All my dogs love the water, so we get off to the beach as often as we can. Browsing some photo's this morning, I came across a lovely one of our dogs enjoying a day out in Walton on the Naze. The next one is Lulu collecting oysters from the muddy shore at Canvey Island, and the bizzare Scallop (not oyster as some think) shell is a sculpture on the beach at Aldburgh in Suffolk, which is in fact a shingle beach with no shells at all! It is there to commemorate the composer Benjamin Britten who used to walk on this beach, with the inscription from one of his works,
"I hear the voices that will never drown". Our own stretch of the Thames too has an unusual sculpture, The Diver, in fact it is the only sculpture in the Thames, it is hardly known by anyone, hidden away on the Rainham Marshes, but it is a great and isolated windswept place for walking with the dogs (I'd better keep that to myself)! http://www.thediversculpture.com/gallery/escape/ This table above was compiled using the numbers of births registered with The Kennel Club during the first three quarters of 2011. Last year NO Barbets were born at all in the UK, and none were imported! This year there will be some fantastic new litters born in Europe, and now they can be brought into the UK at just fifteen weeks of age. If you should need any advice and info regarding future litters, I am very happy to be able to recommend various friends/breeders around Europe.
This year in France, on August 4th, there has been arranged a Symposium, it will be financed by the SCC (French Kennel Club) and will have experts giving answers to various questions that are being submitted now. Barbet owners and breeders from around the world will be in attendendance. There will also be on the same day, the National Elevage, which is the French Barbet (and other Water Dogs) Clubs National Show. This has usually been very well attended with people from across the world. My pups will be able to enter the show in the puppy class, and also attend the Symposium. Worth thinking about (although I know the Olympics will clash with this event)! The puppies nails were trimmed today, they were growing rather fast, and were very sharp. Nelly is still feeding them very well, and removing the ends of their nails makes it more comfortable for her.
They have had visitors playing with them for most of the afternoon, we took advantage of the extra sets of hands and gave all the pups a quick wash and brush, it is the beginning of the process of getting them used to being groomed. All the puppies began opening their eyes yesterday, today they had a good look at their surroundings, and their Mum.
We took a few photo's but were not happy to do too many as we were using a flash, and didn't want to startle them. We have finally decided on four names so far, the fifth is still to be chosen out of two choices. These of course will be the registered names. Once the puppies leave here, they will be known by their pet names, which leads me onto something else. The Barbet is a French Water Dog. Looking back through old books and paintings, you may see the Barbet called by a variety of other names. This doesn't necessarily mean they were a different breed, just what the person at the time who recorded it, thought it was, and of course most of them were not officially registered anyway! There was no internet to do any research in those days, and if that is what they thought it was, then so be it.. Anyone who has researched their own family tree may have come across something similar. When the census agents were sent to the houses to collect details to be entered in the census, not all of them could write very well, even parents would spell the names incorrectly. My Grandmother, born in 1895 was known to most as Nita, her husband called her Neala, when she died she was called Armaneala, on her fathers' war service pension record, she was Anne-amelia, but we think in fact she was Armanita! 5 names for the same lady!
Just added a new page to the website. It can be found under
'A Few Myths'. . . . ..'The New Forest Pig'. As the Barbet in the past, was often referred to as a Pointer, this article speaks of the pig that was trained to do the job of the dogs. Of course, pigs were used for finding truffles, now it seems the Barbet could put them out of a job in that department, but the pig may well take over in bagging a few birds! Just to give you all an idea of how big these little one's are, we photograghed them against a regular size can of dog food. They have all now surpassed my goal of doubling their birth weight. They were all really sleepy here, but earlier in the day, we watched them trying to raise themselves up on their front legs. Not long now before they will be trying to walk.
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