Testimonials

I have on a number of occasions been asked to put a testimonial page on my website, I hope (that without the help of any of my brilliant techy friends) that I have now added one! Should you have given an Itzapromise puppy or kitten a home, or indeed if you have just paid us a visit, with a view to a new addition some time in the future this is the place to let others hear about your experience. I hope that people will find it a useful tool. Obviously I would still hope to hear from people personally as to how things are going from time to time.

We are now down to 8 pups in the house, 4 of which are still looking for homes, though I currently have interest in two of the boys. All are doing very well, my house and garden are not doing so well!! I hope to get the remaining pups bathed and groomed over the next week, so that I can show you exactly how stunning they are (mind you I still think they are little crackers even looking a bit grubby and hairy!)

Pastures New

I can't say it is quiet here yet, but my poodle slippers have started to diminish. 3 of Dollars pups and 2 of Audreys have left for their new homes, several more will be leaving between Christmas and new year. I hope all settle quickly and their owners have great fun with them.

All Dollars pups have now been homed and one of Audreys girls has also got a lovely home waiting for her after Christmas, this leaves 3 cracking rufty tufty little boys and a very sweet girl still availale. Once Christmas is over and a few more of the sold pups have left home I will take some individual pictures of those pups still availale

Chipped and ready to go!

I chickened out! I have never had to call the vet to the house before but I just couldn't face taking 18 x 7 week old pups to the surgery for micro chipping. The vet arrived at 9:30 this morning and by just after 10 all the pups and Diva (my sphynx girl) had been chipped, the only one to make a sound was Tiny Tim(pictured strutting his stuff below). A couple were a little shell shocked for a minute, but they were all up and running by the time the vet left, thank you very much Sam.

All Dollars pups except for 1 blue boy(pictured) now have homes but unfortunately we now have 3 apricot boys and 2 apricot girls needing homes, some of these pups had had homes waiting, but for genuine reasons these homes are no longer in a position to take them (better to make that decision before they come and see the pups than after they have taken them home) . Hopefully the right homes will come forward once Christmas is over, though I would be pleased to chat to anyone interested in these babies before that.

All the pups have come on wonderfully, there is not a nervous pup amongst them, the house training has been started (sort of), in the last 5 days we have only had two poos indoors, much helped by the dry mild weather we have had, and they have not had any poos overnight for nearly two weeks now! Wee on the other hand, are still being worked on, though the majority are now either on the newspaper or on the way to the back door :). Some of these pups have real show potential, not only do they have good conformation they have that attitude that says 'look at me'. All in all I couldn't be happier with the litters. The first pups will be off to pastures new this week.

Miss T's kittens are now getting to the stage where they are taking in what is going on around them, they have not yet left the nest but I don't think it will be long. At the moment I will be looking for homes for the 3 boys as I hope to be keeping the girl (haven't mentioned it to Graham yet!

I would like to wish all those with an Itzapromise dog or cat a very Happy Christmas and the same to all those that don't yet have one.

Help!

I am running very short of newspapers, PLEASE could anyone who is visiting the pups in the next couple of weeks, bring whatever newspapers they can lay their hands on.

Also if anyone is visiting their pup before collection, if they would like to bring a towel or a bit of bedding with them I will ensure that it smells of mum and siblings so when you take your pup home he/she will have a familiar scent in their new home.

Christmas holidays

Just though it would be worth mentioning, that although, for fairly obvious reasons, I would rather the pups are collected on or near their ready date, I will consider keeping the pups until January, though if it is later than the 3rd of Jan I will require money to cover costs. I hope that this helps those who are worried about taking on a pup over the Christmas period.

Shades of Colour

It's been an upsetting week, having discovered that Dollars girls are blue 2 are now looking for homes again, also one of Audreys pups that I was sure was a red at birth is possibly a very dark apricot and if that is the case she will also be looking for a home. Whilst I fully understand that the people who had originally booked them want a specific colour and have every right to change their mind as the pups are not the colours they were hoping for, it is very sad for me to see such beautiful pups needing homes again because they are the wrong shade of colour. This means that there are now 2 blue girls and 1 blue boy available and two apricot boys and one, maybe two, apricot girls available. Update, 1 of the blue girls now has a lovely family and home waiting for her.

