 Before
Cass
Hi, my name's John
Petley and this is my wife Julie. We live in Hempstead, Kent, England, and in the next few pages I'll be telling the on-going story of how our cocker spaniel
puppies Cassie and Tara are growing up. Hopefully it might be of interest to anyone considering getting a cocker puppy (or any other breed for that matter).
It all started New Year's day 2000. Whilst celebrating the new millennium in Wales we visited our friends brother, who's blue standard poodle had just had a litter of 12 pups. They were about 9 weeks old, and he was still trying to find homes for some of them. Julie and I both fell in love with them immediately, but resisted the temptation of getting a dog on a whim.
Both of us had grown up with dogs and we'd always said one day we would have one of our own. We therefore decided to investigate whether there was a breed
suited to our lifestyle.
We found a number of Web sites that matches your lifestyle to a breed of dog. Eventually, after rejecting Bassets and Staffs, we decided on the English Cocker Spaniel (85% fit).
Next stage - buy the books. We did our homework and decided that it'll be best to get a puppy in the Autumn. Being aware of the hereditary eye
problems associated with Cockers meant we wanted a puppy whose parents were KC/BVA certificated.
By June we were seriously looking for suitable breeders who were planning a litter. A puppy pack is available from the kennel club, that lists breeders with available puppies, but we wanted to make sure of the parent dogs first. Whilst searching the Web we found the site www.champdogs.co.uk, which got us in touch with the Shenmore kennels. They told us that their stud dog Arran had just mated with a nice tempered Blue Roan called Judy from Consima Cockers. Both dogs had been PRA KC/BVA cleared, so early August 2000 I approached Roger and Kath Day at Consima. Judy was pregnant, and was due the 16th September 2000. We registered our interest and now just had to wait.
 It seemed a eternity that month and a half, but by the night of Thursday the 14th September I was emailing Roger with a good luck message. Little did I know that Judy was already in labour. During the early hours of Friday the 15th September Judy gave birth to 8 little puppies (4 boys and 4 girls). It was a difficult birth, with the vet being called out on two separate occasions for breaches. As you can see from the photo, Judy was exhausted, but both mother and puppies were doing fine.
We were keen to meet Roger and Kath, knowing that they'd want to check we were suitable owners, so when the puppies were two weeks old we popped in to say hello. Judy and her puppies were doing just fine, and we were thrilled the next day when Roger emailed us to say he was happy for us to have one of his pups, once they'd reached 8 weeks old
We visited again at 5 weeks old. By this time, the puppies eyes had opened, and they were rolling around, fighting, eating, sleeping (and messing), all the things a good puppy should do. We decided on a choice of one of the two darkest bitches, and asked she be named 'Consima Mystical Sapphire (sapphire because it's blue as in roan, and the birthstone for September).
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