Daddys Girl

Nettle is a Daddys Girl....alternating her favouritism between Baffle (Her actual Dad!) and Andrew (who she adores)

Introducing........

..........Nettle Truffe Medievel At Farlap.....aka "Nettle"    who now has her feet firmly under the table, and is utterly adorable!

Baby classes

In Europe the often have " baby" classes for puppies 12 weeks upto6 months at the club shows. They are only a bit of fun and a good way to socialise young puppies, so Nettle went to the Dutch club show yesterday and was " best baby puppy" bless her!! And she even had a critique written in English!

Eyes wide shut

Amazing how much progress the pups make in their first three weeks. They now have their eyes open and are starting to focus on their surroundings, as well as  developing hearing and actively walking. 

They had their first play with toys, although their mum kept stealing them for herself!

They had their first non bloodhound visitor last week when Lottie came in to have a sneaky look at them.

Despite them being quite active, they still get vast amounts of sleep!

Eat - sleep - eat

The life of a puppy is blissful.  Eating and sleeping with a lot of kisses and cuddles in between.

The puppies are growing fast and Festive has proved to be a fantastic mum to these little chaps, although now and then She just has to get some sleep!

New arrivals

Our first litter in two years has finally arrived. Please meet Jackpot, Jaunty, Jostle and Joyful! Mother and babies all doing well.

Spring Shows

We had a wonderful trip to Malvern last week to the West of England ladies Kennel Club (WELKS) Championship show, where we were just thrilled that Jara (Cayman Od  Hadiho Potoka) won the dog CC, and reserve Best of breed, and Baffle (Farlap Baffled) won Res CC under breed specialist Shane O'Keefe.
 As you can see, Baffle is quite unimpressed with the show world and prefers to mix it with the ponies!

 

Meanwhile the Farlap ponies themselves have been busy at a few spring shows including the National Pony Association and SW Pony Association shows where they had a great run in the ring, including Mabel getting "best Miniature yearling" special award. Here we are posing with a few ribbons!

Sunny Days

We have had a glorious couple of weeks in Devon, the sun has shone, the grass has grown and the hounds have enjoyed every minute of it. Festives pregnany is now into its 44th day and she is seemingly enjoying the position of authority its given her amongst the other hounds, and its quite funny to see her now getting pole position on the best sofas where as before hand she was always relegated to the dog beds! Funny how the hounds just "know", and are happy to let her get her own way. Shes also taken to stick collecting (se photo below)...a new hobby for her, and perhaps part of her hormonal changes! The lovely warm dry weather has also been a bonus for meeting prospective new puppy owners, and we have  enjoyed alfresco tea, in the spring sun, several times last week with some lovely families.

Its not just the hounds who have enjoyed the warm weather, Reggie and Mabel our resident lawn mowing shetlands have also been out and about to the shows over the last few weeks, amassing all sorts of awards and qualifiers.

Some Good News at Last!

Some exciting news to share, we have a litter due early May, and Festive (Farlap Festive) is the mother to be, and Jarousek (Cayman Od Hadiho Potoka our import from CZ)the expectant Father! its our 1st litter in over two years so theres lots of sprucing up in the nursery to do over the next few weeks!

We have just returned from a short trip to Belgium to meet a lovely litter sired by our very own Farlap Baffled, at the Truffe Medieval kennel. Beautiful beautiful puppies, and we very much look forward to Truffe Medieval Nettle coming to the UK at some point soon. This could be her!!

Ups and Downs

March has brought us some ups and downs. Firstly we are sad to report that we lost Bas (Ch. Farlap Basnicky) at the beginning of the month. The very sudden onset of illness took us by surprise and in a week he went from his usual happy go lucky character to a sad introspective non eater. After numerous tests and investigations he was found to have large tumours on the liver, and with much sadness we had to let him go. Bas was a champion in the showring, but first and foremost he was our family pet, and he was a true gentleman, quietly leading his pack, and always teaching his children Forager, Festive and Baffle, how to behave and be gentle pack members. A huge loss to us. This is one of my favourite pictures of him as a small puppy, and another of him soaking up the sun last summer.

