Destruction!

 

Destruction!

                                Pansy and Clown (blue and chocolate)

Warning! If you are averse to animals, do not read on.

Polly spoke about her Labrador breeding friends and the destruction the puppies wrought, and it reminded me of our brief foray into breeding Burmese cats.

It had never been our intention to breed cats. We had had an accidental breeding of Jack Russells, which was fun for the children, and also why we ended up with four of them – JRs, I mean, though we did have four children, too.

My sister and brother-in-law had a beautiful brown Burmese, called Tip, because he had a white tip to his tail. A few years after I left home – the baby of the family - they gave my parents a little queen who had come to the end of her breeding programme (!) Liza gave them a great deal of pleasure and much appreciated the freedom and love they gave her.

When we decided to acquire a cat, we remembered how affectionate and curious Burmese cats were, and found a local breeder, who had a pretty little brown queen, a few months old. They encouraged us to breed from her, and we thought it would be interesting for the children. That encouragement is not generally given these days, but this was many years ago.

The kittens were enchanting. From Alicat we had brown, chocolate, blue and lilac offspring. Each child and its friends had different favourites, so, naturally, we ended up with quite a few cats.

Pansy Blue as a kitten

People often claim to ‘know’ that cats and dogs are instinctive enemies and cannot live together, and take pleasure in promulgating the myth. We have found them to be allies and friends. The cats groom the dogs’ heads and faces and the dogs step between arguing cats to defuse the situation, as they would with warring dogs.

              Cariadd, (Dalmatian) with six Burmese, one brown, one blue, three chocolates and a lilac. They would climb on her for comfort if they started arguing.

We were extraordinarily lucky with the Jack Russells, known chasers – and killers – of fur. When we brought Alicat home, I sat down, and Daisy JR jumped up on my lap! We never had a problem with them, but I would not risk it again. It just didn’t occur to us to worry.

Puppies are fun, adventurous, and messy, but they don’t climb. Kittens clamber up everything in sight, including people. The view from the top of someone’s head, or the curtains, is exciting and different. If there are no people or furniture available to ascend, the wallpaper will do.

Inevitably, the time came, at three months of age, to bid the kittens farewell to their new homes. Interviewing prospective owners was never a job we relished, but we wanted to ensure our little creatures went to loving homes. Equally, I felt we had to be honest about what they were taking on. Burmese kittens do not lie around looking beautiful, although they can. They are adventurous and curious and can get themselves into unusual hiding places.

We once lost a litter temporarily. We had put them in our en suite shower room, where we were sure they would be safe and could not escape. When I went in to check on them and feed them, I couldn’t see them anywhere. Our shower room is not vast and the window was securely closed. Panic set in momentarily but something caused me to look more closely at the bidet and sure enough, the kittens were tucked safely under the pedestal. They soon emerged for their food, and we found a different room for them to grow up in.

As well as giving prospective owners directions to our house, a task at which I am still very poor, I would test their resolve by telling them what to expect. If they were experienced cat people, they would quickly understand. One man put it succinctly – ‘So, we look for the house with the wallpaper hanging off in shreds.’ I agreed that was the case and he came to collect his kitten anyway.

While kittens may not eat the carpet or the plaster on the walls, or chew the door frame, your shoes, or anything else that takes their fancy, as puppies will, they have sharp claws, like needles. They will tear at your soft furnishings, turn the stair carpet into a series of scratching posts, scale the heights of the kitchen cupboards, and pierce your heart with their unbelievably silky fur and huge, lustrous eyes. A warm purring cat on your lap or next to you as you lie on your bed is worth more than a king’s ransom.

If dog/s join the cat/s, you are more blessed than you could imagine.

We haven’t bred puppies, or kittens for many years. It is exhausting, being responsible for so many tiny beings. Guinea pigs, mice and gerbils are much easier, but once our children grew out of the farming phase, we ceased breeding altogether. Oh, that is, until our youngest child was born. She came during the cat breeding phase. We must have got muddled, somewhere! 

