Jasper (below) was a lucky find. I got him at ten weeks old, after seeing him at eight weeks old. He is 3/4 Cavalier and 1/4 Poodle. Very few people take a first cross Cavalier/Poodle (Cavapoo) and put it back to the Cavalier. He is now nearly six months old and a lovely little chap. Fitted right in and one to watch. Fingers crossed for his health tests. 

Polly (below) now fully grown, finds out she can't fit through the Vegetable Garden gate anymore.

Last weekend we started offering Blottie's pups food, which is puppy kibble soaked in puppy milk, which makes a very edible porridge for them. We have started a bit earlier with food with Blottie's pups due to how many there is. I now have them up to four feeds a day and will slowly make the food less wet. They also are able to lap water from a water bowl.
They now have teeth erupting and are very aware of noise and they respond to your voice. Very cute when they wag their tail when they hear your voice. We are now in what I call the "dirty phase." When they first start to eat, they can spend more time tramping around the food then eating it and once on solids, Mum starts to not be so keen to clean up after them. 

A bit of video I took before the electric went on Friday.

Friday morning our electric went out and it came back on Sunday night. A long three days keeping seven humans, fifteen dogs and eleven pups fed, watered and clean. Luckily we have a woodburner that kept us warm and gives us plenty of hot water. It also provides our heating to our radiators but, with the electric off the pump was not working. Saturday with it looking like our electric would not be back on until Monday 11.30 pm, we were able to borrow a petrol generator and got the fridge freezer running before ruining all the food in it and got the infrared light going for the pups. We had been filling water bottles around the clock to ensure they did not get cold. 
After supper last night (much to my surprise) a light flickered in the kitchen and a couple seconds later the electric was back on. Today has been back to back loads of washing and luckily the weather was good enough to get most of it outside to dry and then aired off on the radiators. Back on track. Internet though has been really bad until now, as I do this late in the evening.
Blottie's pups will be three weeks old tomorrow and are bright little things. Starting to see their personalities emerging and will hope to get a three week update up tomorrow. 

Just to let everyone know Blottie and pups are all okay after the storms we had yesterday but, our electric cut out yesterday morning and not forecasted at this time to be back on until tomorrow. My laptop is nearly out of charge, so I won't be blogging until electric back on.

Blottie's pups turned two weeks old today. All of them have their ears open and eyes open to varying degrees. They are getting ever more mobile with each day. Their worming regime starts today with three days of Panacur Paste and they will be wormed every two weeks until leaving us. Mum Blottie is doing really well and taking it all in her stride.
​Video (below) taken this morning. Watch out for the big yawn, so big it makes the pup topple over. It is funny watching them at this age.

Interesting to read about ​Outcross program initiated for Kooikerhondjes with the first outcross to the Working Cocker Spaniel with discussions about other crosses including the Poodle and Brittany as some of the most popular suggested breeds to be used. 
'​The Kooikerhondje (Dutch for "Duck catcher's small dog") is a small spaniel-type breed of dog of Dutch ancestry that was originally used as a working dog, particularly in an eendenkooi (duck decoy) to lure ducks. Kooikers were popular in the 17th and 18th century and appear in the paintings of Rembrandt and Jan Steen. The breed is gaining popularity in the United States, Canada and Scandinavia, where it is still relatively unknown.' (souce wikepedia)

Ironic that dog purebreeding is grounded on Eugenics, which Hitler based his breeding program on, using incest and forced matings as part of the program. Hitler wrote in Mein Kampf, “Everything we admire on this earth today—science and art, technology and inventions—is only the creative product of a few peoples and originally perhaps one race [the “Aryans”]. On them depends the existence of this whole culture. If they perish, the beauty of this earth will sink into the grave with them.” They believed, according to historian Richard Evans, that "the strong and the racially pure had to be encouraged to have more children, the weak and the racially impure had to be neutralized by one means or another." 
Just a few tweaks, "Everything we admire about dogs today docked ear and docked tail, brachycephaly and heart disease is only the creative product of a few dogs and originally one breed (purebreeds). On them depends the existence of this whole dog culture. If they perish, the beauty of the dog will sink into the grave with them." and "the purebred had to be encouraged to have more puppies, the crossbred and mongrels had to be neutralized by one means or another." Mein Kampf starts sounding very much like a purebreeding handbook. If you are going to use comparisons to Nazi Germany you need to make sure you are not living in a glass house.

