Drizzle, Mist And Sunshine

RIP Kai

Some very sad news today, Tali and Kai's first born has just been given sleep. Also called Kai, he was Asha and Mikey's brother. My heart goes out to his heartbroken owners and all I can do is thank you both for giving him the perfect life. I could have never asked for anymore for a Blanik baby. 

Sleep well big man. 

Happy Birthday My Precious Boy

Silkenwood Poldark Of Banik - Ross 

2 years old Today

Grandchildren Visiting

 Chloe with the sweet Nico 

Ross and Chloe

Young ones at play

Ross was a star, though Chloe needs lessons in throwing! 

Haha Asha 

Now you notice I said Grandchildren not child, but Evan is terrified of dogs and stayed safely behind the fence. I think he was amused watching Ross and Chloe play but not brave enough to join the game. Though he did take one step forward and actually touched Asha on her back .. as long as she didn't look at him he said he could do it! 

Some Shades Of Sable

A huge contradiction between a very pale gold sable (What Steve imagined Ross would look like) and a fantastic dark/black sable 

Quite a dark silver sable

Ross has a tan undercoat and you can clearly see the banding of colours on each strand of hair. The base is tan the top of each strand ticked with black. He's so handsome.

Sshh .. Don't tell

Can you see where we were? where we shouldn't be?

Well I don't take kindly to being told I can't! 

The Sable Dog Is 2 Tomorrow

Recently I've had quite a few people who have been surprised to see how dark Ross is now. I think some people, like Steve expected a sable to be a pale colour, but the banding of color on each and every individual hair leads to a variety of shades and colors which can vary extremely from sable to sable. Sable German Shepherds are best known for those characteristic multi-colored individual hairs, though they may be masked by dark or black guard hairs too. The standard color sables are from silver to gray and various shades of tan hairs tipped with black. . Sable, the original breed colour is the genetically dominating pattern in the entire German Shepherd Dog breed.

Ross has a tan undercoat, and as with all sables he will continue to darken throughout his life. In colour as least he is turning out to be exactly what I want .. give or take a darker mask. I'm always partial to a darker mask, but would that ruin his unique, naughty but endearing and cheeky expression? His facial expressions can not hide his true mischievous but loving character.
Ross' show career isn't quite as I hoped it would be, but we have time on our hands. I know some judges don't like sables but colour should be of secondary importance. Of course we found with Asha that colour sadly did go against her .. I guess it happens but I think poor Ross has often missed out to the face at the end of the lead. That is certainly how I've felt in recent Ch. shows anyway. I hope I look at classes honestly and constructively and that I don't wear rose tinted glasses, but I have to admit he is kind of special to me.
Two tomorrow eh .. the puppy made me laugh and cry in equal measures, the young dog makes me smile and ooze with pride. Ross, my Ross ... a character beyond characters. 

Phone Photos

Perry's Crisis

HELP 

 "New pingy pongy ball needed as scouse man of de house has stood on it and it be beyond rolling. I be a sad starving kitten with no orange pingy pongy no more."

As ever what Blanik's want, Blaniks get .. a pack of 12 just ordered off e.bay. I think he may have to share with Junior and Luther and maybe give 8 to the rescue centre though! 

Miss Belle

More blood today from Sammi, I guess now she is in season then, but still only 5 months since her last season. Very odd goings on with my precious girl. . The sooner I can get Kaiah mated and hopefully have little ones the sooner I can get Sammi spayed. 

