clementine's puppies

the easter report

2010-03-27T09:01:00.002Z

todays photograph is of twiggy in her toy basket, rather a " spot the puppy in the toys" test piece!

our own magus has been discovered carrying a baby rabbit around, alive and unharmed fortunately. we dont know how he did it, whether he found for himself or more likely was given his bunny- toy by one of the elders to learn how to be a proper fauve. Bruce rescued this little one and we hope it survives in our neighbours acreage as it certainly wont on our side of the fence!

puppy pictures in new homes

2010-03-21T09:56:00.007Z

Mince Pie turning into a princess - her first morning in new home

Rothko being sneaked up on by a certain cat.....

twiggy and uncle woody

puppies launched onto the world!

2010-03-21T09:39:00.003Z

the babies are now in their new homes. Marzipan flew off this week, she is now living on an island in Norway sharing over 30 acres and a farmhouse with the whippets and wolfhounds of "Vetterli".She will get an opportunity later to use her nose and work towards her hunting qualification if she has an aptitude for it.

Aston has gone to follow Toffee, his great aunt who died last year, and is so popular the family are thinking of creating his own facebook account.

Rothko has taken over from the cats in his new home and is assisting his owner with child clients.He is a natural with children.

Zoe and Jon are yet to decide whether her name will be mini or manon but little "Mince Pie" will soon be spending her weeks in London and her weekends in the country with Bassets and Labradors.

The first puppy to leave home was Twiggy, uncle Woody has shown her around their Devon woodland and she has sorted out the dog and cat relationships nicely.

Our own little fella Magus ( easier to say than Melchior, his proper name) is about to go out on the lead for the first time and is another confident little chap. He has been adopted by his older half brother and sister and follows them around like their own little dog, which suits them fine.

I'll post up the favourite photos as they come in....

puppies playing

2010-02-21T09:39:00.007Z

Sunday 14th February

2010-02-19T06:33:00.003Z

The verdict is in - Melchior Myrrh and Marzipan are the puppies who might be seen in the showrings later.....

the big weekend

2010-02-14T07:43:00.006Z

the big viewing weekend - owners and breeders of the parents plus other interested parties are coming over to see the litter today.its still so hard to tell some of the puppies apart but after a spell of deconstruction by the experts we will see just how good their eyes, ears and tails are likely to be for those puppies who might have a show career. the boys seem to have their essential equipment this weekend, all their mouths and teeth are perfect, so its going to be down to who moves best and has the cbunkiest body and nicest head, that sort of thing.

this time the pictures are of Clementine herself, much thinner and with no undercoat at all but still insisting on feeding the puppies a couple of times a day. there is one of marmalade their half sister - people say fauves remind them of meerkats sometimes, and here is marmie naturally moving into place as babysitter and puppy ringleader, a wonderful surrogate for their weary mother. the puppies themselves: Lord of Misrule ( golden boy) Merry ( bouncer) and Myrrh ( myrtle) whose new owners-to-be have picked out for themselves. mince pie, marzipan and melchoir have yet to meet their new families and one of them will be staying home with us if the "judging panel" thinks as much of them as we do....

nearly seven weeks

2010-02-07T10:21:00.006Z

Paddy our Royal Canin rep came to see the puppies on friday and left them with a very small gift - a dogbed which might just suit a cat or a small breed dog. We fully expected one puppy at a tine to take advantage of the bed..

They changed rooms yesterday and now have one with an in and out door to a small run outside. they much prefer being in with us of course. Marmalade has proved to be a wonderful second mother and all of the adult fauves are happy to babysit, lead puppies around, share bones and generally treat them as potential pack members. So many people have compared fauves to meercats, you do see the resemblance at times like this.Puppies dont have access to this run at night,still too cold, they are under a heat lamp but being fauves have moved part of their bed to the dog gate so they can be as close to the rest of what is going on as they possibly can be. Next weekend we hope for a lot of visitors as I cant decide who is the puppy to stay here and its starting to become important to chose so everyone else can chose too.

Wouldnt want you to think the puppy next to the big rip in the rug was the responsible one - no,that was ruby the wofhound and this is the special rug we put down when we have puppies, one which doesnt matter.

nearly six weeks

2010-01-31T10:52:00.011Z

the puppies are developing well and we think there are already some little characters in there. bouncer ( merry) is living up to his name and exploring everywhere with a wagging tail.The biggest puppy is goldenboy, he wants to be a lapdog for sure. Finally here is a photo is of their older half brother and sister milo and marmalade, who are dying to be allowed to play with the babies - but have to wait until the littles are a week or so older.The babies havent been outside yet.It is very helpful to have a huge expanse of slate with underfloor heating in this weather, but maybe next week if the weather is good? Fauves adore the outside world and the next difficulty will be trying to get them to come back inside!

the four week old pictures

2010-01-19T22:28:00.006Z

babies are four weeks old - which means eye contact, licking peoples faces when the littles are picked up and of course freedom from the whelping box. they can now run forwards as fast as backwards and not always in the same sequence of ten steps.four good meals a day are keeping their strength up and they are playing with toys and eachother. teeth are through... bad news for clementine, but she is keeping up her visits.

photos - nearly 3 weeks old

2010-01-10T19:01:00.003Z

the little one i am holding, the one lying on her back and relaxed, is "mince pie". something of a favourite...

by this time next week we will have characters. today we had at least two woofs and a whine!Moving away from the "hngg hnuff" sounds.