I have wrote below a response to thinking they could compare Nazi Germany with the Norway BANS British bulldogs and Cavalier King Charles using the poem "First they came..." I have wrote it from the dog's perspective, which is often forgotten when the word breed is added. 

First they cropped my ears, no one spoke out
Because they said, "I am their breed" 
Then they cut off my tail, no one spoke out
Because they said, "I am their breed"
Then they bred away my snout, no one spoke out
Because they said,  "I am their breed"
Then I could not breath, and many spoke out
Because I am a dog

Some of the puppies eyes have started to open up. They open gradually, taking a couple days to open fully. The eye being able to focus though takes a further couple weeks.

A week today these little chaps (below) came into the world. The first week of their lives is basically eat, poop, pee, sleep, repeat and hit that goal of doubling their birth weight in that time. At day seven they are getting more mobile and are already starting to explore their surroundings more even though their eyes and ears are still closed. 
Blottie only has seven teats and producing such large litters like she does, it is amazing to see how she copes with such big broods. They seem to magically rotate sucking from her. It does help that she is a very laid back calm Mum. At this stage she also stimulates them to pee and poop, cleaning up everything after them. My job now is to enable her to be able to provide for her brood. Keeping the pups area clean and most importantly supporting Mum with good nutrition. For such a big brood it is wise to be giving them a calcium supplement, once the pups are born to prevent low blood calcium levels and the real risk of the life threatening condition Eclampsia.
​The day of birth we ensure all pups have had several good sucks of colostrum from her. Her first milk is very important, as she transfers important antibodies to her pups via her colostrum. The colostrum contains antibodies to protect her puppies against disease and infection, and immune and growth factors and other bioactives that will help to activate her puppies immune systems, jumpstart their gut function, and seed a healthy gut microbiome in the first few days of their lives. The bioactives found in colostrum are essential for a puppy’s health, growth and vitality.
With such a big brood and Mum only having seven teats, after twelve hours of being born making sure all have had colostrum from Mum, we offer bottle milk to each pup. You have to be careful to not to interfere to much in the process of the pups stimulating Mum to produce enough milk for them, so the feeding is done four times a day for the first three days, then three times a day from day four to six, and now we are on just twice a day with the feeding being done after they have suckled Mum. It is just to keep an eye that they are all getting enough and no pup gets left behind.  
As we get to seven days old, we are already starting to see the size difference and see the ones that are going to be the larger or smaller pups at adulthood. Noses are pigmenting out. The darker the pup the quicker the nose pigments out, some may of noticed that a couple of the darker marked pups were born with their noses already pigmented. 
​In the next few days we might start to see eyes and ears opening, as this can start as early as eight to ten days old with most having their eyes and ears fully open by two weeks old. Eyes though do not focus until around four weeks old, so the world is a bit blurry for a day or two for them. 
Blottie and her pups seem to be doing really well. Fingers crossed!

Nearly a week old and all seems to be going well. Blottie is an amazing Mum!
​Will do a one week old update tomorrow.

Blottie's pups (below) get one day under their belts. Pups are born with eyes and ears closed. Around fourteen days old eyes and ears open up. Although their eyes will be unable to focus until around twenty eight days old. Mum is found by smell and touch. Their umbilical cords (the cord that attached them to their placenta in the womb) dry up quickly after birth and drop off within a couple days of being born. Blottie eat every afterbirth (as she always does) from her pups and unlike many bitches kept them all down (as she always does) benefitting from the nutrition, which in turn her pups will also benefit from. It does make Mum's poop like tar though for a day or two.

It's been a long few days but, Blottie's temperature dropped yesterday morning. This morning at 6.15 am she gave birth to her first pup, a Blenheim boy and the only boy she has in this litter. She finished up at 2.05 pm, giving birth to an amazing eleven pups weighing from 9 1/4 ounces to 12 1/4 ounces. 
She did it all with her inimitable style and grace. So there's one Blenheim boy and all the rest are girls. Four tricoloured girls, three black and white girls, and three Blenheim girls. 
So now it's down to keeping them alive. Checking that they are all getting enough milk. As they are born, we make sure each pup gets to suckle from Mum and get that, so very important colostrum within minutes of being born.
Please, I don't want any phone calls or emails about these pups at this time. We will be keeping upto two of them and when we know which two, we will put up on the website, the pups that are available. That should be when they are between four to six weeks old. 
The photos (below) are of the birth. Find the photo saying, "First born and only boy" and follow today's events as each pup was born.