What a day!

Well, having had very little sleep due to working a late shift the night before, off I went this morning to judge Ashburton dog show.

I arrived around 90 minutes early, thinking I'd be able to have a cup of tea and be sociable with the event organisers before the chaos, but to my surprise there were a large number of people already there and waiting for the showing to begin!

As time for the first class drew closer, more and more people arrived. So many people, in fact that we couldn't fit them all in the one hall and had to open up the second one too!

The classes were very well attended, with upto 25 dogs in a class and choosing my winners was so difficult. There were so many beautiful dogs and they were all very well behaved, despite the intensity of being in a room with perhaps 75 other dogs.

Mel from Itus Events provided a fantastic catering service, with paninis and refreshments, whilst Richard organised the raffle and took care of all things health and safety related.
Izzy, their daughter helped as a junior steward and also came into the ring with me and assisted with some of the judging.

And somehow, in amongst all the madness I managed to do some photography too!

Today has been a thoroughly enjoyable, exhausting and unforgettable day.

Huge thanks to everyone who attended, to Richard and Mel for asking me to be their Judge and to Sonny for being the best Steward I could ever have wished for.

Lady in Waiting.

Edna is doing absolutely brilliantly and is positively blooming.
She is still incredibly active and enjoying her daily 5 walks, with no signs of slowing down.

With just under 2 weeks left I am starting to get very excited!

Here are a few photographs of Edna and Stanley playing on Dartmoor over the weekend.

             

The Show Must Go On!

With the bad weather hopefully well behind us, Itus Events have been able to reschedule the family dog show in Ashburton in aid of providing a defibrillator for the local swimming pool.

The show will now be held on Friday 30th March at Ashburton Town Hall from 11:00 am.

 I'll be there judging and I'll be joined by my good friend Sonny from Soonaroosa Poodles, who will act as my Steward.

I'll also be taking my camera and hope to take some good photos of some of the dogs and their handlers.

For more information about the classes etc please see the show schedule below.

I hope to see you all there!

Show Postponed

Today I was supposed to be judging at Ashburton family dog show, however due to adverse weather conditions this has been postponed. The show will be reinstated over the next 10 days, so watch this space for details!

Apologies to anyone this affects.

A Woodland Wander

Ham Woods is around a ten minute walk from my house, despite this we go rarely because I far prefer Dartmoor.
I think it is important however, to give the dogs variety and so today we did a short circular 4 mile walk around the local woodland.
As you can see the dogs had a wonderful time, and even indulged in a bit of swimming!

Edna is now 5 weeks pregnant and is still rather svelte and as active as ever. It is incredibly difficult to imagine her with puppies because she is still so small but despite this, I have been told by the ultrasound imager to expect a large litter!

The Pitter Patter of Tiny Feet!

I am very excited to announce that my girl Edna  is expecting a litter of silver standard poodle puppies in around 4 weeks time.

These puppies will be raised in my home, will be raw fed, KC registered, vet checked, microchipped and worm counted before leaving here with an extensive puppy pack, contract of ownership and a lifetime of support.

Dam is tested CLEAR for Degenerative Myelopathy, PRA - PRCD, VWD 1 and 2, Osteochondrodysplasia, GM2 Gangliosidosis and Neonatal Encephalitis (with seizures)
Hips score is 3/3

Sire has tested CLEAR for Degenerative Myelopathy and Neonatal Encephalitis (with seizures)
Hip score - awaiting results
Both dam and sire are from champion lines.

These puppies will also have a COI of 0% making them genetically very interesting dogs.
I will be keeping a puppy from this litter myself.

For further information or details please contact me here or via my Facebook page - Marcasite Poodles.

Edna at 9 weeks old

I'm going to be a Judge!

It was a great honor to be asked by Itus Events to judge at a local fun dog show this Sunday - 18th March.
The show is in aid of buying a defibrillator for a swimming pool in a local village.

This is a cause very dear to me, following the sad loss of a family member early this year who had a heart attack.  The ambulance service took over 3 hours to get to him and by the time they did, the damage was irreparable. Had there been a local defibrillator available, he may still have been here today.