These pups are possibly the most friendly litters that I have had, perhaps helped by the fact that due to the weather they have been indoors with me all the time. They are all well made solid pups with excellent breeding behind them. In addition to all the socialisation stuff I have done with previous litters I have been playing a 'scarey sounds' CD so that hopefully fireworks, storms etc won't bother them in the future. They have also met a strange dog and rather than being wary of him, he was positively mugged by the pups, Chip is a collie x and is an excellent dog to introduce pups to as not only is he tolerant he is also very gentle with them.

On the plus side, I had a lovely gesture, Sarah who is having one of Audreys pups dropped off pressies for the mums and had made a calendar for me using photos of my girls. Sarah I was really touched by this and it put a smile on my face during a rough week :-)Thank you.

A few more piccies

Since the pups have been on solids they have become proper playful pups :-) All are tucking into their food with enthusiasm and all are now chunky little pups with the larger apricot pups now being a similar size to the smaller silvers.

On the subject of silver pups, at the beginning of this week I took a proper look at the colour of Dollars pups and it turns out that only 3 of the pups are silver, the remaining 5 are blues. This has caused 1 lady to change her mind about having a pup so there is now a blue girl available along with one blue boy. There is much confusion about the colour blue, largely caused by people calling bad blacks blue. Blue, to my mind, is a deeper grey than silver and it has a blue hue to it, it is not a steel or grizzled black colour. Here is a link to a true blue Blue Poodle.which I have permission to use, I am hoping to receive some puppy and changing coat pictures to put up as well. The blues do take longer to reach their final colour, 2 to 4 years, but I think they are beautiful and worth the wait.
We still have 2 apricot boys and one apricot girl looking for homes, they are cracking little pups and have inherited their mums happy friendly nature.

 Spirit is proving to be a wonderful Auntie, despite only being 7 months old she shows amazing self control with the babies and is very gentle with them, to the point that she will happily let them crawl all over her when she lies down.

Miss T's kittens are all doing well and I will try and get some more photos in the next few days.

Just as the last kitten goes....

We went away for 5 days in Sept, the first time we have been away as a family for more than a weekend, and Grahams parents very bravely offered to look after all the animals for us. They did an absolutely sterling job for which we are very grateful but unfortunately on the first day they were here (before we left) they opened one of the kitchen windows fully. Miss Tibbs was calling and very quickly took advantage of the open window and disappeared. As soon as I realised she had gone I let Manuel out because although I didn't want any more kittens this year, I figured is Miss T was going to be naughty I would far rather it was with Manuel than the local Romeo! They both returned, together, some hours later with smiles on their faces.
Yesterday the last sphynx kitten was leaving for Scotland and to be honest we were looking forward to being kitten free for a while, I had arranged to take her a couple of hours up the road to help with her new mums traveling time but before we got out the door Tibbs produced 4 lovely rex kittens (well done Manuel!). She has got 2 blue boys, 1blue and white boy and 1 lilac and white girl. All are fit and well.

Next year is going to be a much quieter year, I am only planning 1 litter of toy pups and 1 or possibly two litters of kittens.

Avaialbility update - 1 girl re available

Just a very quick update on who is still available. Dollar has 2 silver boys  and there has been a bit of change with Audrey. There are 2 boys left but we also have a little girl as the gentleman that had booked her is now going for a boy. I had 3 people on a reserve list for her but out of those 2 had already found pups elsewhere and the third didn't respond to my message, as always if you would like more info please get in touch. Will try and update with more photos later today.

Calm before the storm

Everything is chugging along nicely at the moment. All the pups are doing very well, all now have their eyes open though Dollars lot were a few days ahead here. Now that they can see it is very exciting for the pups when mum comes to feed them, they are all up on their legs wobbling around like faulty clockwork toys, hard to imagine the elegance they will have as adult dogs! Won't be long before they are all over the place causing havoc, it's at this point that the other adult dogs generally want to leave home :-)

They are finding good homes and out of 18 pups there are only 6 still available, considering they are only just over 2 weeks old I am delighted as it is so reassuring to know they have secure and loving homes waiting for them. If you think you may be interested in on of the remaining pups I would be very happy to talk to you. I know a lot of people have been following Tiny Tim (last picture) in particular and I am pleased to say that he is one of the pups who has a home waiting for him, with a 6 year old std poodle to teach him the ropes :-)

Getting bigger (well most are)

Things are nice and settled here at the moment and we are making the most of the chilled atmosphere, which will evaporate once the puppies are a couple of weeks older and start doing their 'great escape' routines.
I think Dollar got confused about different types of pups as hers look more like seal pups than puppies! Her litter are generally bigger than Audreys pups but one in particular, Big Bertha, is huge. The contrast is Audreys smallest pup, Tiny Tim. I had my doubts about whether or not he would survive but he has proved himself to be a little fighter. All he required was a bit of help to ensure some quality time at the milk bar, now he is a feisty little chap and is nearly always first for dinner.

