brilliant!

Becca and Teal appear around 5 minutes into episode 3

Semis Episode One

Semis Episode Two

Semis Epiosde Three

Semis and Final Episode Four

(video of the pairs filmed by me still to come!!)

Weather
Like most of the rest of the country we’ve had quite a lot of snow and ice over the past week or so which has actually been really nice. A little hairy driving too and from work, the shops etc but bliss when taking the dogs out…the ground is hard underfoot and everyone stays clean!

This was our lane and house on Christmas Eve (a white Christmas!)




and the dogs racing around in the snow in the garden...


Puppies
Well, the puppies have all grown up and many have left us already. Aston (Bryning Volante) is the black/white dog pup from Tally and Lexie’s litter and he is the one staying. I had wanted a black/white dog pup from this litter and since he was the only one I didn’t have a choice but I am more than happy with him, he’s beautifully constructed, well marked, very toy orientated and has a really nice happy outgoing character…perfick!

There is still an ongoing dilemma as to which of Dazzle’s girls will stay but I am pretty certain it is the little merle bitch, she looks like a little wind up toy but is an absolute menace! Not decided on a name yet, something cute and girlie..we’ll see .

Here’s three of the girls (one has left for her new home already) playing tuggy in the lounge…

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

and here's them again playing in the dining room..


and here's the boys...


I am very pleased with these as Viggos’ first litter and he’s had two more born over the past few weeks so it will be very interesting to see how they turn out too.

Christmas day saw the arrival of a very special delivery…our first parson puppies!! Squirrel is proving to be a really natural and devoted mother, the puppies are all doing well apart from the little bitch that was the smallest at birth, she really is tiny and seems to be struggling to feed so I’ve started supplementing her, will keep everything crossed that she starts to gain weight and strength and starts to thrive but it is a bit of a worry.



I think that sees us just about up to date!

Nature or Nurture?

Having two litters born so close together, it’s always interesting to see how they grow and develop differently but what I hadn’t thought about when I gave Lexie one of Dazzle’s pups to rear, was the way this could demonstrate the influence of the bitch on these things, even during these early stages. Both litters have just turned 2 weeks so eyes are opening and they have been photographed, wormed and nail trimmed; the difference between the two litters is already very noticeable. (New pics on the website - Dazzles’ pups and Lexies’ pups)

Dazzles pups are great big chunky things, their eyes are mostly open but not quite fully yet but they are incredibly noisy and very very active! I found them almost impossible to photograph because they were just zooming off here, there and everywhere and couldn’t keep still! They are also very inquisitive already, when taking each pup out the rest were crowding at the front of the pen wanting to see what was going on despite probably being able to see very little just yet. Dazzle is a very fidgety bitch, she’s up and down and digs all the vet bed up and moves around the pen a lot, she’s always very restless even when with her pups; she’s also very nosey and likes to keep popping out to see what else is going on and I think this has made her pups the same already. It has to be said that none of them batted an eyelid at the wormer and nail trimming.

Lexie’s pups are not quite as well grown as Dazzle’s but their eyes are fully open, including the Dazzle pup she is fostering. I wonder if her constant attention and cleaning is a factor in aiding this? These pups, including the Dazzle baby, are quiet and contented, nowhere near as active as the pups Dazzle is rearing, they’re only just starting to push up on their feet and don’t have the strength and motor function of Dazzle’s just yet but then they haven’t needed to. Lexie is a very quiet and attentive mum (not the fidget bum she is normally!) and she lays with her pups constantly and keeps pulling them in close so they don’t need to keep moving around to find her like Dazzles do. Lexie’s were not so happy about the wormer and nail trim, it was a bit of a shock to their quiet and sheltered lives so far and as soon as they went back in the crate Lex was in there cleaning the traces of wormer off their faces quick as you like!

must remove all trace of the pink liquid!!

everyone ok?
spot the odd one out!

the adopted baby has made herself at home :)

All that said they are also in very different environments; Lexie is up in my room so the pups have not encountered any other dogs yet. Daz’s are in the dining room where other dogs will wander in and out and there’s a lot more noise and household bustle down there so maybe that is a factor too? I am going to bring Lexies’ downstairs this week so they can start experiencing more, Lexie never likes this move, she’s always very protective and likes to keep all the other dogs away so I tend to leave her separated a little longer than the other girls.

