Our young brood bitches Bebe and Qwendi pass their working assessment

"Who is who, bet you can't tell!"

We believe that in any breeding programme the quality of the bitch should be as good if not better than the choice of Stud dog. For that reason we expect our brood bitches to have passed the same Police dog working assessments as our potential Police dogs. This means they must show exceptional ability in searching for persons and articles, tracking offenders and missing persons, boldness, tenacity, fight drive, and in addition to these qualities must have a balanced temperament, sociability, athleticism, and confidence in all situations.

"Hi I'm Bebe the thin one, hehe"

Bebe is 21 months old and is from our B litter. Our B litter has 4 operational Police dogs working in Devon and Cornwall, Dorset and Gloucestershire. Bebe was the pick of the litter and was earmarked as a future brood bitch from the time she climbed into my bucket of disinfectant when I was cleaning out the whelping box at the age of 4 weeks.

She would make an outstanding Police dog and hopefully she will give us some great future Police dogs. She lives with her carers Chris, Donna, Tom and Jake in Exeter.

Bebe and family

Sadly her mother Molly had to be retired from our brood programme after producing the B litter because one of her pups Brodie was born with very badly formed hips which required both hips to be replaced. The veterinary specialist Peter Attenborough who performed the hip replacements said it was a freak occurrence and unlikely to happen again but obviously we could not take the chance.

Fortunately Bebe has good hips and hopefully she will produce pups with the same outstanding work potential inherited from her mother Molly.

"Hi, I'm Qwendi, I have slightly bigger bones than Bebe which makes me stronger!"

As soon as it became apparent that we would not be able to continue with Molly as a brood bitch I decided to purchase a future brood bitch from my contacts in the German Police dog section in Westfalen.

I collected her in October last year aged 4 months. She has been a revelation and she is so advanced that I was able to take part in this year’s Devon County show with her at the tender age of 11 months.

"yep got him, OK what do you want me to do with him now!"

She will be having her hips and elbows x rayed next month and I have everything crossed for that. Looking at how sound she is in movement I am optimistic that she will be fine.
During their assessments both girls were absolutely outstanding in every department and in terms of their suitability to perform the role of a Police dog it would be very hard to find dogs with better potential anywhere.

We plan to breed one more litter from our very successful brood bitch Ruby in the Autumn this year. That will be her 3rd and final litter and we will then transfer ownership over to her carer Mark Fairchild who will look after her for the rest of her life.  She has already produced excellent dogs for us so far.

Her first litter of 7 pups the A litter were born in June 2013 and produced 6 operational Police dogs now working in Devon and Cornwall, Dorset and Avon and Somerset.

"One, two..., thank god they are all sleeping, I'm exhausted"

Ruby is pictured above keeping watch over the pups asleep in the garden when they were 6 weeks old.

Her 2nd litter the C litter are due to start their operational Police course in January 2016. Although we have released 3 females from the litter due to their lack of size the 4 remaining pups look very exciting prospects. Her C litter are pictured here feeding out in the garden when they were a month old and sleeping afterwards.

They are pictured below at training yesterday from left to right Copper, Cosmic, Chaos and Comet.

They are already at a very good standard and with 6 months of training still to go before they start their course in January I am very excited at their prospects.

I thought I would finish my blog this week with a few photo’s of little Billy who I am still puppy walking and I am enjoying having him. I am still somewhat lost without my old boy Spud as I have always had a male dog throughout my service. Billy is a real character and I only wish I was 20 years younger and able to work him as an operational Police dog. His eventual handler is going to be a very lucky handler.

Whilst it is only natural to enjoy his cuteness he is going to be a very strong assertive dog when he grows up. If you see him here in my friends conservatory he is saying to his very large 4 year old German Shepherd ‘Dodi’ this may be your house but this is my space and I will defend it.

"I'm lying here ok!"

I took him into Exeter on Saturday and he loved all the attention and was not fazed by anything whatsoever.

On Sunday washing my dog van with Billy and Qwendi out running around wasn’t my best decision as they ran off with my brush, cloth and played tug of war with the hose.

"It was him, I didn't tell him to do anything. Honest"

"Not doing anything..."

Yesterday Billy met his first cow which at first he was happy to view from afar

but then he became much braver and then seemed to have difficulty grasping the fact that the young bullock he met was much bigger than him and promptly barked at him and to his delight watched they bullock run away.

Just another early example of his boldness and assertiveness.

Well that is all from me see you next time.