Hi Jenny Good to see that you finally made it, and that sun umbrella will come in handy at the weekend when the temperature rockets again - not even a breeze forecast.

Oh well Jenny, my house is all tidy and clean, I keep having people pop round to see me at the moment, bless them they are doing it to make sure I'm OK, and its sure keeping me on top of the housework I'll say that for it.
My comfortable chaos is a thing of the past, I feel like I'm sat in someone else's house
I had an umbrella up in the front garden (girlies have the biggest and bestest one - of course) and no wind at all here. Nice bit of a breeze but that is all.

AWWWW TW.....never mind, it must be lovely to wake up to a clean and tidy house every morning! OH can single handedly undo hours of housework in a matter of minutes

I love that your girlies have the best and biggest umbrella - quite right too!

Well there's a lot to fit under it

If Jimmi's paw is okay in the morning, I am thinking of taking him for an early walk.........still in two minds though because it is hot even first thing and he does seem to feel it.

Apart from that, I had years and years of getting up at the crack of dawn to walk Bitz for an hour or two before going to the kennels, and it is absolute bliss to just lie in bed until fully awake - whatever time that may be!!! Still, I do want to walk him again because his nails will grow long again, and he must be fed up of reduced rations.

Not sure what I will do tomorrow, Mabs and Keshi are at the vets for some of their health tests tomorrow. Mabs is having VWD and DM and Keshi is having DM

*scratches head..........what are those then?

All dogs used in the breeding programme have to have a clear eye test at 6 weeks and are re-tested at around 18 months, then we do the VWD (haemophilia) to see what the levels are, they have to be over 70% clotting factor, on a female there are only certain times of their cycle when that can be done, and DM is Degenerative Myleopathy, which is a new test we have started doing as we are bringing in the founder breeds to help widen the gene pool so we need to ensure we are not bringing in problems when we do this, so all dogs entering the breeding programme are expected to have this as well now. The pure bred Utonagan which have had DM tests are so far clear, which is what we expected, but you never know.
If the results are OK then Mabs goes for her Hips and Elbows scoring.
Keshi will have an eye test this time next year and if that is clear then she will go for her VWD at the appropriate time in her cycle.

My OH thinks I bought the umbrella for me to be under to get some shade, but as there is virtually no shade I wanted the dogs to have somewhere to shelter when we are all down by the river. My OH had to drill two holes in the coffee table to put the umbrella in - he's done a good job though.

I think the next two days its going to be hotter up north by a few degrees. Saturday its due to be 30+ which I'm not happy about. We've got the final party here on the estate to attend. Trouble is it starts at 6 which is very early for a sit down meal at 8. I saw the marquee going up today so its going to be pretty dam hot in there with 90 other people. I HATE having to leave the dogs again but have already told them that I can't go along until about 7.15. I don't mind leaving the dogs for 3 hours or so but not longer and last time when I went to that wedding I came home mid evening to let them out into the garden and they were so distressed when I went to go out again that Rucksack started to eat his way through the stairgate. I'm thinking about leaving the back door open so they can at least have access to the balcony if its going to be so hot.

I'm meeting my friend (the greyhound owner) at Painshill Park in the morning for a walk in the shade.

I'm off to take the dogs in the garden now before going to bed. Sleep well all and see you tomorrow.

That's fantastic. Such a shame that not all breeders are so careful.

It would only take one slip up, or careless mating and it would undo years of hard work and vigilance.