Another week of growth and development to watch with interest!

A 'quiet' weekend at home...

Well, we had a pretty quiet weekend, the weather continues to be awful…constant rain!! Saturday we had lots of people come to visit Dotties’ pups so 4 of them have now been chosen, they will start leaving for their new homes in 3 weeks time so I need to pull my finger out and decide on registered names! They are a really lovely litter, I started weaning them last week and they are eating like gannets!! Dottie is being a great mum again, very relaxed and easy going around them but attentive at the same time; they’re all lovely clean and well fed babies. New pics of them due today now they are 4 weeks old, ready for their next dose of wormer and well ready for another nail trim!

Sunday wasn’t ‘too’ bad a day weather-wise, it stayed mostly dry so I took the opportunity to take some updated pics of the youngsters in the garden. The lighting still wasn’t great so they’re mixed quality… some better than others it has to be said!

Jovi aka ‘JoJo’ – Bryning Amistoso Love Always

Tarka – Bryning Riverine

The ‘boys’…
Wesley– Glendream Stargazer at Bryning and Travis – Raezhaven Bryce at Bryning

Maisie– Randoms Maisie


I also did a little bit of agility training with Teal and Faith before it got dark and started pee’ing down again! I don’t have a lot of equipment at home so it was very basic stuff but since neither girl has trained for months it’s just as well! We did a very simple loop…jump – channel weaves – jump – seesaw. I was actually very pleased with them both since they were both really ‘up for it’ and had remembered their contact position/run off well. I kinda have this theory that less training is better for this sort of thing, once they have an understanding of what you want, leave it alone so you don’t risk inadvertently ‘de-training’ it when your focus moves elsewhere! lol

Biggest problem with Teal was her popping out of the weaves if I’m running too close…everything is a race with her so I have to hang back and let her finish them or she thinks I’m getting away from her and comes out to catch me up! Faith’s biggest issue was ducking under the jump before the weaves, Faith LOVES the channel weaves so was getting her head down in anticipation of the entry and completely failing to see the jump! I dropped the pole on one side and asked her to just complete the jump a few times before then asking her to find the weaves afterwards, this seemed to cure it! Not much use in the ring though! lol

Both girls are entered for their first show this weekend, just down the road at Myerscough College…I may well chicken out and not run them though, it is rather mean to expect them to compete when they’ve had no training all summer, we’ll see what the courses bring and then decide I think (cluck, cluck lol)

Dazzles’ pups were also a week old on Sunday, new pics on the website, and I have to say they are really fat puppies…bordering on obese! Lol

Six big fat chunky slugs and then the little pale merle girl who looks like a midget but is actually just a normal sized puppy! She was the smallest at birth and while she is doing fine I am a little concerned that she may be struggling to compete against her monster littermates so I’ve made the decision to take her away from Dazzle and let Lexie rear her instead. This isn’t something I’ve ever done before but then I’ve never had a bitch with such a small litter before, the little girl is much closer in size to Lexies’ blue boys (not the monster black fella!), although only a day between them in birth dates Lexies’ were of course 5 days early. I wasn’t sure whether this was going to work but Daz doesn’t seem too concerned about being a pup short and Lexie has accepted the new pup so all good so far. I moved her while the mum’s were out toileting so Lex came back to her bed to find the new addition and she did give her a good sniff all over and obviously knew this was not one of hers but she is a very maternal bitch and just let her feed and cleaned her along with the boys and happily settled down with her increased brood of four; her pups were a week old yesterday so new pics to come later.

