Wishing you all a very Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas to us all from Seahaven! It's been a busy few days with an extra three dogs staying with my parents, but a fabulous time to catch up with family.  The dogs have enjoyed some lovely walks, Christmas presents and some seasonal food treats.  I think they enjoy Christmas as much as we do!!

A very big thankyou to you all for the good wishes, cards and presents.  The dogs have had fun opening the presents, and Maddie thinks that Rookie has impecable taste in treats!

Christmas Fun

Hope you all had a brilliant Christmas, Rookie has loved the last few days; lots of people visiting, including a baby to play with! Roast turkey, new toys, treats, lovely long walks and loads of time on the sofa watching terrible Christmas films!

Seahaven's Celtic Commander at 23 months old

Nylabone, later abandoned in favour of squeaky toys

Rookie loves his new hot dog

Prime present observation position

Boxing Day walk. Chili (collie) quite offended by the gunshots.

All the best to you all for 2014 :)

Jess and Rookie

Just found these!

                                                                    Tinsel Toller!

Not interested - where's that giant chicken Dad brought home earlier?

Just can't see what's in this Christmas lark sometimes.  But boy, I like the look of the biggest chicken I've ever seen that Dad popped into the fridge earlier.  If I'd ever met that bird with its feathers on I'd definitely have run the other way!

(Footnote from Dad - apparently it's the chicken's big cousin - very popular this time of year apparently.)

Anyway, it's been a great year, and the highlight for me was the rave we had in Newgale.  Amazing it was.

Merry Christmas to one and all

Love

Cooper
xxx

Happy Birthday Tollers, and a Few Pics

Firstly, a big happy 1st birthday to all of the lovely Seahaven Tollers. Really lovely seeing all the pics and what super testimonials from the happy owners. Hope all you pups got spoiled rotten :)

Merry Christmas to you all, hope you have a good one!

A few pics of Rookie tracking and then on another date with Zennie. The weather when out with Zennie was horrendous! First there was a big downpour of  hailstones, which Zennie took great exception to and decided to BARK at them! Rookie's solution was to roll in the ferns, ensuring total body coverage of mud, hail and general filth.

Found it mum

Zennie and Rookie on Dartmoor looking rather soggy

The Gatekeepers

My beautiful Rookie Bear

Bogdogs

Happiness is a munster on the moor!

Hunters

Sad Rookie cause Zennie keeps stealing his ball!

Tucked up in his jumper after a hard day's munstering

Jess and Rookie

Eve - Seahaven Parish Bell

Well on one hand I don't know where the time has gone and on the other it feels that Eve has always been part of our family!

She has become such a loving and fun partner for Eleanor, who has done all of the work with her.  She started off by attending the puppy training classes at Barnlake and flew through all of the exercises for the puppy foundation course.  It was difficult to continue with show committements, so training was then completed at home with the other dogs.  Good progress has been made but much harder to be disciplined with training with other things going on!  When the weather improves and the days start to lengthen then more training with happen.

Eve made her showing debut at Windsor Champ show, where Eleanor handled her to a 4th in the Puppy Stakes class with an entry of over 40 puppies.  She was also placed in the NSDTR Class amongst much older puppies, and excellent start and she took it all in her stride.

She also passed her KC Good Citizen Bronze award at Windsor and is hoping to take the Silver award early next year.

She has really enjoyed her showing, where she has gained two Best Puppy awards and Two group placings at Open level and has been placed in Puppy, Junior and Post Grad Level at Open and Champ Shows! 

Eleanor has introduced her slowly to the handling classes and has won a few and is usually placed, she has high hopes for her at Welsh Junior of the Year in Feb 2014.

But most of all she is such a character to live with, adores Trio and will play for hours with her.  Maddie has now decided that she must be staying so will now play with her, but does tell her off when she gets too rough something that the other dogs don't!  Eve loves to swim with the munsters and will happily retrieve all day long.

Now that she has turned one Eleanor will begin some agility training with the hope that she might enter her in some competitions towards the end of next season.

Rio - Seahaven Nicole Marie

Sandrine has not been able to post at the moment but has promised to update after Christmas.

Rio is now a much loved family member, well adjusted and enjoying the business of a busy family household.  She has been on holiday to France, and has recently met up with her big brother Yoshi who lives near by.

Tally - Seahaven Katherine Bell

Posting this on behalf of Mark, but comments emailed to me along with the pictures.

Tally is a real star – everything I hoped for and more. Her training is going well and she has done a few live retrieves on shoots recently. The lady from the Gundog Club who’s helping me train her says she one of the best dogs she’s seen at marking (finding) her retrieve. She’s a very bright dog. She has been a handful at times but has calmed down a lot in the last few months. Everyone she meets adores her.

I failed the blog loading test I’m afraid but I attach a couple of photos taken last week.

 

 

Greetings from Big Brother

Just got back from my morning walk and I've sneaked into the living room while I'm still wet to get onto the laptop before my Dad.

I want to say Happy Birthday to all of Tilly and Red's pups.  I've met Eve, Bron and Sox, and have seen photos of Scout (formerly Santa). It would be lovely to see photos of the rest of you too.  You are all crackers - I mean really special (as well as nuts by the sound of it).  Hope you are all enjoying life!

Love

Cooper
x

Ginger Beastie - Seahaven's Gloriana - is a year old! Where did that time go?