Due to Bas being so ill, I decided not to go to Crufts this year, it was a last minute decision, and it meant that I could be at home with Bas, but also meant that I missed seeing Multi Ch. Farlap Guesswork winning BOB, for his lovely owner Maria Doroshina, who had travelled, by bus, a 4500 mile round trip from Moscow.....now that IS dedication!
Afectionately known as "George", he looed fabulous in the ring and thankyou to all my friends who kept me posted minute by minute by text, on Georges winning in the ring, it helped ease an otherwise terible day.

Photo copyright Ev Burnside.

They say that these things come in threes....well this month they come in fours, as within a few hours of each other, we had the wonderful news that Baffles litter had been born in Belgium. All 11 puppies are doing well and their mum Kashmir is a great mother, we look forward to visiting them very soon. We are also delighted that Isabelle is in pup, and they are due in April.

Baffle grows up

Its been pretty quiet here in january..... but Baffle (Farlap Baffled) has had an interesting visitor from Belgiam, the gorgeous red girl "Kashmir" . She was a lovely house guest, very sweet natured and easygoing, and following her brief  liason with Baffle, her owner is delighted to announce that she is now in whelp, and her litter is due in March. If anyone would like the contact details of the breeder in Belgium with a view to being considered for a puppy, please let me know.

Happy New year!

Wishing all our friends with bloodhounds, and those special people who have a Farlap baby, a very Happy New Year, and health and happiness for them and their hounds, and it was lovely to see a Farlap hound on the cover of the Christmas Edition of the Bloodhound Club Magazine.

Congratulations must also go to Ch Farlap Guesswork (aka George) who once again won Best of Breed at the "Golden Collar", the prestigious Russian event in Moscow. (seen below photo permission Doroshina)

Another month goes by

A month since I caught up with the blog, but its been a quiet month for us, a short holiday to stay with our lovely Scottish Highland bloodhound and beagle friends,

    and a shetland pony show with Reggie (we came 5th in the foal class) and that was it for November!!  No trials or dog shows to attend, infact nothing until next spring on that front, but I have to say Im not missing them!
We did have a photo shoot this week for the Western Morning News, for a forthcoming feature they are running on K9 Search Dogs and thought that the "out takes" were funnier than the finished result!! heres one to make you smile.....Jara trying to eat my hair clip and Forager trying to sit on my shoulders! Ended up just photographing Jara, but then he is a bit of a poser anyway .

....

Another Month and another mouth to feed

Its been nearly another month since my last blog post, and this once agan is mainly because things have been busy here and blogging hasnt taken priority. Hounds (and me!) are all enjoying the autumn respite from the summer show scene, infact we are enjoying it so much weve decided to take quite a long break this time, and as so much of my time is now spent training the hounds for the charity K9 search dogs, it will be time well spent, and with the current ridiculous regime implemented by the KC, I take no real pleasure in the show scene right now.
Weve had lots of lovely visitors over the last month....it was super to see the Young family again, who were owned and loved by Bailey, and then we had Kate and Roger Folds who used to own Fargo, the lovely red boy from the 1st Farlap litter. Weve also had new visitors, who were interested in knowing more about bloodhounds and hoping to own one some day, and so several days this month have been spent in the fields with people, often meeting a bloodhound for the 1st time, and letting them see 1st hand, all the potential challenges that come with the breed!
One family wanted to brush Jarousek! but had to settle for brushing Bas, as Jara prefers to grab the brushes and run LOL

Back in August we introduced Helawi Meadow Mist to our family....however due to his age he wasnt able to actually join us here until 2 weeks ago. He has settled in perfectly and training is underway and his 1st show is at the end of the month. Here he is coming in for elevensies yesterday!!!

yup......hes not a bloodhound!!

a few weeks later.....

I cant believe its been several weeks since writing the last blog entry......apologies to those who look forward to keeping up with the news. its been a really quiet few weeks.....sadly depite our epic trip, the carefully planned mating didnt take, and Candle is pupless, something we are all rather sad about. However we are now turning our attentions to the possibility of a 2014 litter instead. Fingers crossed!

There have been no shows for us to attend, and, unfortunately the Bloodhound Club trials, although not far away, clash with another commitment so are unable to go to those as well, so we feel like life is pretty quiet right now!