9th Jan

2010-01-09T18:03:00.003Z

All the puppies have their eyes open and they are being so well fed by Clementine. We turned up the heating and stocked up on the baby rice ready for weaning which might even start next week when their teeth start to come in.They dont know how cold it is outside and we are so stocked up on Royal Canin first age food and milk that anything this side of a power cut wont affect them. Generator on standby!

more pictures soon - and some snowy shots of their big brother milo on the website....

3rd Jan

2010-01-03T14:32:00.003Z

first eyes are open ... and clementine has a novel way of keeping her figure! Photo taken on New Years Day.

One week old

2009-12-28T23:33:00.004Z

As is the way of these things we dont see much change in the puppies as yet. They can navigate around the whelping box very fast indeed when they feel their mother jump in, they all gained 4 or 5 ounces in their first week and are constantly either eating or sleeping. We are fascinated by the toffee coloured puppies which were nicknamed the bandits at first as they had eye masks just like racoons. At the end of a week these have faded considerably to eye patches and the ginger hairs are gaining on the darker shaded ones. If these were wolfhounds you would call them sables as there is a particular coat pattern in the breed which means you get fantastic pigment but also a darker scattering of hairs in the tails and on the chests of otherwise red or wheaten dogs. I'll know whether these little people are going to end up fantastically rich coloured dark eyed red fauves when they are around 10 weeks old.

Clementine doing very well on xmas feast meats on top of her normal food.We have discovered that a bowl of lactol milk last thing at night knocks her out for eight hours and seems to have the same effect on the babies. They themselves will graduate onto this by the time they are weaned, to which weetabix will be added.

mother and baby day 3 from birth

2009-12-25T16:43:00.001Z

the christmas 2009 puppies

2009-12-25T08:53:00.001Z

Clementine is our first Basset Fauve de Bretagne and comes from the Hibeck litter of little oranges ( Satsuma probably the best known, but also Jaffa, Tangerine - you get the picture!). The picture is of Clementine, her aunt Cracker, her son and daughter Milo and Marmalade.

We liked the look of young Oliver ( Venquest Popcorn of Hibeck), Clem's first litter at age 4 was his first litter at just over one.

She had six puppies in October 2008 and Mack, Missy ( Mistletoe) Mandarin ( Dylan) and Monty have grown into delightful characters with many a wicked story to tell from their first year. Lets see.... Missy sitting on the garden table waiting for birds, Dylan popping down to the Legion club on the common for his customary bag of crisps, Monty taking two hours about his walks off the lead ( but announcing his presence in the woods by barking regularly)Mack running off the first and only time he was asked to be without his own family. Then there is the "inner foodie" - Dylan navigating across chairs radiators and windowledges to reach the counter and the cake ( and so obsessed with roast lamb he cant be trusted in the kitchen when sunday lunch is put out).

My own little Clementinies Milo and Marmalade..... Milo was nicknamed " shy boy" as after being dropped by a visiting child he refused to go near this alien species.As a result I accidentally kept a very confident little show dog. Clementine is a very happy fauve who enjoyed showing but didnt do much of it, I have learned more about the game with Milo but he still doesnt stand still for very long. Marmalade ( Marmie) is a complete lapdog, charming with humans and bottom of the pecking order of the pack, which she doesnt seem to mind at all. She's recently killed her first mouse and spends a lot of time in the garden looking for her next one.

The other part of the fauve family is the small and very bossy Cracker, pack leader and raiser of alarums and excursions for the youngsters. She's a wonderful auntie and in the summer was the mother of Woody, Harvey and Saffron - we had the puppies here although it was a "Hibeck" litter as Cracker officially belongs to Jean Ulliott.

Moving to the present day, I had been looking at the fauve dogs and wondered for a while whether Clementine would be making a trip to her homeland, but the combination of my poor french and the need to do rabies jab in good time for a pet passport rather put paid to that for the time being. Also there are some rather nice fauves and i kept noticing one or two of them in particular. Using a principle which has stood me in good stead with irish wolfhounds over the years I looked for a dog that didnt have Clementine's faults and looked as if he could provide strong virtues and was also the son of a seriously nice mother. Time will tell how right this approach is in fauves as the litter was born on 22nd December and has yet to grow up.

As with the last litter Clementine got straight into the whelping and had her puppies cleaned up and settled over the space of a morning. Those one hour road walks certainly helped her fitness and her "baby weight" fell straight off as soon as the puppies arrived. She's now deeply engaged with the puppies and wont leave them unless she really has to.

Birth weights were 8 oz- 12 oz and the next thing was to pick some Xmas themed names, with the help of "fauve friends" and their good ideas. If the kennel club permits these puppies are going to be called Melchior, Lord of Misrule,Merry ( boys) and Myrhh, Mince Pie and Marzipan ( or Marchpane) for the girls.