It's time to wish Bron and all her litter mates a Happy 1st Birthday! Where did that time go? I can't thank Donna & Sean enough for allowing us to have a Tilly baby. Beastie really is the perfect toller in my eyes, beauty, brains (naughty ones), fun and games and THE most amazing temprement all rolled in to one.  She has made us laugh so much since we brought her home, probably gained a few extra grey hairs and apologised to several people along the way for one enthusiastic ginger ninja leaping on them plastered in mud or trying to lick their eye ball etc etc. At times she has been a bit of a hooligan BUT has also showed amazing patience when Nell had her pups and they were all biting her and leaping all over her, she would lay down and play with them for hours on end even when they were almost eating her alive! When Bron met a friends 9 month old baby she was very gentle with her, sat and allowed her to pat her and she instinctively knew she must not climb on her.

We've done a bit of showing, had a lot of laughs, met lots of people, travelled about a bit and Bron has been to work with me quite a lot, even to the airport and taken it all in her stride. She loves swimming, getting filthy dirty and visiting Pets at Home for a spot of shoplifting (but we don't talk about that). She learnt to clear the stable door about 5 months ago and despite attempts to stop her, she is still flying over it with no effort at all....

When we lost our older collie Toby to cancer in the summer quite suddenly we somehow decided to keep back one of Nells pups 'Ted' who is only 5 months younger than Bron so it has been a lot of fun (and hard work) having two puppies around, however the pair of them love each other to bits and can let off steam each day. They have time apart as well to settle them down or we would never get any peace at all.

Speical hugs to Sox who is having his birthday present with the vet today in the form of a nutcracking job!

 

I thought id share a few pictures of "Santa" who has been names "Scout". Boisterous doesn’t come close to his personality and I’m thinking it’s a sign of his teenage years! He loves the outdoors and saying hello to our passing neighbours by way of a bark when they least expect it. He’s been up a few small fells in the Lakes as we live just outside of Kendal. I hope everyone else has had a good year with their new addition.

 

 

LKA

Maddies BOB

Somehow I was persuaded to enter the girls in the Junior Handling at LKA!  With the first class going into the ring at 8.30am it meant a really early morning of a 4.00am start.  Not easy getting up and going out at this hour during the winter when it’s so dark and cold.

 

Thankfully we had a good journey and arrived in good time in order to sort out benching , give the dogs a groom and for the girls to get changed. 

Eleanor was first in the younger category with Eve, who worked really nicely for Eleanor but unfortunately she was placed in this large class.  Tasha was in next with Tilly, who for some strange reason was rather excited to be out at a show!  She was miss fidget throughout the class and threw in a few whines for good measure.  Tasha wasn’t too pleased with her but did manage to get some nice work out of her, but again she wasn’t placed in a large class.

Whilst Tasha was in the handling, AVNSC classes were being judged in the adjoining ring.  Megane (Seahaven Celtic Cariad) was first in the Post Graduate class, which she won.  Hazel really did a really good job with this young lady who hasn’t been the easiest dog to handle in the ring.  She went perfectly and I hope will give Hazel some confidence to take her to Crufts in March.

Maddie (Paddockridge Madelaine at Seahaven) was in the Open Class which she won, she then went back in to be awarded Best Bitch with Megane as Reserve Best Bitch!  Maddie then went on to be awarded Best AVNSC Gundog!!  We were so thrilled with her and Megane.

We managed a short break before Toller judging, so we all met at our benching area for a Christmas/Birthday (Dawn celebrated her birthday on the Saturday) buffet.  This gave us all a chance to relax, chat and a bite to eat together which is such a rare thing when showing two breeds.

NSDTR was then on and we managed to get some good seats to watch where one of the rings had been finished with.  Cooper (Seahaven Galactic Storm) had a VHC in Post Graduate Dog, he went really well for Dawn.  A bit of a wait for the dogs to finish judging and then onto the bitches.  Eve had her final appearance as a puppy and was awarded 2^nd in Puppy Bitch.  She was again handled by Eleanor and they are starting to look like a great team.  Tilly (Dinaskarrek’s Red Vixen at Seahaven) was in Open Bitch where she was awarded a VHC.  Lucy had Milly (Seahaven Red Andromeda) entered in the Good Citizen class which she won, she really has matured since we last saw her at WKC  in the summer.  She had to go back in for the Bitch challenge, but didn’t get any further but we were all thrilled with the days results.

We also managed to put together a team for the Breeders Comp, but didn’t win on this occasion.  As always we all had a great time doing this, and it great fun to watch.

Rookie's Been Visiting

I was in the Bristol area yesterday, so I paid a visit to Carol and the lovely Libby (Seahaven Olympic Vindicat).

It was utter bedlam, they zoooooomed around the garden at 100mph, then did the same in the house! Rookie tried to lay down for a rest a few times but that Libby sure is tenacious!

It was great to catch up with the two of them, Libby is such a sweetie, and quite beautiful to boot!

Thanks for having me Carol, hope we can do it again.

Libby (Seahaven Olympic Vindicat) and Rookie (Seahaven's Celtic Commander)

How most of the photos looked!

There's no escape Rookie!

Rookie barking at a passer by, Libby saying "what is it, Rookie?!"

The unrelenting kisses!!

A little video of the madness.


And another couple of pics from a recent charity show run by a group called K9 Focus, where Rookie won most handsome dog, got 5th in best pedigree dog then got best in show, and won all these Chuckit goodies!

Jess and Rookie