I am expecting to see some eyes opening in the next couple of days. All the bitches from both litters were booked within 24hrs of being born. Most of the dog puppies are available so if you were wanting a beautiful pup from sound health tested parents reared in a real family environment please don't write these off purely because they are boys, in fact as a generalization male dogs tend to be more affectionate and hormonally stable.

Surpise Surprise

 Well Audrey caught me out on two counts today. This morning she didn't eat her breakfast but as she has been off her food during this pregnancy I didn't worry too much about that. I did however take her temp just to check and it was 100.4, I would expect it to drop to about 98/99 prior to giving birth. As all appeared normal I loaded all the girls into the van for their daily walk, Audrey shares a pen with Spirit on these journeys. Our walk is just over 10 miles away and I have to use a busy dual carriageway to get there, we were about a mile away when I heard noises coming from the back. I had to get off the dual carriageway to pull over only to discover Audrey had had a puppy!
I am not known for sedate driving but I made the journey home in record time with a cold wet puppy on my lap (I didn't know the van could go that fast). Fortunately the whelping box was already set up so Audrey was able to go straight into it.
The second surprise she had in store for me was the number of pups she was carrying. I think the fact that she hadn't been eating very well gave a false impression as she looked a lot smaller than Dollar, who had 8 pups yesterday, she also has a very deep chest so the pups can sit hidden in there. She produced 10 pups with absolutely no problems and at a very civilized hour. We have 6 boys and 4 girls. A couple of these are very small pups but appear strong so hopefully they will thrive, will just have to keep a careful eye out to ensure thay get their fair share of milk as, like Dollar, Audrey only has 6 nipples. Every single puppy is a lovely dark colour and although I will wait for a second opinion to confirm it, I think I have a mixture of reds and apricots.

What a night

 Just goes to show, you should never take anything to do with animals for granted. This is Dollars 3rd litter and the previous two, although the labours have been fairly drawn out, have gone very smoothly, this one wasn't quite so straight forward. Dollar started early signs of labour early yesterday morning. Things progressed through the day until the early evening, by which time she was panting heavily and was having contractions. She continued through the night with both the panting and contractions gaining intensity but by the time it got to 4:30am she still hadn't started to push. I had to call the vet.
Once at the surgery it was established that Dollar was ready to have the pups so we tried an injection of Ocytocin to try and start the pushing. This would normally take effect in about 10 - 20 mins. Half an hour later we decided that nothing was going to happen so she would need a caesarian section. Whilst the vet went to call the nurse in and prepare for surgery Dollar decided that perhaps she would have a little push. When the vet returned I asked her to check to see if there was any sign of a pup, she did and there was. The 1st pup was safely delivered in the consult room followed fairly quickly by her sister.
At this point I left the surgery with Dollar and pups and another jab, just in case.
By the time we got home there were 3 pups and over the next couple of hours she had a trouble free time delivering 5 more. We have ended up with 4 boys and 4 girls. At the moment it looks like they will all be silvers or blues but they are still wet so I will have another look in a while, probably once I have had some sleep!

 

Now I am just waiting to do it all again on Friday with Audrey :-)

Another Day Out

We had another lovely day out today when a friend and I took Dollar, Spirit and Audrey down to Cornwall to catch up with Frankie (my blind pup from last year) and Fiki one of Dollars pups from last year along with their owner Mary and her Std boy Zuri and toy, Ebby.
I don't think that the girls recognized each other but Zuri was more than happy to have more girls join his harem and the youngsters had a fantastic time racing around the fields in the rain. Meanwhile Audrey and Dollar enjoyed a rather more sedate stroll with regular treat stops (I think they may have had 1 or 2 too many judging by the smell in my lounge at the moment, lol).

We are getting close now, the whelping boxes will be brought in tomorrow as Dollar is due this weekend and Audrey is not far behind with her pups due the following Friday.

All the Devon kittens have now been homed, including the torti girl that I was very tempted to keep. There is just one little torti sphynx girl still available. Please give me a ring if you would like further information about her