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!