Herbert with Bethan

Sixteen years

 

Sixteen years

Sixteen years have passed since these photographs were taken. Our Dalmatian years lasted for 30 years, the last one, my velcro dog, Frodo the Faller, leaving us 9 years ago.

                                        Frodo the Faller, my velcro dog

I’ve heard all sorts of stories about Dalmatians. Some people asked us if black-spotted Dalmatians turned brown in old age, or did the liver-spotted turn black with age? One person told me that liver-spotted Dalmatians were not regarded as proper Dalmatians. They are ‘proper’ Dalmatians and some breeders try to specialise in the liver-spotted variety. Many people were surprised to learn that the puppies are white when they’re born, developing their spots from the age of about two weeks until 18 months or so.

                                    Dominie of the thunderous paws

It is a fact that puppies born with coloured patches used to be destroyed at birth. Whether this was because it was thought the patches might become cancerous or because it demeaned the breed or the breeder in some way is unclear. Patched puppies are no longer destroyed and haven’t been for more than forty years. They make fine pets, though they will not be destined for a show career.

                                        Buddy Liver Spots

Like most white or piebald animals, Dalmatians have a tendency to deafness, but this is being addressed with careful breeding and BAER testing (Brainstem Auditory Evoked Response) of registered breeding stock. There are some unregistered breeders so deaf pups are still born. With careful, patient training they can be wonderful dogs, but they require a lot of work.

                        Buddy Liver Spots and Frodo the Faller

We greatly enjoyed our Dalmatians. They were fantastic running companions for Barry and would also walk for hours with me. Now we lead lives more suited to rambling, Labrador Retrievers have become our companions once again. We have come full circle. We started with a Labrador, then had the Jack Russell years, which overlapped the Labrador. The Dalmatians ran concurrently with the JRs for a while, and then led back to Labradors.

                Jenna. the little Labrador with the enormous paws, with her tracker and cow bell, never happier than when retrieving

Sticks!

 

Sticks!

Dogs like sticks. They chase them and chew them and carry them, the bigger, the better. Small sticks are a hazard – extricating one from the roof of a dog’s mouth is difficult so we always try to distract them from anything smaller than 10” x 1.5”.

All our dogs have enjoyed retrieving and carrying. The Jack Russells used to work in concert, two going forwards, one going backwards on the same stick with a great deal of noise. 

                Here are Sam (long tail) and his mother, Biddy, at the seaside. Sticks can be found everywhere!

Sam JR collected sticks and would not be parted from them when it was time to go home, Consequently, we accumulated a substantial wood pile.

Our first Dalmatian, Cariadd, specialised in very large sticks, more like tree trunks. She was immensely strong and very intelligent and would always find a way to manoeuvre her telegraph pole through a narrow gap. 

Here Cariadd waits for Barry to toss the 'stick' for her while Bethan watches.

The Labradors are stick merchants of a slightly different cast. They are bred to retrieve and not to give up until they have picked up their quarry. In water, they thrust their noses under the surface to sniff out their objective. 

Dogs can smell underwater and can be trained to locate things in rivers or lakes or other bodies of water. They are sometimes called cadaver dogs and 

will indicate when something or someone is many feet deep in water and

 mud. 

Yesterday, Roxy’s stick disappeared. We don’t know whether it was waterlogged and sank or got tangled in something. Whatever the reason, she could not find it. Eventually, she had to be enticed out of the pond with the promise of ‘biscuits’. Even then, her response was not immediate, but she soon found another stick and all was well in her world again.

Pet Pride Cariadd

Thank you to Bozo and his human who organise this meme. Click here to see more lovely pets.
Cariadd was our first Dalmatian. She came from Wales so had a Welsh name - Cariadd means 'darling'. Our youngest daughter also has a Welsh name. She was three when we bought Cariadd and the two of them grew up together. In the following photographs Bethan is about 4. She has biscuits for Cariadd, Biddy (forefront) and Daisy the Jack Russells.

Cariadd was a very strong dog and loved to fetch and carry very large sticks!

She would carry them for an hour or an hour and a half, manoeuvring them through narrow forest gates. 