Yesterday At Bath

 I was going to post last night but after the 4am start I was too knackered to think about it. Stunning drive down through Wales until we hit the M4, which thankfully was quiet. No success for my Young Guns today, they where both last ...Well done to Ian and Kasey who were third in Puppy bitch. Huge congrats to friends who were in the cards and thanks to the special people for yet another lovely day in their company ... I must admit I thought we'd be home a lot earlier but the judging took 5 hours, Yes 5 hours to judge 42 GSD's .. by anyone standards that is just ridiculous.
Kaiah and Ross did well other than Ross got distracted by Ania which may have lost him his second place, but there you go. It's been reported that the judging was amongst the worst of the year so far, not by me I hasten to add, I'm just reporting what I've read. I have to say I've never experienced such indecision in my life but I don't want it to seem like sour grapes so I'll hold back on the personal opinions.  I just wish the people that are now saying "Why do you think I didn't enter?"  had told me before I did, expensive way to learn a lesson ... but that's life.
Because it was so hot there no dogs were to be left in vehicles, so Ross and Kaiah were in all day. The bond between them is ridiculous with Kaiah getting stroppy with jealousy as Ross flirted and played with anyone who gave him a second look!  When she was in the ring there was nothing I could do to stop him calling to her, and of course she answered. I walked round and round but his nose was in the air pinpointing her and ever few minutes he called .. and she answered. It made no difference under this judge, but if it happens again I need a better plan.
I'm over the moon with the quality of the photos, again mostly taken into the sunlight.  But the 281 shots taken took 70 mins to upload. No surprise that I had a strop. Anyway I edited them down to just 52 ... hard work, but I guess worth it at the end of the day.
Next week we are at Crewe .. Win or loose ... another happy day I hope.

5 Week Old Luther

Can't wait to bring him home. 

Thanks Gail and Jacqueline for the update, they mean a lot

Look at those ghost tabby markings - wow

As George Would Say ...

"See I don't have time for the haters ..."

Walking pics - back on track

Handsome Little Chap

 Perry - One Year Old 

Bless him he's still smaller than the other cats and has much less coat, an oriental cat type coat really. Such a handsome, happy little man. 

Happy 1st Birthday

According to my records Perry is 12 months old today, or there abouts anyway! Little "Wild Man Perry" moved in with us on August the 9th and he really took his time to settle, but he's quite the darling now. I'm pretty accurate with his age as I pinpointed within a day or two of his adult canines coming through. I wrote on the 21st of October ..
"I checked his teeth at the beginning of the week and he still had kitten canines, but today I checked again and the adult canines are pushing through. The kitten's adult canine come through at 149 - 153 days which means we can say .. yeah 5 months any day now - I think I'll give him an approximate birthday - maybe May 24th."

I Said "Wait"

 With Miss Kaiah at the front of the rebellion of course! 

Try again! 

You may have noticed I'm currently taking less photos on daily walks. Though my first response was well don't fecking look then I've given it some thought and if it annoys people enough that they have to talk about me then I'll give it a break for a while. Shame I found it very therapeutic and rewarding. 

Luther - Changing Colour?

 I love this photo of Luther sent to me by Gail this morning. Maybe after the sad death of Tadar at only 7 years he's auditioning for the role of Grumpy Cat, or he's already starting to take on the role of his namesake John Luther? (don't know who he is? google him) Seriously his colour is not an issue, I honestly don't care, I'm just curious at the undercoat. When I saw him he did look black, but Gail is today seeing changes after just a few days off, and I had commented about his "ghost tabby" markings in previous photos.You can see from this photo that Luther's undercoat is white on his belly and the second photo is the undercoat under his chin.

As we know with Isla the coat of a smoke can look pretty dramatic, she is just stunning. For a cat to be a smoke rather than black one of the parents has to have a white undercoat so the white initially hides in the kitten. A black smoke tabby cat is claimed to display the ghost tabby’s markings, but then they fade out once reaching a year old. They are often difficult to tell from solid color kittens except that smokes sometimes have white around the eyes and a paler stomach. It may take some months to tell which kittens will be smoke because the full coat color is sometimes not seen until the adult coat comes in at 2 years, but the undercoat begins to show at 3 weeks, and by 6-8 weeks they have a mottled look. Isla sure has changed, she did have tabby markings, particularly on her tail when we got her at about 16 - 20 weeks old, but they have now gone. 

Luther's ghost tabby marking are clear to see in this photo on the 8th of May.  It was my intention to have a black cat as they are always left waiting for homes but if Luther does turn out to be a smoke I can't change my mind now. I've set my heart on him, he will be the next Blanik baby, I would only ever back out if the sex was wrong. As I've said bringing in another female would be unwise! 

