Border Collies van 't Hof Diabolo

Aussie puppies ready to go

2009-02-11T11:19:00.003+01:00

Already seven weeks old, time does fly by so fast!! We had a lovely time with these four, they are absolutely gorgeous, sweet little things and we are sad to see them go. But they have all found a nice home to go to and none of them will be alone, they will all have a friend to play with and nice people who will look after them and love them just as much as we do.

The first one to go is little Arielle, she's the smallest of them but also the cutest! (Iam crazy about tri merles lol) She won't go far, she will go to our vet so we'll be seeing a lot of her in the future!

The second one to go is Buzz, he will be named Djinny and will go and live with Régina and her australian cattle dog. Regina wants to learn him obedience and hopefully, if he's up to and she to of course, try and attend to some competitions. We are looking forward to hear about that!

The third one which will go to his new home is little Mowgli. He will go and live with nice people who always had border collies but sadly lost three of them in the last couple of months by sickness and age. They still have one left but she's totally blind so that will be an adjustement for her as well for little Mowgli, but we are confident that they will do okay and will become good friends.

And last but not the least, Tinkerbell will go next week to her new home. She will be staying a little longer with us. She will be spoiled rotten here with our kids of course...

I've been tagged!!!

2009-02-11T11:04:00.003+01:00

So, I've never heard of it but since Nat tagged me and explained it so well on her blog
(open a document or file folder
Click on the fifth folder and then the fifth photo
Post the photo and describe it
Then tag 5 other bloggers)
I will try and do this to. Although the ones I will be tagging won't be English blogs, so let this game be spread around Belgium to LOL

So the folder I opened was Border collies (of course), fifth folder was Diabolo's and the fifth picture there was this one:

On this pic there's our little red merle girl Quiah (greatgrandaughter of Nat's Mac) and next to her runs Falck, our lovely chocolate sable boy. The picture was taken on a cloudy afternoon when the mist was hanging low to. Falck, as usual, has his ball in his mouth, Quiah running with him, not to take the ball but just to annoy him.

Now, let's think, five blogs to tag....
Here they are:
http://hereseysborders.blogspot.com/
http://www.dogblog.nl/Kitty
http://www.the-border-inn.be/blognl/#home
http://catch.catchmydreams.be/#home
http://www.happyborders.be/Nederlands/home_nederlands.htm

Not forgetting our own aussie puppies...

2009-01-01T15:56:00.003+01:00

Our very own puppies are already ten days old. They are doing very well, and grow while we're looking at them! Tequila is a fantastic mum. The ears are starting to open now and we expect the eyes to open soon to, probably in the weekend. They are turning into real little dogs now. They weigh about half a kilo now, the weight a border collie puppy has by birth. :-)

Arielle:Buzz:

Mowgli:
Tinkerbell:

Puppynews...

2009-01-01T15:47:00.003+01:00

I thought what a great idea to start the New Year with some good news.
A lot of puppies...eventhough it isn't all from our own kennel.
With Georgette at the Weimeniershoeve, there are 6 beautiful puppies born the 19th december. Dam is Gember and sire is our own XTC.
There are five boys and one girl. The girl already is spoken for, but there are a couple of boys still available. For more information you can always mail or call me, or see on (http://www.kerocs.be/weimeniershoeve/)
The little girl is a bluemerle tricolour, the boys have all sorts of colours, we have a black and white, two blue merles, a blue and white and a lilac merle, a true rainbow of colours of little border puppies...

