See How They Grow....

I am so grateful to Amanda for keeping the litter photo page updated. She's very kindly been posting photos every few days (including on Christmas morning!) so that we've been able to watch the pups grow from tiny little creatures into gorgeous small dogs  :o)

Here they are:

1 day old and snuggled up to mama Connie

4 days old and one clever pup has managed to get some extra Mummy snuggles

7 days old and a special kiss for Mummy

8 days old and everyone is sleeping

9 days old and the milk bar is open again

14 days old and they've all grown so much!

17 days old and weaning has started

18 days old and one pup is just.............too............tired........to...........keep..........feeding

19 days old, eyes are open and they're looking like proper little dogs

21 days old and there are two very special gifts under the Christmas tree

23 days old and it looks like the sheen has come off for Connie  ;o)  but her babies still adore her

23 days old again and how cute are they?? Look at the kissing couple at the back 

25 days old and the two pups snuggling up to Connie are just TOO cute xx

25 days old again and they're looking for trouble  ;o)

25 day old cutie-pie

Ok and now for some new important information:

1. One family have been waiting some time for a Tamazan boy so they get first pick, but we get the other boy

2. Boy family 1 are visiting the pups on Wednesday 8th January and will pick their boy that day

3. We are visiting the pups on Thursday 9th January so we will get to meet OUR Cheese pup on that day!

4. Amanda is letting the pups go to their homes between 7 and 8 weeks of age so, after some inner turmoil and debate with myself, I've decided that we're going to collect Cheese at 7 weeks as he'll be coming home to canine company and we're more than capable of managing a youngster. I think the fact that he'll be that little bit smaller will help with the terrierists too.

5. We'll be the first family to collect our pup, so Master Cheese will be joining us on the very day that he turns 7 weeks - Wednesday 22nd January  :o)

6. We're waiting on confirmation from the Kennel Club, but Amanda has submitted KC registrations for the litter. Cheese will hopefully be Tamazan Wensleydale! If the KC say "no" to Wensleydale, then he'll be Tamazan Wallace  :o)

7. Cheese's first weekend holiday away is booked for Nottingham and Leeds in mid-February where he will get to meet lots of our special friends (2 and 4 legged!).

After such a loooooooooonnnnnnnnnnnggggggggggggg wait for our puppy, it still seems like an unbelievable dream that he'll actually be here in just 3 short weeks!!! I may not be sleeping much between now and then  ;o)

All Change!

It was only inevitable that nothing was going to run smoothly with the length of the timescale that I started working with......

Back in October, Sophie and I spent a lovely weekend in Nottingham with Laura and Luna and Tucker and met up with some of our fabulous friends. As we were going to be passing fairly close by on the way back, we arranged to pop in to see Kate for a coffee. During our conversation that afternoon, it turned out that I had totally and utterly misunderstood the timings that Kate had in mind for Kalli's litter and she will not be having her pups any time soon.

After nearly 18 months of planning, I finally felt as if I was absolutely ready for Cheese to come home and had been anticipating his arrival in the Spring, so had a bit of a "world falling apart" moment when the realisation hit that he wasn't going to be an Ardenbrook pup after all  :o(

I spent a little while licking my wounds and feeling sorry for myself, then started on the road to finding another breeder. After having such fabulous input from Kate and my wonderful little team of experts from the very beginning of my search, I knew exactly what I was looking for and exactly what I was prepared to compromise on. Luckily, I hit gold (again!) very very quickly!

I found out about a litter that were already on their way, had fantastic parents with stunning pedigrees behind them and a brilliant health background. I made an appointment to visit the Tamazan residence within the week.

We had the absolute delight of meeting some of the older residents who would be Cheese's older relatives and discovered that they were cracking girls. We also met his great-great-uncle who, amazingly, is called Branston  :o)  During my research into the breeder, I discovered so many links between names of the dogs they have and have had and my own dogs, my ex-foster dogs and the special dogs in my life that I was already fairly confident that I'd found the right family for my puppy to come from, but once I met most of those dogs in the flesh, I was positive!

Amanda was just wonderful and answered most of my vast array of questions before I even had a chance to voice them and made us feel so welcome and comfortable. So much effort is put into raising fantastic puppies that I couldn't believe my luck in finding such a fabulous breeder for a second time.

When Connie (Cheese's mum-to-be) came into the room, I was literally breathless as she was SUCH a beautiful dog. The photos that I had seen of her on the website did her no justice at all! She is also an incredible character and an utter princess

Mummy: Tamazan Rising Star aka Connie

Daddy: Bilbo Baggins by Baileydale aka Bill

We left the Tamazan household with big grins on our faces after receiving the news that we would be welcome additions to the waiting list.

And then the waiting game started properly!

Two weeks after our visit, we received the news that Connie had gone in to be scanned to try and get an idea of how many pups she was carrying. Amanda had said that she'd not been showing (in her figure) that she was pregnant at all so was amazed to hear that her girl was carrying in excess of 10 puppies!! At this point, I let out a huge sigh of relief as it hit me that with that many puppies expected there were bound to be boys and plenty of pups to go round, all being well.

Photos were eventually added to the website of a very large and uncomfortable looking Connie who still had 2 weeks to go before she was due to start whelping!

No sign of the sleek figure now  ;o)

As Connie looked SO big in the photos, I was not in the least bit surprised to hear that she delivered her babies 5 days early! On 4th of December, Connie safely delivered 9 gorgeous girls and 2 bouncing boys. Sadly, she also delivered 2 girls who left for Rainbow Bridge  :o(

Mama and her babies

All 11 puppies present and correct

I am so utterly and ridiculously excited that I'm not sure I'll be able to contain myself until the pups are old enough for visitors and am ecstatic that I only have to choose between 2 boys and not 9 girls! I'm already thinking that the obtuse, upside down little chap on the far left of the photo above is looking rather Cheese-like, but we'll see  :oD

Thank you all for the kind words and support and shared excitement on this mammoth journey so far and I hope that you all get to have a Cheesy cuddle at some point so that he can thank you too. It's incredible to think that we are very close to being a 3 dog household again and that, finally, someone will get to make use of the ginormous stash of "stuff" that is waiting here.....

No more shopping!

So now we're on the final countdown, at long long last, to Cheese coming home, but we have a few exciting adventures to have before that special day as we get to meet our little boy and his brother and sisters  :oD