Kai News

I have had a call from the owner of Kai, Asha's brother. He has had an adverse reaction to a product called "Nexguard." I was unfamiliar with the product but John said it was an oral flea and tick repellent. Anyway I've I  have just googled it .. "Four flea and tick products may cause seizures, tremors, and lost coordination in some cats and dogs. Food and Drug Administration officials have received thousands of reports of adverse events connected with three products—Bravecto, Nexgard, and Simparica—containing drugs in the isoxazoline class." I'm so pleased John has contacted me as the vets have previously encourage him to treat the dog monthly with Advocate now changing to Nexguard. He was told that if he did not continue this monthly regime his dog was at risk of heart worm or lung worm! Under the vets influence he has also been taking him for yearly boosters and had him booked in on his 11 birthday for his next booster. We had a long chat and Kai will not be receiving any more of these products for preventative measures and lying the pockets of his vet even further. I'm disappointed that vets are still giving boosters to 7, 8, 9, 10 year old's and would probably have given him a Vacc at 11 yrs too had we not had the conversation! Really its quite shocking!
 "First do no harm." So why have they actively encouraged, almost scaremongerd the owner to put chemicals on his dog once a month for almost 11 years?  To so many people a vets word is beyond reproach, pet owners do not question it, they think they are giving their dogs the very best care.
Of course I have to worm my dogs, more often than I like too really, but when you have killer cats you have too. When my dogs have fleas I treat them, but to be honest as I treat the house regularly with Staykill we tend not to have issues. I just can not see the necessity in using these products as preventative, used that way they must be doing more harm than good. All I can suggest is that before using any chemical product on your pets or giving them any vaccinations .. do your research, thankfully the information is now available on line.
Thanks John for getting in touch, it's the same for anyone with a "Blanik Baby" our door is always open, if we can help we will.

Blanik Bus

Well the Yellow Blanik Bus has had a reprieve ... last night we had decided we were buying a Ford Transit. Good looking van with bags of space and I felt it was great to drive too. But sleeping on these things often leave doubts don't they ... and the memories of Blanik Bus No.1 and it's habit of breaking down at all the wrong moments came flooding back. This yellow van has it's quirks but it's so reliable and has got me from here to there and back so many times. To be honest I'm very attached to it and stupidly I will probably cry when it's time to say goodbye.

Yes I want a bigger van, but all I could say to Steve yesterday was, "Why is it so cheap?" Somehow if felt wrong. By this morning he too had doubts and he phoned our local garage for advice. He felt something was amiss too and as he knows my van well he said it was worth more than was offered  for it and was concerned this would not be as reliable as it. I told Steve if he had doubts then he should cancel .. he did and the seller showed his true colours with some sarcastic and childish comments. Ah well!
Of course I'm disappointed, you get your hopes up and make plans for setting it out for the comfort and security of the dogs. I'd even arranged to have side windows put in so the guys could continue to enjoy sitting up and looking out on their journeys to shows. They enjoy the journey almost as much as the shows .. but there you go when there's nagging doubts we have to listen to them.
I've told Steve to stop looking at the pages and sites for the time being, we really can't afford anything better than we've got and until we can there is no point looking .. better the devil we know! Maybe I too should take up religion and maybe then god will provide for me too!!!!

Photos From The Judge

Super Photos - Love them 

The Royal Welsh

 Loki winning his class with breeder and friend Ian at the helm yesterday

But with his sister Bella winning her class I had to take him into the challenge myself

It was a proud moment with Loki going BOB and Bella RBOB in great company. Sadly nothing in the group. 

Loki was his usual aloof self and I must admit the look of sheer arrogance he gives people does amuse me! You have to see it to understand it but there is no doubt he does look down at people he doesn't know! 

Love this photo by John Lemon of me handling young Kasey for the first time. A little star in the making. 

Considering we had to take photos into the sun I'm really impressed with the photos we got yesterday too. OK a lot of mishaps but some pretty decent shots too .. I think Lin and I both did well with it. 

I have to say it was a cracking day, wonderful atmosphere, lovey dogs, lovely friends ... and cake! What dogs shows should be about .... No green eyed monsters just friends enjoying the day. Thank you all