Our XTC became a daddy again, yesterday, the 31th december. The proud mum is a littersister to our Ginger, Golden Girl, aka Snoopy, she has a lovely litter of seven beautiful puppies in the colours black and white, black tri and blue and white.
For more information you can always call or mail me or call the owners of Snoopy on this number: 0474/849721

2009-01-01T15:32:00.002+01:00

Phoenix came for a visit two months ago to see his girlfriend Tequila and that has resulted into a big belly with our little girl. Last weekend we started temperaturing her, she was due the 20th December, so we were on time.The first time she had 37,5, but that night it was always around 37°C, which was quite low. The day after it even was 36,5, so we were expecting the puppies to come soon. As I didn't want to sleep the whole week in the sofa, we took Tequila with us in our bedroom, where we made her a nest to whelp in if necesarry, so I would wake up if something happened. But that was not how Tequila planned it, that whole week it stayed calm and quiet at night, until that morning of the 20th. She was shaking and shivering although it was quite warm in the house. That's when I new it wouldn't take very long for the puppies to come. I tried to keep her as much as possible to stay in her nest, but everytime I walked away to do stuff, she followed me. At this rate, it would take forever I thought and I hurried to finish all my chores so I could sit in the sofa and be woth Tequila. And yes, not half an hour later she started to move the sheets all around the nest and went in labour, finally! After a little hour or so, around half past nine, she started pushing, five minutes later a little chocolate tri boy was born! Another three followed soon, two black tri's, a boy and a girl, and one blue merle girl. Around 1 o'clock she had finished and we could start enjoying our little puppies.
What a nice christmaspresent Tequila gave us..
Here they are:

Little Mermaids Arielle:
Toy Story's Buzz:
Jungle Books Mowgli:
Peter Pan's Tinkerbell:

Iago can dance!!

2008-12-10T19:12:00.004+01:00

We began to train Iago and Quiah a little bit at home, due to some healthproblems in our dogschool, which kept us from going there. Besides the basic commands (sit, lie down, stand,...) we also train him to dance. We started one week ago and I have to say, he's a quick learner! I'm so proud of this little chap!

2008-11-28T10:00:00.003+01:00

Xtc has mated the blue merle bitch Gember van de Weimeniershoeve on 18 and 20 October and we got the confirmation this week, that Gember is in whelp! We expect these puppies around the 20th of December. The expected colours of these puppies are black/white, blue merle, chocolate/white and chocolate merle and also all of these with tan.

Georgette also let me know that she still has a lovely puppy available from her current litter from Dior and Bryning Leap in the Dark "Echo. The beautiful, powerful chocolate tri Echo is a littermate from our girl Skye and so these puppies are in fact a little bit of family to us ;-)

"Woef " december

2008-11-28T09:39:00.003+01:00

Yesterday Martine called us, she was very excited, she got the new woef magazine in her mailbox en her article was published! I of course immediately went to the store but to my regret I had to go back today, the woef came out on fridays.

Our puppies and name is mentioned on at least three pages! In the article of the European Championship agility there's a photo of Liselotte with Bruse doing the weave, the second article is that of Martine and her family and their 6 dogs which all come from our kennel, and the third one, the one I am mostly excited about, is a picture of Bruse on the last page which I took by the way ;-) , where he announces the new woef of January, where the border collie will be the breed of the month. Will keep you all posted!

Here's the photo:

Quiet in the house...

2008-11-19T17:19:00.003+01:00

All the puppies went to their new homes. Only our own girl Quiah and our new boy Iago make it quite 'noisy' around the house.
We have no puppies planned for the winter, Spice and C will be mated in the spring, and also Skye, when exactly will depend on when the ladies decide to come in season.
We thought of some stunning dogs for our girls, when we are sure of our plans, we will let it know here and on our site.
This week we also recieved some very good news, the hipscore of our girl Spice, she has an A², which we are very happy with! The only one that has to be tested is our C, which will happen in the next couple of months. Then all of our dogs are done, except for our two new youngsters, but that's for next year.

To the beach...

2008-10-28T17:21:00.007+01:00

We went to the beach with the whole gang. The little ones stayed behind, too tiny to walk that far and the possibility to get trampled kept them at home.
It was sunny, we enjoyed it for as long as it lasted, and the dogs even enjoyed it more, as the pics prove it...

