It’s been the most turbulent month, I’ve spent half of it an emotional wreck 😆 Now is the first time I’ve felt a bit more optimistic at the same time as feeling like writing!

Let’s start at the beginning I suppose. Fancy has never been the easiest dog to live with…she was one of those dogs that needed “over”socialising as a puppy and for various reasons she wasn’t socialised as well as she ought to have been, so she’s rather..er…neurotic, now! She’s also very unconfident which manifests it’s self as constant submissiveness towards other dogs as well as other things – and the way she shows submissiveness towards other dogs is to lick them round the mouth. Ever since I’ve had her she’s done this to Solei who hates it and there’s no way of stopping her – if he growls that just makes her even worse because then she feels she has to be even more submissive(!), if he ignores her she just keeps doing it. If Solei’s ever on the floor with her (he’s usually up on a chair or my bed) she literally won’t leave him alone until he jumps out of reach.

A week or so after my last post I was offered another puppy (Andy, 4 months) to train on. I had him here for a day and it was obvious that Andy & Fancy weren’t going to work – she was too big and although they played well together it was dangerous! So then I was left with a horrendous dilemma – either I could send pup back and keep Fancy but have to continue to put up with her being anything but a pleasure to live with 😆 or I could send Fancy back (temporarily) and have one of Andy’s siblings as company for him. It was awful, Fancy is so hard to live with but sending her back seemed so wrong – kind of “right, I only had you for puppies and you couldn’t do that so off you go to the scrap heap!” type thing – even though obviously that wasn’t it at all. In the end she actually made the decision for me. Her behaviour was off and she wasn’t herself so I decided a change of enviroment would actually do her good as well. Never the less I was so upset when she went.

So then along came Tess, Andy’s sister. I’d had her less than two weeks when a new home came up, so off she went and I had his other sister, Tina! It was a couple of weeks of musical dogs 😆 That’s not counting before I had Tess where I almost had one of Andy’s brothers instead, but he was only here an hour or so when we decided Tess would be better 😆

I miss Fancy a lot (though not the obsessive neurotic submissiveness!) but at least things have settled down a bit now; I’ve had the same trio here for about three weeks. Though a lady is coming to look at Tina next week!

As I think I said here I hadn’t entered any shows throughout September because of madam, but as I didn’t have any puppies to tie me down in the end I went to two shows anyway. The first one I showed Sarah and she won her class and Best Opposite Sex 🙂 the second I went on my own, taking four dogs but only showing Sarah & Jason and Sarah won her class and Jason won his, BOB and Group 2! That’s my first ever group placing in 18 months.

Then last Sunday was a club show, and Solei’s first time in the ring for nearly 6 weeks! It was pretty much a disaster! Brought me crashing down again…because of Solei this time.

Solei has the older, broader, more spaniely head….and of course we’re a head breed(!!! 🙄 ) so a lot of judges don’t seem to be able to see past a pretty head. Not saying they don’t look at the rest of the dog as well, they usually do if you have the pretty head….but if you don’t have the head they write you off without looking at the rest of the dog, you know?

So as my regular readers(!) will know Solei’s been going better and better….and he’s actually been doing ok this year. Culminating in his 3rd in a very strong (and big) limit class at the end of August.

So at this show he got Best Phalene Dog and this judge was going for the open winners for his best bitch/dog and reserve, he wasn’t even looking at the puppy, junior, yearling…etc. No way was he even going to consider them. Yet Tosca (12 months – and she’d won Junior so he’d already not looked at her for the “main” challenge) won Best Phalene Bitch and then beat Solei for Best Phalene in Show….cos she’s pretty. I was so upset at the time, he’d mostly been going for the dogs (BIS & RBIS were both dogs) and as I say he wasn’t even going to consider youngsters….but then he thought that little of Solei that he’d rather put a bitch & a baby up than him? He showed better than ever as well, went like a dream.

Then on Tuesday his write up came out and Solei’s was actually one of the best of all the dogs. It was at this point I realised two things – 1) he’s never going to do what he ought to because no-one can ever see past his head and 2) if he had the “pretty” head that judges go for he would be a champion (no mean feat in this country, and no phalene male has done it since about the 1930s and only 2 bitches since then)

“This b/w is just overdone in muzzle for me, otherwise he is a charmer. Good size, sparkling condition, very expressive eyes and I’m sure he could out move anything else that was here.”
 
 In other words fantastic dog, loved everything about him except the head but the head was so detracting for me it didn’t matter about the rest of him 😛 Though there were 170 entered so to be told he out moved them all was rather nice 🙂 He does move like a dream but the judges rarely properly acknowledge it – he’ll get a generic “moved well” or something similar! Though actually the write up did make me feel a lot better than I had done before hand.

Then there’s thing number whatever we’re up to now 😆 

I’ve been keeping this secret until it all worked out but I’ve been planning a new puppy (different breed) since the beginning of the year. There was a litter of four girls that were ready end May/beginning June but I decided that was a little soon, with Fancy and everything…..there were meant to be a couple of litters due at the end of this year and after Fancy decided to absorb that would’ve been perfect, but I spoke to the lady on Wednesday and her bitch had to be spayed on Tuesday because she had pyometra again. Meanwhile the lady that owns the other potential bitch had to go into hospital and of course it was perfect timing for her girl’s season! So she doesn’t think there will be any puppies for at least 7 months and I want a show quality bitch which is potentially going to make it even harder (so we’re looking at probably this time next year if I’m lucky 🙁 ). I wish I’d gone for one of those girls before now. So that’s currently depressing because as Solei is depressing me at present a new totally non-pap distraction would’ve been just what I needed!

Oh life is so good when everything goes so well 😛