Calendar girl

Bella is once again featured in a poodle calendar. This year she has two photos in!

Top Right Corner

Bottom left corner

Poodles and their hair cuts

Today as I was bathing Bella I got to thinking about the one main topic when it comes to poodles- Grooming. Their hair although it doesn't shed requires more upkeep than some other breeds. The plus side of poodle hair other then not shedding? You can pick a hair do that suits the work you want to put into it.  I love hair.  Having been a groomer in the past for a couple of years I love it when Bella has lots of hair.  Like her current clip.  She was shaved down in July with a #4 blade and I haven't clipped her since.  I've kept up her face, and sanitary areas but that's it.  A bit of 'topping' (Trimming just the ends) and some slight shaping.

So she's one poofy girl right now. This is a modified lamb trim.  Her tail is longer her ears are shorter and she doesn't have 'poodle feet' (Shaved feet). The legs have more hair length then her body.
She was last shaped 3 weekes ago (ignore the flat head- I forgot to floof it up before the photo) today was purely a bath and blow dry.

This amount of hair requires a fair bit of brushing and bathing to keep up with it and prevent bad matting. But she's so poofy and soft.  With this amount of coat I brush her head to toe every couple days and needs a bath every couple weeks. Clean coat is easier to brush and maintain matt free.

This summer we were busy- camping and at the lake and bella who had a fair bit of hair in the spring- was getting hot.  Hot dogs do not do fantastic in the obedience ring- can't be peppy an on the ball when your dressed up in the equivalent of a poodle sweater! Like i mentioned above she was clipped down in a 4blade. (The lower the blade # the more hair it leaves). She had poodle clipped face, sanitary area  This is very much a kennel or sporting clip. She still has a top knot and looks very poodlish.  It was great for swimming and hiking- enough hair to protect her body but not so much to drag everything home.  This clip because of it's short hair required very little brushing and brushing went very fast. Once a week a come through took 5 minutes and that was it.

Similar clip on a dog with no top knot and the coat has been allowed to be curly after being clipped.

There's lots of different clips you can get your poodle styled with. These are some of my favorites.
Bella as a puppy was in a Swedish clip (puppy showclip style in Europe).  It sorta makes em look like they are wearing pants.

and here a show pup in it- note the more hair on ears and top knot but so fancy looking!

The continental clip is the most common adult show clip.  It's the clip that makes people think "poodle". It's fun to have it on a dog.  A pet version is shorter hair than the show dogs. Here's some pics.  Bonus of this clip- the shorter butt and legs = less area to groom.

 

A show Mini Poodle in the Continental Clip

Bella in the HCC Clip

German clip- this is one of my favorite clips. The German Clip has a 'carrot' tail (For docked dogs), short ears and is otherwise a lamb clip. This is my friend Amy's dog Paris.  Amy and Paris won some big awards in grooming competitions (Top groomer of the year!) with this clip- SO gorgeous! This is the standard German Clip

Lots of other clips around here's some examples. The big thing is to pick something that works for you, your dog and what upkeep you want to put in brushing and grooming wise!

Go old school with the Dutch Clip

Go creative- get your poodle done as a pony poodle!

Or go Japanese style

Breeding Decisions- Bella

I'm happy to announce I've finalized plans for our next litter.  The long awaited Bella Litter is going to happen this year.

Bella will be bred to Phonsey (O D's De La Coeur) from Sherrings Phantom Poodles. We will be breeding January 2013 and expect puppies to be born Mid march 2013- going to their new homes in May 2013.

I'm taking names for this litter now- and deposits once pregnancy has been confirmed. Please visit our Litters page for more information and to find the questionnaire to fill out for a puppy. This helps me place the right pup in the right home.

Bella is our Obedience girl, with 3 titles in 2012 and 5 high in trial/class awards in her few trials. Phonsey is a gorgeous phantom boy who has passed on lovely markings. I expect this litter to have phantom pups and possibly a few parti poodles with phantom markings and the token solid (Recessive phantom)

Goodbye 2012 Welcome 2013

2012 was a gigantic year for us. We really kicked our dogs into high gear. We started off the year with Kiah welcoming her first litter of seven puppies. We found fabulous homes for each and every pup and there's nothing I enjoy more then seeing their updates through out the year. Hush has remained with us and is a total blast to have in our home.

2012 was filled with some heart ache. April brought Kiah a devastating injury. Our plans of herding and flyball and showing for the summer were put on hold while she recovered from a severe tear of two muscles in her neck/shoulder area. We were not given good prognosis for this injury with out comes of life long limps thrown around and one of a few dogs who has ever injured these muscles so severely world wide.  A huge thank you to Dr Cook (Frontier Vet) and Dr. Pinto (WCVM) who helped with diagnosis and Kiah's recovery.  We lucked out however and Kiah's personality showed what a great dog she is as she was a stellar patient. Three months after her injury was she not only well healed she entered back into the show ring and by September she finished her Championship (CKC) handled by myself. September brought Kiah off of restrictions and she is back to playing and running.

2012 was a huge year for Bella. Bella showed off her stuff in the obedience and rally ring. Bella and I have been learning this stuff as we go.  A few lessons years ago for me, help from friends and thank you Youtube for helping me figure out some of the signs.  We took advantage of the drop in Rally practices at Paws N Train and then hit the trial ring. Between May and September Bella completed three titles- CD (Obedience Novice- CKC) RN (Rally Novice-CKC) and CRN (Rally Novice-CARO).  She achieved 5 high in trial/classes.  Bella also did her first set of Agility classes and absolutely loved it. We hope to do more in the future.

A thank you to all of our clients, friends and family who supported me and the kids with the dogs over the last year.

2013 brings exciting plans.  We're going to continue herding with Hush and hopefully will be ready for a trial come summer. We're finalizing plans for a litter of Standard Poodles with Bella for spring/summer 2013. Kiah is doing obedience/rally classes with Jillian and will hopefully get into the ring with her this year.

Krystl

Bella and some more agility videos

Bella is really enjoying agility. She does wish however her mom was a fair bit faster cuing her! It wears her right out- exercise mental and physical- what more can you ask for!

Thanks again to Aiden for keeping me company and videoing

Bella's Agility Adventure

Last month we started into Agility lessons with Bella.  She is absolutely loving it- (though that tire sorta made her think "why" for the first time this week). We have a few weeks left of classes and then a break until spring.

Here's a video of bella working the teeter.  This is the first the teeter has been high enough to really TIP she did really well with it.  (Ignore our bobble with the last jump- Teri and bag= treats the rest of the lesson so why not now? )

Thanks to my son Aiden for coming out and using his new playbook to get this video for me 

Kiah Finishes Her CKC Ch.

We've had a successful September!

Balgonie was our last planned show for the season- on sunday Kiah got Winners Bitch and Best of Opposite for 2 points finishing her CKC Championship.  Now we get to put those great little two letters in front of her name not just letters behind!

Kiah will retire from the show ring and go back to concentrating on performance stuff.  She's currently doing obedience lessons with my daughter Jillian and is getting back to working with the sheep.

Thank you to Judge Davida Brown from NZ for this wonderful end to our show season.