Our little fella

2008-10-28T17:09:00.001+01:00

Here are some more pics of our handsome boy, taken over the weekend:

Dreams sometimes do come true...

2008-10-28T17:00:00.003+01:00

After looking for quite some time (a few years) for the ideal Australian red border collie puppy, one of my dreams came true.

On Sunday, we went to a breeder colleague of border collies with our little ee red girl, and we could bring home our little furry ball. He is everything we've hoped for, he has a lovely character, beautiful head, nice coat, great built, in other words, he already stole our hearts!
His dam, brother and sister were there to and they are all very nice and beautiful dogs. His dad Zion we know as he had a litter with our girl Ginger.

We are very pleased with this little fella, thank you Carla, he's doing fine here, take care of our little girl to!

Here are some pics of him in his new home:

Saying goodbye to our puppies

2008-10-24T16:53:00.006+02:00

It's time to say goodbye to our puppies. After being with us the last 8 weeks, they are now ready to go to their new homes. They had their vaccines, their chip, st-hubertus has come for a check up to get their pedigrees and also we had a visite from the daddy's with their owners.

Hurricane, Hailey Rose and High Hopes were the first ones to leave on tuesdays.

On wednesday, Marc came to pick Hawk Eye up

Thursdays Happy Heart went home

The day after, it was High Moons's and High Valley's turn

On saturday, Hot Coco left her brothers and sisters

We went to 'deliver' our baby girl Hot N Creamy to a collegue breeder on Sunday

Today they are coming to pick up Hanky Panky and then we have two more little rascals left here

Hoyden will go home the 8th november, her new owners are moving so she had to stay a bit longer, and Hocus Pocus will leave the week after to his new owner in the Netherlands

Then all that is left here is Quiah, all alone, well, not alone actually, but that I will tell you in a new message :-)

Veny - Girl Fever van 't Hof Diabolo

2008-07-30T19:49:00.002+02:00

We 've heard from Kim, the owner of Veny, that on Saturday 12 July, they would try and go for their obedience license. We had loved to be there but unfortunately I had to work. Afterwards she emailed me to say they did an excellent job! They gained first place and that with a fabulous score of 100/100. A very big congratulation and carry on like this!

Reunion

2008-07-30T19:14:00.004+02:00

On the 21st of July, we organised a reunion for all the families that had 'adopted' a diabolo-border collie. The weather was terrible for a day in July, but besides that, we had a very pleasant time. The dogs were running around and playing with each other as if they always lived together. We had no problems at all with any of the doggies. Everyone was very glad to see the littermates of their puppy back, although the most of them were quite big already ;)
Afterwards we went for a drink in a tea room a friend of mine, and owner of Golden Boy - Foley, had arranged for us.
I like to thank Martine for that and also Peter to take so many beautiful pics!

Here's a couple of them; more can be seen on our site

And as you can see, not only the dogs were having fun!!

A quickie

2008-07-09T18:33:00.001+02:00

We were still waiting for the hipresults of 4 of our dogs. Today Falco's came in, he has a B1, hopefully the others will have the same good results :)

Casey and Ginger

2008-07-03T12:11:00.003+02:00

On Friday, Casey was ready to be mated, so I drove up to Ostend to help our Falco do his first mating. After trying for a while, we inseminated Casey because although Falco wanted to cover her, he didn't finish the job. Martine would repeat it two days later and then we could only hope it would be enough. On Fridayafternoon, Martine left for a whole weekend agility competitions with Falco, Bruce and Phoenix, Casey stayed at home. When she got back and Falco went outside with Casey, he immediately mated her. Martine was very happy and when I heard the news I was to of course!
The mating has been repeated on Tuesday and on Thursday, we should be expecting chocolate and chocolate merle puppies around the 20th of August