Shadow Shot Sunday #103 Jack Russells and a squirrel

If our Jack Russells had ever got as close to a squirrel as this the squirrel would not have lived to tell the tale - or, more likely, the Jack Russells would have had puncture wounds in their noses! Our senior JR, Biddy, used to climb trees, usually in pursuit of sticks. Her daughter, Daisy,  used to discover hedgehogs in the garden, yelp and then come in covered in fleas. They were noisy terriers unless there was a fox in the near vicinity when they would be very quiet and watchful. Local foxes learnt to avoid our garden!
Tracy from 'Hey Harriet' organises and hosts this meme - thank you, Tracy :-) Click here to see more shadow shots - and maybe join in?

I live to launder . . . or, I wash therefore I am

I have lost count of the number of washing machines we have gone through. I remember that we bought the first one while living in Northern Ireland. The boiler which dealt with terry napkins and dish cloths and towels was not really adequate and I was finding it difficult to keep up with the laundering demands of a husband, toddler and new baby. The toddler was fascinated by the washing machine and delighted that her orders to it – 'Again, again' – were heard and the drum spun round obediently. We had no television at the time so the washing machine was a source of entertainment for her.

Through the ensuing years machines were purchased, given extended warranties, broke down irretrievably (frequently), caught fire (twice), flooded the kitchen (many times) as our family grew. Sports clothes of all descriptions tumbled round soapily, people complained when colours ran or garments shrank, and I continued to work full-time, chauffeur my children to their various sporting and social events, be chief cook and bottle-washer and, of course, laundry maid. The husband by then was working very long hours, often overseas and returning for brief periods to make contact with his children (and me).

When the children grew and flew I expected the washing piles to reduce but they didn't. I had overcome my near descent into OCD – at one time if one item of a load dropped to the floor I would wash the entire lot again – but still the floor next to the latest model was carpeted with things to be washed. The husband was working more reasonable hours, giving him more time to run cross-country with his canine companions.

We have always had dogs, even before we had children but when the children were living at home we had mostly owned small dogs – Jack Russells. Now as the JRs passed on we migrated to larger dogs. When dogs grow old they often experience arthritis and mobility problems and need warmth and soft bedding. With age comes, sometimes, a measure of incontinence so that their bedding needs to be washed more frequently. Inevitably, larger dogs require a greater acreage of bedding and less of this can be fitted into the machine at one time. Add to this the amounts of mud larger paws bring into the house and onto the (washable) rugs and the laundry question begins to answer itself.

We have four dogs at present, three Dalmatians and a working Labrador. The oldest, Dominie Dalmatian, will be fifteen later this month. She has a wonderful temperament and hates to be in trouble. Unfortunately, she had a bad attack of spondylitis late last year which has left her hind legs very weak. So, though she tries her very best to get up and out of her bed, she often falls down and has to be lifted. To this end she wears a special harness with a handle on it. She cannot get to the door to ask to go out and has to rely on one of us interpreting her vocalisations correctly. Sometimes she speaks to be helped to find a new position in bed but often she is telling us she needs to go outside to relieve herself ('go potty' - tee hee!) If we are not quick enough her bedding becomes soiled and needs washing.

The youngest Dalmatian is epileptic and is given a cocktail of anti-epileptic drugs each day in an effort to control his seizures. One of the side-effects of the drugs is that he often dribbles urine so if he isn't wearing a wrap (a doggy diaper) whatever he is lying on can become saturated. The involuntary urination is variable and unpredictable so on days when it doesn't seem to be happening, he goes Commando.

The working Labrador spends as much time as she can in water and so brings huge amounts of mud into the house in her coat which is then deposited on furniture, clothes, rugs, us!

Thus, our washing machine works as hard as it and its predecessors have ever done and to be honest, we wouldn't have it any other way for the dogs give us enormous pleasure and wonderful companionship. In any case, when 'the children' (what do you call your adult progeny??) come home to visit they invariably bring washing with them so I have to keep my hand in or I might forget how to do it!