Botetot English Shepherds

24/11/2024

The forecast calls for widely scattered nappers. The gang is starting to walk, albeit with a stagger, & their eyes are beginning to open. As we round the corner into Week 3, I'm happy to report a bunch of contented wee ones.

17/11/2024

Our Holidays litter arrived earlier this week. Dot delivered 8 surprises in the wee hours of Monday morning: 5 M & 3 F, all B&W with the exception of two tricolored males. Healthy puppies & a good momma with the milk bar that never closes, along with supportive friends, are going to make this winter very, very memorable!

08/11/2024

According to the Therio docs at Virginia Tech, Dot has eight little surprises in the oven! Although her due date isn't until next week, we're setting up the whelping box later today. Poor Dotty is as big as a house!

01/11/2024

Bee, AKA the girl with the flying ears, is from our 2018 Jake-Babe litter & she definitely inherited her parents' love of agility. I watched Marie do a training run with Bee at our local dog club's training field & it took my breath away to see Bee zipping around the ring while Marie stood in the middle & directed her from a distance. Here's a couple of my favorite pics from Bee's latest agility competition, at last Saturday's AADS trial in Blacksburg, VA.

01/11/2024

Wild night at Casa Clark! A black bear broke down a wooden privacy fence to get into the backyard. Then it went to the apples I'd put by the compost pile to bury. (I know, my bad.) That's where Tink & Dot lit into it & chased it out of the yard. The pickets in that gate have metal inserts, BTW.

24/10/2024

For years we were told Tink was sterile. Reckon he didn't get the memo, because we just confirmed Dot is pregnant! Expecting B&W, along with TRI, purebred ES puppies mid-November.

19/10/2024

Available to a new home thru no fault of his own. Jasper is a 9-y-o male English Shepherd whose heartbroken owner must sadly rehome him. The owner suffered a serious head injury while farming. Please PM or call me for more details.

22/09/2024

Busy Bee poses with her latest agility bling, marking the achievement of her NADAC Novice Versatility Award. Congrats to Bee & her mom, Marie! Best wishes to Team Bee, as they pursue Open agility competition.

22/09/2024

We're pleased to announce our Miss Dot is clear for the PRA-ES inherited blindness gene. The test is so new that it is not yet included in any of the all-in-one DNA kits (Embark, Wisdom Panel, etc.) on the market. To test for the PRA-ES variant, we had to submit Dot's DNA to the University of Cambridge in the UK. Worth it having the peace of mind, knowing our breeding program is not perpetuating that awful condition.

Send a message to learn more

19/09/2024

Kudos to all the English Shepherd enthusiasts who contributed to the development of the DNA test for a breed-specific form of blindness. And triple tail wags to all those breeders who are now testing for this debilitating inherited disease.

This is Shola, an adult English Shepherd Dog. She worked for the Edale Mountain Rescue Team before she was unable to carry on due to failing eyesight.

She has Progressive Retinal Atrophy (PRA) – an incurable inherited disease that has caused her to go blind.

Now a team led by the University of Cambridge has identified the genetic mutation that causes PRA in English Shepherd Dogs, and developed a DNA test for it. By identifying dogs carrying the disease before their eyesight starts to fail, this provides a tool to guide breeding decisions so the disease is not passed on to puppies.

Shola's daughters are clear of PRA. They have just completed their training with Mountain Rescue Search Dogs England. One of them saved a man’s life three weeks ago. Another now works as a Therapy Dog.

Learn more about the test and how you can get it in the comments 👇

Photo by John Coombs.

11/09/2024

Bill & I had a fun time at training class this week when we had a chance to visit two of the male pups from our Chism x Dot litter, Hoax & Jack. Doting grandparents that we are, each pup left with a new toy.

12/08/2024

We recently drove some whelping supplies to friends in Ohio who were expecting their first litter in a goodly number of years. Since Tink (right) & Dot (left) accompanied us, we didn't want to stay long & risk upsetting their very-pregnant female English Shepherd. So pleased to learn that Larkin ended up whelping 11 healthy puppies! Congrats, Tom & Sue!

27/07/2024

Lady is now living with one of our 2018 pups, Lucky, on an organic farm in the mountains of Pennsylvania. Although we miss her terribly, the sadness is tempered by the knowledge she is loved & well cared for.

11/07/2024

Happy 6-months old to our Chism-Dot puppies! Here's golden boy Holden. His mom says he's "doing well and growing every day. He has helped Harris bring the cows in numerous times. He loves his family and is learning lots of tricks. He is very spoiled, but that is his family's fault."

28/06/2024

Puppy Hoax decides to make the best of it will he holds a down-stay for 20 minutes.

23/06/2024

When it's hotter than the hinges of Hades, Lady's advice is to get out there & make a splash. Thank goodness the Blue Ridge has several nice spring-fed streams nestled in its woods that I can put to use during this heatwave.

17/06/2024

Pupdates are always welcome, cuz no matter how old they are, in my mind, they're still our pups. Here's a pupdate about Trilby, from our 2018 Jake x Babe litter, who is a service dog for her blind owner.

"I have the most amazing dog.
"If I drop something, Trilby shows me where it is. Even if she’s in another room and doesn’t see it fall, I can call her and ask “Find it for Mommy?” and she does. Bottle caps, dropped pills, food…whatever. I don’t have to tell her what to look for. She appears to be psychic, but she actually just notices anything out of place and we’ve learned to work that to my advantage.
"Last night about bedtime I noticed some hamburgers that I’d overlooked when I took the trash out. I’d cooked them after Blaine left on Thursday, but I never got around to eating them. I grabbed them and headed back out to the bin, but I tripped down the last step, and in catching myself I sort of frisbeed them toward the fence. The compostable plate had lost all integrity after two days in the fridge and self destructed on impact. Hamburger patties ran for cover.
"It was dark. I was exhausted. I can barely see under ideal circumstances and a flashlight is no help. Blaine is off on vacation and I have no back-up close by.
"I crawled around feeling for burgers on the ground and found all but one. I had to find it so our old Rat Terrier wouldn’t and also I didn’t want it to attract Chewbacon the raccoon. I went and got Trilby.
"We walked over to the area where I thought it was. When I gave her the find- it cue she stared at me for a second and then headed back toward the porch. She stopped at the little wooden platform where Blaine keeps his grill. She sat and alerted. Sure enough, the errant burger was right there. She nudged it to make sure I saw it. I praised her and fed her a chunk of it as a reward.
"While I was genuinely amazed that she found what I was looking for so quickly, I was blown away by the fact that she didn’t devour the tasty thing when she had the chance. She has the most beautiful manners!"

17/05/2024

Marking a milestone for the puppies, as they turn 4 months old. As our vet says, now they go from looking like puppies to looking - and acting - like little dogs.