Forager (photo above) has recovered fully from his stone eating episode and is now back in harness and training and searching with K9 search dog team......oh he did have a great find with two missing dogs that were lost when travelling with their owner and were involved in a car accident. You can see more about that on the blog at www.k9searchdog.org

Meanwhile young Jarousek (photo above)continues to grow and is quite a character......the weekly brushing is not his favourite pastime it has to be said!

Not forgetting the others here at Farlap.....The game shooting season is upon us now which has pleased Tennant no end as he can get out in the field, hunting, pointing and retreiveing game for the freezer once again.

things come in threes.

Well its been a bit of a sad month for us. Last week we had the news of the loss of Farlap Trailblazer who lived with his lovely family in Chesham, I know how much they will miss him and he was a great trialling hound who gave Jo and Tony so much pleasure, and Im glad I got to see him one last time and have a cuddle in June. This was preceeded by the loss of our very own Farlap Damson. now Damson was truly the queen of the sofa, and ruled the household with a rod of iron. Every single Farlap bloodhound that has been born, has grown up with "Auntie" Damson, the matronly deerhound who made it her life mission to educate puppies!!! Our big grey hearthrug will be sorely missed, and she was the grand old age of 13 when sadly old age caught up with her.

One final bit of disapointing news is that the much awaited litter that we had planned and planned so carefully has not happened as sadly Candle is not pregnant. this has come as a huge blow to us as we doubt we will  be able to get to use this superb European male again. I will be writing /phoning individually to all those people who were on our long waiting list.....I know there will be a lot of sad and disapointed people, although none so much as us today.

Times like these......

We have had two really sad calls from Farlap puppy owners. First was from Wales where Scooby had lived for nine years of rural bliss on the edge of his own mountain, and where he sadly passed away after a short illness. We know Scoobys owners were so dedicated to him, and are missing him so much after such a long time in their lives. As if that wasnt bad enough we then heard from Baileys family, the dreadful news that they had lost him the day before to torsion.At 4 and a half years, this is such an awful shock , Made worse by the fact they did  ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING right in recognising the classic symptoms of torsion and getting him veterinary attention immediately, hnowever,despite two trips to the vets, the VETS did not recognise the problem. Baily, affectionately known to his family as "Baby Baily"....despite being a whopper lol, had the most devoted caring home I could have asked for for  puppy and I can only imagine how sad they are feeling right now, missing their BB.
Ill try and lift the mood by sharing this really great advert from Russia, of Ch, Int Ch, Grand Ch,Farlap Guesswork who has been very successful in the showring for his owner Maria. He is also a much adored family pet on his days off!

.and now for something completely different......

Forager and Jarousek were invited to attend the "Safety on Dartmoor" awarenss day at the weekend, on behalf of www.K9searchdog.org and they had a fantastic day, meeting and greeting hundreds of visitors as well as meeting the various search and rescue and emergency services that were attending the day with them.

As a reward for being such ambassadors for the breed, they then had a trip to Mothecombe beach in south Devon in the week, where Jarousek let me down by going off after seagulls and I had to wade across the estuary to retrieve him !!!!!

Bloodhound Club Championship Show 2013

We had a lovely day out at the 2013 Club Ch. show, and the cool weather made it a pleasure rather than the heat we have had at previous years shows.
Farlap Baracnik of Moorlander (owned by Fiona McKenzie) was resBIS so congratulations to Fiona.

Our Farlap Cinnamon was reserve CC,

 Baffle was second to Baracnik in "Open Dog" .

Jara was 2nd puppy dog

 and Farlap festive won Limit bitch

 and congrats also to Lynda with Farlap Florence winning Junior bitch

 and to old timer veteran Farlap Trailblazer with owner Jo Franks for having a good run the ring and 3rd in Veteran. Thankyou to Ev burnside for her lovely photos of the day.

Jaras' new talent

Jarousek never fais to amaze and amuse us with his talents.......he went tracking at the weekend and did a cracking three quarters of a mile long line, 40 minutes cold. So far his longest and coldest line, and he really enjoyed it. As a reward he went to the river to play with his sister "Rogue" and friends, and he had his first ever swim. he seemed to enjoy it!