We've started to draw blood from Ginger on Thursday, to see when she would be ready to be mated so we wouldn't have to drive all the way up to Laakdal for nothing. We got the results back at the evening and it needed to be repeated two days later. We went back on Saturday and she was almost ready for it, we've decided to drive to Daisy's on Sunday, since we already were halfway up there on a family visit anyway so. When we got there and Ginger saw Zion, she immediately growled at him, we've tried a couple of times but it was useless, she didn't want him near her. We drove back home and would come back on Tuesday.
When I went back that morning, everything looked totally different from the moment Ginger saw Zion, she totally fell in love LOL. After having played for an hour, Zion finally mated her! Daisy and I were both very happy of course! This litter is also expected around the 20th of August. We're very excited!
Here is a lovely photo of the handsome Zion, Illusion in Red From Borders Paradise:

More pictures

2008-07-03T11:50:00.004+02:00

We've recieved some more pictures earlier this week from puppies that are born with us. It's always nice to know how they are doing and what they are up to and what kind of adventures they've experienced.

This time it's about Farrin, a blue and white bitch out of Spice and XTC. She lives with Natasja and her boyfriend in Holland. Natasja is very active with Farrin, they have recently succesfully ended an obedience course and they came first out of twelve dogs, congratulations therefor.

Now they have started with Farrin's favourite hobby, herding, and she has a lot of talent. People who are in that sport for many years, say about her that she could be an excellent herding dog, some of them are even a bit jealous. It's not that easy to find a good dog. Sometimes it takes them years to find the ultimated working collie.

So, keep up the good work Farrin, and of course Natasja....

Recently, Farrin gained a friend, the lilac tricolour bitch "Here I Am" Legend. A full sister to Farrin, same dam and sire, only a litter later. Hopefully Legend will have the same talent to herd as her sister, but for now, she can enjoy her life as a puppy.

We look forward to hear from these two rascals!

More pics can be found on our site

More joyful news now

2008-06-20T15:55:00.006+02:00

On the 8th of June, our Falco van 't Hof Diabolo (Duke & Skye) obtained his obedience-license. He also may go to class 2 Large of the agilty. Good news to from his halfsister Veny aka Girl Fever van 't Hof Diabolo (Skye & Spark), she participated at a socialisationtest and passed with honour! Congratulations Kim and Veny (see pic below)

We also recieved some new pics of Hypnos "Roxy" van 't Hof Diabolo (Skye & XTC)

And from Glamor Puss "Gini" van 't Hof Diabolo (Casey & Bruse)

More photo's can be found on our site

Sad news

2008-06-20T09:15:00.005+02:00

What had started out as a lovely Saturday, has turned into dissaster.

As every day, we let our dogs out, the border collies as well as the aussies and the little dogs from inside.

Our Eros, the smallest one from the gang, but a very bossy little fella, ran, as always, along with the other dogs, up and down the fields. (We live quite some distance away from the street and our dogs can run free across the fields and paddocks here)

I came behind, I can't walk that fast!, and suddenly I heard Eros cry. I didn't see what had happened but suspected that a big dog had run over him, they 're very boisterous when they pass you by once they are at 'full speed'. But Eros is such a whimp sometimes so it could be nothing to. I called him to come to me, to see what was going on, and saw that he was raising his right behind leg. I grabbed him and was shocked by what I saw, his foot was broken in two, the bones even went through his skin!

We had never put the rest of the dogs back in their cage as fast as then, I called the vet and we drove there as fast as we could. When we got there, they took a couple of pics of his leg and they saw that all four of the bones were broken, just snapped in two. They couldn't do a lot, they had to call a specialist to fix this.

We could bring him back around 1pm, by then, the doctor would be there, and she would do the surgery, they would give us a call when she got there. We were also free to let him stay there until 1pm but we didn't want to do that, he was in quite some pain, and then leave him there in a small cage, with no-one around him he knows, no, we didn't like that. We asked if he could get something against the pain, but they said better not, he would have to be fully sedated for the operation and it was too dangerous, he might never wake up.

