13 October 2008
Week 10

All of the puppies have now been collected and settled into their new homes. The last puppy, Dooley, made the long journey to Newcastle Upon Tyne yesterday where he can look forward to a great family life with lots of walks along the Northumbrian coast.
After he left, our girl Ciara had a puppy reunion with her brother Murphy, who lives on a Newmarket Stud farm with our daughter and son in law.

As you can see from the photos they had loads of fun.

This is now the last update but you may be interested to know that Meagan's litter sister, Lulu, gave birth to 7 boys and 2 girls on 9 October 2008 and all are doing well. (see www.kirkmarsh.co.uk ).
Since August 4th, 2008 when Meagan and Feargal's litter were born, a total of 29 puppies from 3 litters (two of 9 pups and one of 11), in two countries have been born to or sired by dogs from the litter of which Meagan was a part. Each litter has had a different sire, including one by Meagan's brother Logan, (Irish Show Champion Kirkmarsh Countryman at Kilmaganney) and collectively they represent a great step forwards in effective gene pool management of the Irish Water Spaniel and demonstrate that the way forward for the good of the long term health of the Irish Water Spaniel should be about minimising inbreeding.
We look forward to watching the progress of these litters.

7 October 2008
Week 9
Over the last couple of weeks all of the puppies except one went to their new homes.
The last remaining puppy will be making the long journey to Newcastle this weekend.
All of the puppies have settled in very well and are now getting on with their new lives.
We are particularly pleased that four of the puppies, including the one we are keeping, have gone to working homes. One has gone to a gamekeeper on a prestigious shoot in Sussex as an alternative to his "boring" Labs, another has gone to a shooting couple, again in Sussex and a third has gone to a wonderful home on a Lancashire farm. Padraig, pictured left with Oswald, a working Irish Water Spaniel x Standard Poodle Cross has gone to fellow members of the Sporting Irish Water Spaniel Club, for whom this was the sixth IWS litter they have tried to get a puppy from. To say they are over the moon is an understatement.

The remaining puppies have gone to or (in the case of Dooley) will be going to make family companions. One of them, Pippa, who has gone to Leeds has her own web site (http://iws.gregh.co.uk/) and another, Flynn has gone to live with giant tortoises in Cheshire. Another puppy has also gone to Cheshire and one has gone to the next village to us.

See Weeks 7-9 photos

21 September 2008
Day 49

And then there were six - the first three puppies have now left us and gone to their new homes in Cheshire and
Leeds. Miss Green, known as Pippa (Fendrake Ellesmere Lass) has her own web site (http://iws.gregh.co.uk/) and Master Red, known as Flynn (Fendrake's Wayward Lad) has gone to live in rural Cheshire with some giant Tortoises, not something we would normally put on our socialisation list. Master Yellow, yet to be named (Fendrake's Iceni Warrior) has in his four acre garden,not one but two ponds. We don't think he will need too many swimming lessons.
Six puppies are definitely easier to deal with, particularly as this weekend Ursula was with Niamh and the Sporting Irish Water Spaniel Club at the Midland Gamefair leaving David with three Adult Water Spaniels, Georgie the Ridgeback and the six remaining canine terrorists. All six have been out in the garden today, causing chaos with the three adults.

We are now moving our photo gallery to http://fendrake.ifp3.com/ where the quality is vastly improved. The update pages are still on this site but have a look at the new photo gallery.

By the way, as of today, we still have one boy remaining.

13 September 2008
Day 40

                            
Ciara (Fendrake Meagan's Girl)                          Miss Green                                           Master Yellow
with her first Duck retrieve!!!!

There is now just a week to go before some of the puppies will be leaving home.
They are now extremely active and at times very vocal. Today was the first day we could have them
out in the garden in a while because the weather has been so awful, and they really enjoyed it. Feargal was charged
with keeping an eye on them and, bless him, he was so good with them. Ciara, our girl retrieved her first "Duck"
today so hopefully the signs are good that she will follow in Dad's foot steps.
See day 40 photos

