Chapter 1 - Planning my Litter

This little blog is the story of my lifelong ambition to have bred a litter. It was a long time in the making, 7 years in fact. Phoebe, my youngest dog is such a lovely girl, bred by a friend of mine, Lee Hayman. I used to train with Lee and his lovely bitch Leadburn Matilda (Cassie) along with his new dog Copperbirch Ross (Paddy) and we even competed together. So, when Lee told me he was having a litter with Cassie and Paddy, I put my name down for a bitch. And in March 2015 along come Ms Red (aka Phoebe Snape) one of 10 puppies.  

Phoebe was a delightful puppy; sleeping through the night in her crate; quickly toilet trained; very sociable and loved other dogs and people. She started to come with me as I assisted teaching at a local dog training class, quietly waiting her turn in her crate until she was able to take part in some training. As a result, she took her Kennel Club Good Citizen Puppy Foundation test aged 6 months; and then progressed to Bronze and Silver which she passed aged 7 months and passing her Gold aged 11 months. We started her gundog training too as well as accompanying me on the numerous dog trainers’ courses I was taking. We travelled around the country visiting friends; going on gundog holidays to Scotland; and visiting my sister’s smallholding where she practised her steadiness around the livestock.

With all her health tests done, I started to think about the possibility of having a litter with Phoebe, as she had grown into a beautiful, kind natured, loving dog and had also proved herself at competition. She was picking up nicely and I decided that she would be a wonderful dog to have my litter with. So now all I had to do was pick a sire. That can’t be that hard I thought, oh how wrong I was!

Selecting a Sire

So, I started my research for the right stud dog. Weeks and months passed and having researched over 50 dogs from FTCH’s to good peg dogs.  I was starting to think I would never find the right dog. The Kennel Club website was my best friend, I checked their health tests, looking for low hip scores and zero elbow scores along with an current clear eye test. I used the Estimated Breeding Values which compares the hip/elbow scores for the dog and bitch and their relatives to the breed average and communicates the risk of inheriting any of these to the litter.

Sire of my litter

I eventually decided to use Mark Wilson’s dog Buster (Verrad Firefly). I knew Mark having competed with him and knew Buster had been doing well at working tests and field trials.  He was an honest, calm dog with a nice pedigree. We went to meet Buster who was a real gentleman and played nicely with Phoebe, and also when to a shoot to watch one of the boys sired by Buster too.

So, the decision was made, Buster and Phoebe were going to have puppies together. But then just weeks before the planned mating, my husband was taken critically ill and my dream of having a spring litter was abandoned.  I prayed that if he recovered that I would still be able to have a litter, which thankfully he did.  Throughout the summer Phoebe was often found sitting at Eric’s feet as he recuperated, she was like his four-legged nurse. And then she came into season, and we counted down to ovulation. I had her progesterone tested by Anne Morley on day 10 and day 13 of her season. She had her first tie with Buster on 10th October and a second tie on 12th October, both of which went like clockwork and Phoebe was very relaxed during the rendezvous. For 4 weeks I waited and then had her scanned. And bingo she had 8 puppies!  As her tummy expanded, I was busy preparing the whelping palace. I had some expert guidance from my friend Mary, who has had numerous litters, and she kindly lent my some essential equipment too.  My night time reading was The Book of the Bitch and I rewatched the whole Puppy Culture DVD.  Due date was the 11th December so we had an early Christmas Day the weekend before the puppies were due.