27th August 2010  - A very exciting new book on Bernese Mountain Dogs by Silvana Vogel Tedeschi, an Italian breeder and exhibitor, as well as Vice-President of the Italian Club, will be coming out in September and we will be helping the author with the distribution in the UK. Details are on the following website http://bernese.biz/bernerbook.htm  Here you will find further information including a list of contents, the author´s introduction and a foreword by Margret Baertschi and Hansjoachim Spengler. We will have a limited number of copies available from the middle of September which will be signed by the author.   

 

 

21st August 2010  - This morning we left home to drive to Louth in Lincolnshire to the home of Barbara and Barry Baldock to see their six weeks old litter of four males and one female, the father of the litter is our male Geilo, this is his litter number 9. On arriving we took our dogs, Geilo, Elkie, Janka and Steffi for a walk before we went inside to see the puppies. When we went to see the puppies they were still sleeping, we no sooner had a cup of tea in our hands and they woke up, Jill went into the puppy area and sat and played with them for a while, I then followed when Jill came out, the puppies are all very active, friendly, and have great characters. By now after a long play they were starting to get tired so we left them. Our friend Pauline Bullock and her daughter Katherine arrived to see the puppies, they are having the female in the litter, they are very pleased with her.

 

After lunch Pauline asked if we wanted to try Janka to see if she would be suitable for pulling a cart, as anyone who has visited us knows Janka is the most lively, energetic dog. I (Ian) had a vision of Janka pulling a cart, she would run and the cart would be crashing from one side of the road to the other. How wrong I was, within five minutes Janka was between the shafts of one of Barbara's carts pulling it as though she had done it before. At times she was a little fast but was under full control, even when a car drove past Janka just sat there and waited for it to pass. Again Pauline proved how easy it can be for a Bernese to accept pulling a cart, as you can see from the pictures here of Janka and the cart she really enjoyed it, her tail was constantlt wagging. So we will now be attending some of the events that Pauline arranges for the Pennine Carters Group. We hope you like the new pictures of Geilo's puppies from his litter 9 and the pictures of Janka, there are more pictures on Geilo's Litters page, look at litter number 9 for them.      

      

12 - 13th August 2010  - Ian visited the breeder of Geilo's litter 8 to see the litter who are now six weeks old, unfortunately Jill had to stay at home to look after the dogs. I was made very welcome by the whole family on my visit, the weather was wonderful and we were able to take the puppies ouside to take some very nice pictures. Over 275 pictures were taken of the puppies, they were at that nice stage at 6 weeks old where they were starting to explore their surroundings, this was only their second time outside. The three puppies all had wonderful characters and nothing frightened them in the great outside world. One of the puppies found a plactic container to play with, on seeing her with this her sisters decided this was a great thing to play with, they even explored under the families van. We have added some pictures to Geilo's litters page, see his litter 8 for the pictures of this very nice litter of three females.

 

10th August 2010  - Today we received some pictures of the puppies from Geilo's last two litters, they are four weeks and five weeks old, the picture for litter nine was taken by Tim Bourne, his family will be having one of the puppies. The picture's of the puppies in litter eight were taken by their breeder. Please see Geilo's litters page for more picture's and news of his puppies.

 

8th August 2010  - We had a day of leisure today, we went to Pickering to the famous Pickering Traction and Steam Fair were we met up with friends from the Pennine Carters Group. They gave an excellent display of their Bernese and decorated carts to a large public audience in the main show ring. Seeing the Bernese pulling the carts was an imposing sight, after the display the public were allowed into the main show ring to see the dogs and talk to the owners. Our friend Pauline Bullock said we should let Geilo pull a cart, he had never attempted to pull a cart before, this was his very first attempt, within a few minutes he was pulling the cart as though he had done it for years. We started with putting the harness on him, he walked alongside the cart for 50 meters then we put him in the shafts of the training cart, he was brilliant. After 5 minutes he was pulling a full size cart around the show ground, he had a great time and loved all the attention from parents and their children having pictures taken.