Martin brought a cake he had had made at Loseley Bakery with an edible design taken from a photo of the puppies. Brilliant! Apparently they are thinking of having a service at Richmond Champ show, held on the Loseley Estate, where you can have your own photo put on a cake.This was a sponge cake with chocolate icing but I think they do iced light fruit cakes too!

The puppies are getting hairy legs and feet now so I thought I would take some pics of them. There was a lot of very noisy goings on when the new hole for the fan was cut in the roof of the van but the pups weren't bothered at all. I did a guntest the other day with a starting pistol and that didn't bother them either.

Here is Antar looking cute ---he went home with Martin tonight and, despite the Land Rover breaking down on the A1, he has been asleep most of the trip (I hope he doesn't want to stay up all night once they get back to Guildford).

I had some really sad news today that Gabby, Sabrefield Raring to Go at Daelois CDEx, was given sleep today. Gabby was Cachets' sister and was a great ambassador for the breed. She was graded Excellent and Suget Recommande at the French Nationals and was mated to Steed du Hameau St Blaise (a Maubray son), and was mother to Polly who was BOB recently at the NBSDC Ch show. She will be sorely missed by Gill and Tom Davis and family and everyone who knew her.

A busy couple of days with Frizzle going to her new home with Sue Sercombe of Trelowen Buhunds and Sibes. (Sues' daughter Jacqui has Lexi the Malinois).

We had a visit from Jeff Sampson, the KC geneticist, who was instrumental in helping me get dispensation from the KC to do this mating. I was really pleased that he thought the pups were so uniform in type, very Belgian and had great outgoing characters. He has taken the paperwork to the KC for me and they will all be registered as Laekenois***( with 3 asterisks). Each successive generation will lose an asterisk until, by the third generation, they will just be registered as Laekenois. This is such an exciting time and I hope to be able to get pictures of each puppy as it grows so that I can see the differences in coat and furnishings.

Martin has come up to collect his puppy,Antar, and we had a busy day as the pups had to go to the vets for their first injection. They were so good! Normally we have some noise but they all sat together, a few were sick but, on the way back they all went to sleep, not even waking up when we got home.

Forgot all about the results from Windsor on Thursday!

Cougar was BD and BOB, Kobra RBD, Ciel BB and Lexi RBB and BP! Cougar, Ciel and Lexi were 2nd in the Team Stakes. It was a lovely sunny day and the dogs enjoyed themselves. By the time we got to Peterborough, on the way home, it was teeming with rain!

The puppies had a big box today, without hesitation they descended on it and proceeded to use it as a springboard, a slide,a boat, and then dismantled it. This took aboout half an hour and then they crahed out. Flatpacked it made a good bed too.

We have had a lovely four days with Gerry and Steve, and they have taken their new puppy,Teazle, home today. Here she is with steve and already retrieving her tracking harness. Steve has been putting her in the car every day to get her used to it. I bet Kyp will be in for a shock tonight.

We have been busy teaching Cougar and Roo to track, Steve set us some straight legs and gentle curved tracks up in the field. They both got the hang of it but we have a lot of work to do, as I am sure Steve will be doing a progress test when they come back to stay in August. Steve was teaching Udall about retrieves too and Gerry had a great time with Oodly Doodly :))

So now we are down to 7 pups and it does seem strange, only 7 for a few days until Martin comes to fetch Antar at the weekend. Next week Yvonne comes from Wales,Conall comes from Ireland, then Sue comes from Guernsey the following week, so quite a cosmopolitan litter. Hopefully we will see most of the puppies around the shows as well as in Agility and Obedience rings.

Udall is a very useful sort of puppy:- here he is collecting the bucket to feed the pups and then bringing the bucket back . Well, in his own way he thinks he is useful but I think he is just very good at teasing those poor Laekenois puppies from this side of the fence.

Despite rain yesterday and then very blustery winds today the puppies have been asleep out in their run, totally unfazed by anything.

