Just one more

I wasn't planning on posting again this year, but just thought I would show you that although we had a houseful of guests over Christmas (15!) the dogs were not forgotten, they have had some super walks, including a very hilly 8 miler over Dartmoor yesterday (forgot my camera). I have included pics of a boxing day visit to Dartmoor, some of our trip to the beach today, in glorious sunshine and a couple of Cash at our agility Christmas fun show. Spirit is still keeping us waiting.

Christmas Cheer

A week before Christmas and Eliza has had most of her health testing done now, she has been DNA tested clear for DM, NE and vWD, she has also tested negative for SA. She carries the phantom gene and she is hip scored 3:5. This may be of interest to those who panic about exercise levels in young dogs, I have never adhered to the 5 mins of exercise for every month of age and to date none of my poodles have experienced any joint problems. Care was taken as a pup that she did not slide around on slippery floors and I never played ball games with her, but Eliza was allowed to do regular hour long walks from about 4 months old, the length and intensity of her walks was built up from then and now at 13 months old she has no exercise restrictions. There is a growing argument for young dogs to have enough steady exercise to enable them to build muscle which will help keep joints in place, obviously this does not mean running them to the point of exhaustion or asking them to do things that will put pressure on the joints such as jumping or chasing a ball. I feel that it is so much better for them, both physically and mentally, to have a good outlet for their energy on a walk rather than going loopy in a tight space (indoors) often on slippery floors.

We are very quiet at the moment with regard to puppies and kittens, still waiting for the standard girls to come into season so that Spirit can be mated, hopefully sooner rather than later. This is the only litter of puppies I have planned for 2017, though we should hopefully have a couple of litters of kittens at some point in the year so that should be enough to keep us busy :)

This will probably be the last post for 2016 so from all the Itzapromise crew, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.

After a day full of activity there is nothing better than relaxing in front of a fire :)