Finally, two hours later, they phoned us to say the doctor had arrived. We could stay with him for the last photo's and then we had to leave him behind. It could take two to three hours, it would depend on how smoothly things went.

At 4 pm the phone rang again and surgery was done. it didn't go as planned, they wanted to stick some little iron things in his bones, but his bones were so small and fragile, they didn't had any pins that suited. So they had to do things differently and attach the iron pins on the outside of his foot. We need to go back every month to take a photo and see how it develops. As soon as the bones are fully healed, the pins can come out. But it will take about three months

Another surprise

2008-06-20T09:01:00.001+02:00

Our black and white bitch Ginger (Golden Wish van 't Hof Diabolo - Sunny & C) had to come in season any moment now. We've already found a very nice boy for her, Illusion in Red from Borders Paradise, aka Zion. More information about this dog you can find on my site

I had already called Zion's owner that it wouldn't be long now, and to keep them ready ;-) Daisy told me they were on vacation from the 3th of June till the 10th and that hopefully, Ginger wouldn't come in season in that period. But if it was so, I could phone her friend, who was looking after the dogs while they were away, and that she would help me then. Ginger was kindly enough to wait until Daisy got back and started bleeding the day after she was home. I've called D. on Wednesday to tell her about it. We will draw blood to see which day will be the best to mate Ginger and then we will be on our way to Beerse to get out little girl covered by this handsome young man. To be continued....

The telephonecall we've been waiting for...

2008-06-19T14:29:00.000+02:00

After seeing Casey yesterday, I knew it wouldn't be long before she came in season. Falco is the studdog we were planning to use, now we know the hips from both dogs are fine, we can go ahead with this combination. Falco has recently been tested for CEA through his DNA and is NORMAL, so all our puppies will be HD and CEA free.

I 've always wanted to keep a puppy from Casey, but for some reason never got to it. She was still young and we had plenty of time left to do that. Now it's the perfect moment to keep a puppy of those two. We are hoping for a nice red merle bitch that has the character of her dam and the will to please from her sire.

Casey has been in season at the beginning of January, it was almost the moment again, but you know, if you're waiting for something, it could take a long time!

And then...finally, the day after we saw her, Martine calls me up, Casey is in heat!

Hooray, we can expect puppies! :)

Monday 9th June, an exciting day!

2008-06-19T14:18:00.000+02:00

As I just start with this blog, I have lots to tell you about what happened last week.
On Monday we, my friend martine and I, went to the vets in Antwerp with a couple of our dogs to test their hips for HD. It was a very exciting day, because the hipscores are very important for the future of our breeding dogs.
We had to be there around 11 am and strange but through, we were almost on time!We were a couple of minutes too late, but that wasn't that bad because there was still someone inside with the vet. When we went in and all the papers had been delivered, Falco could go first. For him, it was very important to have good hips, as he will be our future studdog. So he went first on the table, Martine stayed with him to keep him calm. After three x-rays, the job was already done. Then it was Casey's turn, it only took one x-ray to get a good look at the hips, then it was Ginger and Spice's turn and them to just needed one x-ray. It all went very smoothly, they are very good vets!
After the x-rays were put on a disc, I could go and take a look. We were very suprised to hear Spice has the best hips from those 4 dogs, we didn't expect it, with Spice being almost 5 years. But we should get all A's and B's, what I think is very good. A very exciting but great day that was. I'll keep you informed what the scores turn out to be.

More News

2008-06-19T14:11:00.000+02:00

Although I update my site regularly, I thought it was a nice idea to start up a blog to, to keep you all a bit more informed about what 's going on at van 't Hof Diabolo. The "what's new" page will certainly be maintained to, but this is the ideal way to give you some more info about what's happening with all our dogs and especially when there are puppies born or expected!
Prepare yourselves for lots of pictures and a lot to read!