Gery and Steve have come down for a few days, to collect Teazle, so we are having a good laugh. Bristle went to his new home today with Wendy Fairlamb, and I must say it has been very strange only counting up to 9 ! Christine has come today to pick up her puppy Soli and will be taking him home tomorrow. So full house this weekend, and then there will be only 7!

Friday was sunny and hot and an ideal opportunity to introduce the pups to the great outdoors. I thought it was going to be an easy task to take photos of them as they played with each other, but they were far more intent on hanging off trouser legs and tripping me up. Eventually they decided chasing Zim round the field was a great hoot and I must say it was like watching a stampeding herd passing by. They had some new toys and after half an hour were all very tired and ready to go back to their pen for a well earned sleep.

The pups are 7 weeks tomorrow and it is hard to think they will soon be going off to their new homes. Most are going to working and show homes which will be good. Some are for agility, some obedience, some, hopefully, working trials. The weather has been pretty cool and blustery today with a bit of wind on the air, but it hasn't bothered them at all. They have all been playing out in the big run and sleeping outside during the day too. I do shut them in at night just incase they don't go in to bed, and they are very quiet until they realise I am up and around in the morning. Then they demand someone lets them out and gets their breakfast--quick!!! They love carrying their toys about and, as you can see, are very much like cats balancing upside down. A favourite game is charging up and down with a toy and then rolling over and over--just like Brizo does. Coats are definitely changing now and most have whiskers under their chins and mouths. Hopefully the weather will clear tomorrow and I can take some individual photos and clip nails again.

A really busy weekend with the NBSDC Club Ch show on Saturday at Myerscough Equestrian Centre. A really nice venue with good size rings. A late start for Malinois,not in the ring until around 5pm. Cougar had BD and Lexi was BP in Breed. The weather was a bit changeable and an early start, 2am, left both myself and the dogs not at our best. Back to Anns' for a coffee and a bite to eat before setting off for the long trek home.I got back at 1.40am and fell into bed after sorting the dogs out at around 3am. It had been lovely to see Steve and Gerry again and they are looking forward to coming to stay for a few days next weekend to pick up their new puppy Laekenois, Teazle.

Today was busy with a visit from Heidi and her owner Katie. Heidi is a Cliche puppy from Stellar, and it was nice to get some photos of the two together. Sad news that Kate and her husband are being posted to Germany for 3 years but hopefully they will get to a few UK shows and will show abroad too.

We erected an elephant run for the puppies and they had a great time charging up and down stretching their legs and digging holes! They are really coming on now and getting their little characters. The quietest boy has become the one that hangs on to trouser legs and Teazle is quite the ringleader where mischief is concerned. They love carrying their toys and having mock battles and were glad to go to bed tonight having worn themselves out. Not long now before they go to their new homes, the weeks have flown by, but I must say it is a relief that they are not in the house any longer and we can return to something near normality.

Great news from David with Rusty that they were 3rd in Grade 6/7 Agility and 2nd in the ABC qualifier too yesterday at Tatton Park.

At RVA in Peterborough Barbara with Deja had 3 clear rounds and was 11th in Grade 1.

The puppies have had two good sunny days outside this week and thoroughly enjoyed themselves. I filled a dog bed with some water so they could have a paddle--once they had stopped trying to drink it dry. They play good games and crash out regularly not taking any notice when the big dogs have a good bark. They didn't mind the blaster which was in use as usual, trying to catch up with all these moulting dogs. The mower, two-stroke Charlie, sent them into the kennel, but I can't say I blamed them as it sounded like a tractor setting off. It was a busy mowing and strimming day as the grass had gone berserk after the torrential rain last weekend. Lots of visitors as usual to see the pups. I am still bringing them in at night and it has gone decidedly chilly tonight.

Today, at last, the weather has cheered up and I could take the pups out for their first outdoor adventure. Their curiosity soon overcame them and they were playing with toys until they just had to crash out. The kennel is quite shaded and there is a bit of a breeze too. I think I will bring them in at night this week as the forecast is cold nights but it is nice for them to get some sun and fresh air (nice for me too not to be on constant clean up patrol).