The show will be held indoors at Ashburton Town Hall, North Street, Ashburton, TQ13 7QQ and there will be refreshments available.

Please come along if you are able to, its going to be a fun day for dog and owner alike and there are some fantastic trophies and rosettes to be won. Aside from this your contributions may help save a life!

A Walk in the Woods

Well, the snow has disappeared almost as quickly as it came and after a few days of not being able to leave the house, the dogs were going stir crazy!

Today we did a 5 mile walk at Whitleigh and Cann Woods and the ground was very mushy indeed. We took my friend's children with us too and a great time was had by all.
We were approaching the end of our walk when out of nowhere came a little Shih Tzu mix who had a great time running and playing with Edna, but no accompanying owner was to be seen.
Luckily the little dog, Henry was wearing a collar with a tag so I was able to contact his owners who came to collect him around half an hour later.

The Problem with Silver Standard Poodles

There is a real problem within silver standard poodles at the moment; in that there is very little genetic diversity and therefore very few viable options for those wanting to breed.

My search for a stud dog that met all criteria I wanted began over two years ago; at this time I believed my own girl Edna to have a unique and interesting pedigree. Unfortunately since then, certain dogs in her line have been used over and over again thus de-valuing her pedigree significantly.

Being an ethical dog owner and hopefully future breeder has led me to conduct many hours of research into the use of studs and I have now discovered that there exists a phenomenon, aptly termed Popular Sire Syndrome.

In short, the problem with Popular sire syndrome is that a dog's genes are spread rapidly and widely - without any evaluation of the long term effects of his genetic contribution. Therefore by the time the dog's genetic attributes can be successfully evaluated, his genes are possibly too wide spread to easily correct any issues that are now within the gene pool.

This led me to consider and question the following, in my own search for a suitable boy:

* At what point does a stud dog owner determine that their stud dog has been bred enough?

* What is the stud dog owner trying to achieve, other than (the obvious) financial gain?

* Does the stud dog owner have foresight for where the issues within the breed currently lie, and how do they think their dog will contribute?

and of course my biggest concern of all -

* Is the dog health tested and will it produce genetically healthy puppies?

In some countries, the use of stud dogs is restricted to them siring 6 litters. I truly believe that our Kennel Club, here in the UK should do similar as this would prevent small-scale repeats of The Wycliffe Factor from happening again.

So what is the Wycliffe Factor? Well, Wycliffe is the name of a Canadian Kennel who bred Standard Poodles in the 1950's and 60's. The dogs that were produced were line-bred (inbred) and a very large quantity of puppies were produced (over 130 litters, each with an average of 8 dogs). These puppies were then exported all over the globe and because there were so many they ended up being used against each other for breeding purposes and thus a genetic bottleneck occurred. This means that even today, many of our standard poodles still have a high % of Wycliffe genes; something that is very hard to break away from.

Inbreeding causes many issues, not just in terms of physical health but also psychologically. I am terrified that this will happen again within my beloved breed and am keen to take the small steps that I, as an owner of just one breeding dog, can take to prevent this.

My Future Plans

The issues that I have very briefly mentioned above, as well as my reflecting on the evident poor morals from a small number of other breeders and stud dog owners has certainly shaped my future plans, but has not by any means prevented them.

I am fortunate in that I believe I have now found a perfect future stud dog for Edna. He has not been over-used and is beautiful in terms of both conformation and temperament. He is also genetically diverse and his owner has completed some health testing on him, of which the majority of results have already been received and are fantastic.
Edna was mated to this boy on both Feb 7th and Feb 9th.
So watch this space!

I also intend to import a nice silver boy later in the year. He will NOT be made available at public stud, but should he fulfil all of the criteria I require of a stud dog and produce satisfactory results when he is health tested, I may well use him against Edna or a bitch puppy that I will keep from her first litter.

By limiting my future stud boy to personal use only, I will hopefully be able to help protect the longevity and health of the breed that I love.