Last night Jovi and I travelled down to Tom and Kate’s near Wrexham, meeting Gemma and Fynn on the way to get blood samples taken for rabies titre testing. Fingers crossed both will pass and be joining us at the Euros next year…wherever that may be!! As yet we are all still waiting to find out whether the Austrians and/or Germans are going to host the 2010 event.

Think that’s it for now :)

Blue Monday...

We’ve had a busy couple of weeks really with one thing and another but our winter puppy season is now well underway!

Squirrel has been mated so we should hopefully be expecting our first litter of parsons around Christmas time! Here's a pic of daddy 'Chello'…

CH Giftrapped of Lovealoch to Pacolito

Dazzle whelped Sunday night, bang on the date I expected. We got a nice litter of 7, 4 girls and 3 boys (the reverse of Dottie) and all dilute of course…2 blue girls, 2 slate merle girls and 3 blue boys. I’ll get some individual pics on the website later but I am very pleased with them. The merle girls don’t have a lot of white on them, much like Dazzle and granny Spangle, one is very pale and powdery like big brother Spark and the other quite patchy, very like Spangle actually. The two blue girls are very classic, full white collars, white faces and white front legs, there’s one classic blue boy with a half white collar (like daddy Viggo!), one dark faced blue boy with a tiny narrow blaze that may well disappear and one very dark blue boy…blue face with a tiny white snip and two blue front legs with white feet. I think he’ll be very striking!

Not wanting to be left out Lexie decided to whelp last night too! she wasn’t due ‘til the weekend so was quite early and only produced 3 pups which is unusual for an early delivery but it really is as well she didn’t wait because the black boy is a monster and she struggled getting him out…I think a c-section may have been necessary if he had been left much longer! He’s going to be very much the ‘odd one out’ amongst all these blue babies though! lol

The two blue boys are marked very like daddy (Tally), white faces and dark bodies, 4 blue legs with just white on the feet. The black boy is more classically marked like Lexie, it’ll be interesting to see how they all grow.

'Tally' - Sh CH Littlethorn Continental

That’s the last of our expected litters arrived so now the anticipation ends and the hard work starts! Dottie’s pups are 3 weeks old today so I’ll update their page with new pics later too; they are lovely little things, bright and active and noisy and nosey…just like mum! Lol

I am, as always, fascinated to see how these 3 litters turn out, although Daz and Dot are half sisters the 3 litters are all very different bloodline combinations and it’s always interesting to see the differences in growth and development between different litters. I also have the enviable task of deciding who stays and who goes…some tough decisions me thinks!

New Arrivals

Tuesday morning I woke up and could hardly move, the trip to Batleys on my way home from work for our fortnightly dog food shop had taken it’s toll and my back was agony again (shifting 9 sacks of dog food probably not the best thing for a bad back!). I struggled to get showered and dressed and get the dogs sorted by which time it was 10am, I rang work and told them I wasn’t going to make it in and went and laid back out with a bolster cushion under my back until the pain killers started to take effect then went and let the dogs out for a run for 20 mins (all the standing around in the wild wind I could manage) and shut them back in the yard with roast bones to keep them busy. When I went back in the house I found Dottie in the whelping pen digging furiously….hmmm…puppies on the way it would seem! At least she’d already had her ‘pre-whelp groom and trim’ so was nice and neat and ready to go! Normally I hate the hanging around waiting for a bitch to whelp but on this occasion laying on my bed all afternoon/evening was a godsend! lol

The first pup arrived just before 11pm, she was pushing and pushing and obviously struggling so I took a look to find 2 enormous fat feet protruding, they looked quite dark and I feared the pup may be dead (paranoid after her first litter!), he was coming backwards so I hooked his tail out and gently pulled down while Dottie continued to push…he was fairly firmly wedged but we managed to get back end, abdomen and chest out in one push and he started to wriggle (much to my relief!), another strong push and the rest of him came, a flashy black dog with a dot on his head just like mum! As he dried I realized he wasn’t quite black and looks to be a seal/white, darker than Wren when she was born but we’ll see how he develops.