09 September 2008
Day 36

Fendrake's Saint Edmund (Padraig)	Some of the puppies in the back of the car

With just a couple of weeks to go before the puppies are due to go to their new homes they have had a busy time, being visited by lots of people. The three pups, where people were being given the initial choice have now all been chosen, including Padraig (above), purple boy, who will be going to Lancashire. We have chosen the little girl who we will keep and she is to be called Ciara (pronounced Kee-ra), Fendrake Meagan's Girl. A few definite dates for picking up puppies have also been set.
Yesterday, all of the puppies had their first big adventure: a trip in the car to see the vet. All of the pups and Meagan were pronounced fit and healthy. Three of the puppies have now exceeded 3Kg in weight (the heaviest pup on day 2 weighed 430g) and all are still growing very rapidly.
Meagan's litter brother, Logan (Irish Show Champion Kirkmarsh Countryman of Kilmaganney) is expecting a litter of his own very soon through a young Irish Girl he met in Ireland. See Logan on You Tube. 
A litter sister of Meagan (Lulu - Kirkmarsh Charmer) has also been mated and those puppies should be born in October.

05 September 2008
Day 32

The puppies have now turned into a bunch of hooligans and have had great fun running around the living room.
They are now weaned and mum, apart from the odd sneaky excursion into their run has been stopped from feeding them.
The puppies have also had a fair number of new visitors including some more children.
See Days 28-32 photos

29 August 2008
Day 26
The puppies have had their first taste of the big outdoors and of being handled by children. Both the children and the puppies seemed to enjoy each other's company.
All of the other dogs came to have a look at the puppies and immediately lost interest.
 

See day 25 photos  See day 26 photos









 

27 August 2008
Day 24
The puppies have now moved onto milk mixed with softened puppy food and all are tucking in eagerly. Some of the puppies have now reached 2kg in weight (the heaviest was 430g when weighed on day 2) and the others are not far behind. All have now got sharp little teeth and walking continues to improve.
The occasional bark can now be heard and the puppies have all started playing, but none are very good at it yet.
Feargal has met his puppies for the first time and has been very fascinated with them and Georgie, our 50Kg Rhodesian Ridgeback has also stuck her nose in the whelping box (which has now been moved into the living room).
Meagan has been going for walks for the last few days and today she had a long run with the other IWS and Georgie the Ridgeback. She continues to be an excellent mother but now she is much more relaxed about her puppies being visited by people other than those she knows.
See day 22 photos  See day 24 photos

23 August 2008
Day 20
Weaning has started with all of the puppies successfully lapping formula milk and between them consumed nearly
1½ pints in their first attempt. All of them are also much stronger on their legs.
See day 20 photos

22 August 2008
Day 19
The puppies have been very busy, they have been wormed for the first time, had their claws clipped a second time, are now walking, all be it still unsteadily, their ear canals have opened and today have started to play with each other. They continue to grow quickly and some are now approaching a four fold increase on their birth weight.
This coming weekend will see the start of weaning.
See days 17,18 & 19 photos

17 August 2008
Day 14
All of the puppies have now opened their eyes and all are continuing to grow very rapidly.
Some of the puppies are now trying to walk instead of crawl.
See days 13 & 14 photos

15 August 2008
Day 12
Some of the puppies have now opened their eyes (see below) and all are continuing to put on weight at quite a rate.
All were approx 400g at birth and now about three of them have reached a Kg with the others not too far behind.

13 August 2008
Day 10 and all is still well. We are expecting the puppies to open their eyes in the next day or so and then we can post some pictures with the puppy steel blue eyes, characteristic of Irish Water Spaniel puppies.
The Kennel Club have now confirmed the registration of the litter and so they all now have official Kennel Club names:

See day 9 photos

11 August 2008
Day 8 and the puppies are now a week old and still doing well.
All of the puppies are now at or around twice their birth weight and the litter was today
registered with the Kennel Club.
See day 8 photos

9 August 2008
Day 6 and Meagan and the puppies are doing well. All of the puppies are putting on weight and Meagan is being
a very dutiful mother.
See day 6 photos

8 August 2008
Day 5 and Meagan and the puppies are doing well. All of the puppies are putting on weight and Meagan is being
a very dutiful mother.
See day 5 photos

5 August 2008
The puppies at a day old

4 August 2008
Meagan started whelping at 8.00am and by mid afternoon had
delivered 9 apparently healthy puppies: 5 boys and 4 girls.
Mum & pups are all doing well. Our vet popped round to check
them out and all were given a clean bill of health.
The picture below shows the first 5 pups.

3 August 2008
Meagan at 8½ weeks

25 July 2008
Meagan at 7½ weeks and really starting to fill out.

19 July 2008
Meagan at 6½ weeks with Feargal, whilst Laoise looks on.