I took Udall up to Carols' Saturday and met her at a village show where she was socialising puppies. Scarlet (Udalls' sister) and Mitzi (a Bruine puppy) won dog the judge wanted to take home jointly as she loved them both! We went back to the house where Udall had a great time with his sister and the other pups. Fluff, the quarterhorse joined us and wanted to say hello to Udall. We had 3 generations there with Lulu (GM) Psyche (mother) , Scarlet and Udall. It was a lovely evening and we had a BBQ surrounded by very well behaved Groenendaels! Good job I didn't take any Malinois :)) or we wouldn't have had any food left.

What a busy week! Gerry and Steve arrived Tuesday to see the puppies as they are having a bitch for Gerry to show and Steve to work--Kyp will be pleased. It was so lovely to see them and Gerry has made so much progress, even since Crufts. We had a good crack about Belgians-what else?-and what a laugh we had! They stayed an extra day and we had such a good time. They chose their bitch-Teazle-and had lots of cuddles with her, and are coming back in a couple of weeks to collect her.

The puppies had lots of other visitors this week too-they don't seem phased by much. They are still indoors :(( as the weather has just been so unpredictable, so as you can imagine it is a full time job cleaning up after them. Christine came down with her mob and puppy Tala had a good game with Sam, Barbaras' Malinois. Wendy came to have a hug with Bristle (ooh I like that name)and Yvonne Brason came with a friend to see them too. Martin is having a dog puppy so he has come up for the weekend too, so it has been the usual Open House with the kettle on the go continuously.

I had a swap of vans with Carol and Dave so the dogs thought we must be going to a show as we have a big yellow taxi now. Celine has parked herself by it just in case she misses out.

Udall, the Groenendael, has moved into the house now that his brother DK has gone to his new home and has been helping out in the yard--running off with the hosepipe at every available opportunity!

The rain has been torrential today, unfortunately, just after I had put the dogs out and nipped out to the village the heavens opened. By the time I got back I couldn't even make a dash from the van to the house so you can imagine the state of them by the time it stopped enough for me to go down the field. The dogs thought it was great and had galloped round until they had made mud slides and water features. Have you ever seen a Belgian that looks like it was the result of a chocolate fondue explosion? If I hadn't felt so despondant I would have taken photos but instead I armed myself with a hosepipe and tried to get as much mud off as I could and by the end of it I had as much mud on me as they did. Roll on Summer----or did I miss it already?

It is a few days since I posted pics of the Laekenois pups and, as you can see, they have grown!Poor Brizo usually feeds them standing up but today she decided to lie down and was overwhelmed by the horde-not that she seemed to mind. They are 4 weeks old now and are beginning to get some longer whiskery bits around their mouths and their coats are quite full with longer guard hairs. As the weather has changed for the worse again they are still indoors and it is a full time job changing newspaper and feeding them. Hopefully, if we get better weather by the end of the week I can move them into the Neaverson where they will have more space and an outside run.

They had a taste of freedom when Lisa and I wormed them today and are getting quite good at barging their way out and charging up and down the room. We weighed them and the males were nearly all between 2 +1/4--2+1/2 Kg and the females between 2 + 2 +1/2Kg.Real hippos! They all vie for attention and want to be picked up for a fuss and are playing very hard with each other, getting quite cross when those teeth bite a bit too hard. They are sleeping a lot lighter so I have to creep past so as not to wake them up as they think I should feed them every time! At least they sleep through the night but are soon clamouring for breakfast once they hear me get up in the morning.

Thankyou to everyone who has sent emails, texts and cards -- I think everyone who knew Chablis loved her, she was such a gentle soul.

Ghyllie came back home last week and, as luck would have it, a new home came along very quickly. Shirley and Nigel had just lost their Tervueren Monty and were on the look out to find another friend for Leyla and poodle George. Imagine their surprise when they found out that Ghyllie was Montys' nephew. They couldn't have been happier and Ghyllie has fitted into their home as if he has always lived there!

Wednesday evening was Boston show where Remy was BP and BOB with Group 2 in the Pastoral Puppy Group. Cougar was BOB Malinois with his daughter Dana (B.Sorciere) BP and Group4.