The rest came quite easily, I had to just keep an eye on her as she’s quite enthusiastic over the chewing down of umbilical cords so a couple I had to tie off and trim down with sterile scissors to get her to leave them alone.

We finished up with 4 boys (2 seal, 2 blue) and 3 black girls. We will wait and see whether any of the girls develop tan points, there are no clearly defined points at the moment but paler areas under the tail, sometimes this can fade and other times it will develop…we’ll just have to wait and see.

There are individual pup pics on the website Current Litter page.

We have a couple of weeks to enjoy this brood before Dazzle’s arrive, she’s starting to show quite nicely now and Lexie is day 40 today so starts her panacur worming regime and a step up in her feeding, just 3 weeks before she is due so we’re going to be very busy in November!

(this was written a week ago it's just taken me that long to get around to posting...sorry!)

Rotherham Flyball - ending the season on a positive :)

Well, it was a cold and miserable weekend, not least because I was suffering with a terrible bad back. It’s not so much the pain that was getting me down but the fact I couldn’t easily do all the things I wanted to! Saturday was actually a beautiful crisp, sunny day but involved a 5.30am start to get all the dogs up and sorted before we left for Rotherham, I also had 3 cocker pups to take with us that were leaving for their new homes but we had the van packed and left for 7am (a little later than planned) and headed off for the scenic journey over Woodhead pass. We made good time which was lucky because they started racing 5 mins early and we were second race in Division One with the Speed Demonz, the only team we had entered. We were 6th seed out of 7 teams on a seed time of 17.90, top seed being the Live Wires on 16.96, nearly a second faster, we expected a drubbing! I had been a little undecided who to run in the absence of Dottie or Lexie (both in whelp) so we ended up with 6 dogs named…Dylan, Bailey, Teal, Faith, Ethan, Mac. The first 3 were our set line up and we’d try each of the other 3 and see how we got on. We started with Mac but I soon put him away, he just doesn’t run all that well over 8” and Ethan and Faith seemed to be running better. Of course, they both have the ‘turning the wrong way in the opposite lane’ syndrome but fortunately in different lanes so I just alternated them in and out with each other depending on what lane we were in. Dylan was back on top ‘pre-injury’ form running consistent low 4 seconds and everyone else seemed pretty fired up too. We did better than expected and beat both Dolphins and Cheshire Set but stupidly lost against Moltens (yep…you guessed it…lights!), this put us 5th so we exceeded expectation but we also ran a new seasons best…in the last leg of the last race of our last tournament for the year! 17.71 which consisted of a perfect rolling start, 4.12 from both Dylan and Bailey, 4.57 from Faith and 4.90 from Teal. Ethan was also running 4.5’s which is pretty damn good for him, maybe we’re finally starting to see his potential coming through. This gives us a nice base to start working on over winter, we know Fi can run 4.2’s over 8” so she definitely has more to give, I’m sure Dyl and Bai will shave a little more time off as they get used to running the lower height too and Teal…who knows…we can but try! I am toying with the idea of trying out a flat fronted box over winter to see if that brings any benefits. I’m conscious of not wanting to fix what ‘aint broke since most of our dogs have a decent box technique but I am told that a good box turn on a boomerang should hold up on a flat fronted box too, we’ll see.

The cocker babies all left with no problems…Tally (Bryning Totally Trouble) has gone to Ellen from Cambridgeshire Canines

and Charlie (Bryning Brock) has gone to Hannah from Ready2Fly

...so hopefully we’ll see both out on the flyball circuit next year. Bracken (Bryning Bracken) has gone up to Co. Durham. It’s very quiet at home now with just Ziva and Tarka and will be more so next weekend when Ziva leaves us to go to her new home in Northern Ireland.

We also saw Jude (Bryning Crazy Talk) from Ethan and Dottie's litter and what a handsome boy he's turned into...