OUR KENNEL
Our "kennel" is our home, and our dogs are our pets, first and foremost. And the two grown merle American Cockers shown to the right, looking at a litter of merle Cocker puppies, are from one of our first American Cocker litters here.
However, we live in a very mild climate, where both we and our dogs are able to spend a lot of times outdoors, and we do have modern, spacious kennels and dog yards so that our dogs can spend a lot of time outdoors, building strong bodies and having a good time with each other. And because we have a number of dogs, we do rotate our dogs inside with us in the evenings, a few at a time, so that each dog gets equal "face time" with us. But here in Northcentral Florida we only get a few short frosts during the Winter, so both we and all of our dogs get to spend a lot of our time outdoors.
But despite the generally mild weather here all year long, we have to design and build rather strong kennels to protect our dogs and puppies from the various wildlife predators that visit us from time to time on our very secluded and heavily wooded six acre property, and also to protect from our sometimes violent weather.
Above is a picture of our two very sturdy kennels for dams with puppies that are at least four weeks old, and these large kennels are paved, with metal roofs, and are built several feet apart so that they do not drain into each other but drain into flower beds which filter and absorb any nutrients. These kennels are easy to keep clean and give our older puppies ample space to move and play and grow strong bones and some muscle mass, even before eight weeks old.
And once our puppies are about six weeks old we let them play in the paved puppy play yard that runs for about 20 feet in front of our two puppy kennels, so that they can really have room to run and play with each other. And we kept this play area quite narrow, so that it would be difficult for a wide winged owl to swoop down in this narrow space and try to pick up a small puppy, plus it is paved so that it can be scrubbed and bleached, as this is a play area for puppies that have just started their puppy shot series at six weeks old.
And the two puppies on the right, shown playing in our paved puppy play area, are six week old Bologco puppies, and Bologcos were the first designer mix that we developed here in 2007. Bologcos are half Bichon Bolognese and half small American Cocker, and the two puppies shown are a solid champagne color and a black masked sable--both from the same litter--and these puppies are part of our fourth generation of dogs. We have a wide variety of colors and markings in our Bologco puppies, and this designer mix, first developed here at our kennel, is registered with the American Canine Hybrid Club.
And our local wildlife predators include two foot tall Barred Owls (Strix varia) with three foot wide wing spans that are quite capable of swooping down and carrying off a six week old puppy. And we are also visited by bob cats, small bears and even alligators.
And we are persistently being visited by some type of small wild cat, which is perhaps a Jaguarundi (Felis yagouaroundi), as a feral population of escaped "pet" Jaguarundis is said to have been established here in Florida in the 1940's. Or it could even be a small Florida panther, as this area is part of their original range, as our property is in an area that is quite near the Steinhatchee National Wildlife Area and several future state parks that are still in the development stages. But whatever this wild cat is, it tangled with one of our guard dogs and really hurt her. Also the State of Florida is contemplating reintroducing the Florida panther into our area, so we are also keeping that in mind as we build our kennels, as the Florida panther does get to be a rather large cat.
So we are not comfortable letting our smaller dogs run the entire six acre property, due to the possibility of their tangling with wildlife, and we have thus designed our kennels and dog yards so that our small breeding dogs can get as much exercise as possible, while still being contained. And this makes it easier to keep them free of ticks and fleas, as we do keep the dog yards raked. And we have had to place two of our older Cocker girls into pet homes early, as both loved to dig out of the dog yards and then try to raid our neighbor's chicken coops. And as here in our very rural area of Northcentral Florida people can legally shoot marauding dogs that come onto their property after lifestock, these girls both went into pet homes early, for their own protection.
And we have four separate dog yards, so that our dogs can get as much exercise as possible, while keeping mating dogs separate. And the largest dog yard--shown above--is over 60 feet long, giving our smaller sized dogs plenty of room to run. And our kennels and dog yards are all arranged so that there is lots of shade in the Summer, but quite a bit of sun in the Winter.
And the tropical storms and hurricanes that have raked Florida in the past five years or so have certainly impressed upon us the need for sturdy shelter for our dogs, although we did have every dog inside during the two hurricanes that passed directly over our property in 2004--Frances and Jeanne--blowing down centuries old trees. We live on a slight limestone ridge, so serious flooding has not been a problem with any of our frequent storms. And our location, at about 25 miles from the Gulf, is about five miles past any possible storm surge from a category 5 hurricane hitting our coast line--or so we are told. Plus our extremely sandy soil drains very rapidly, so even heavy rains do not flood our property.
But we have had to hack out a space for our dog yards from our very heavily wooded property, as we are practically in a rain forest, with an average of over sixty inches of rain a year--that is when Florida isn't experiencing a long drought. And we live in a very special ecological niche called an "oak hammock" and our property is covered in ancient live oaks, some of which are over 500 years old.
We do not keep a lot of dogs at any one time, and we retire almost every one of our girls by placing them into pet homes. And we usually keep dogs together in breeding groups, with each male having his own kennel and dog house for his own "territory." And groups of compatible dogs not only rotate into the house, but also into the dog yards together.
And although we no longer raise Ameican Cockers, we did breed them for many years and have lots of Cocker pictures. And Darlin was our platinum buff Cocker dam who is now spayed and retired into a pet home in Deltona, but she gave us several litters of beautiful Cocker puppies, including our very small, 17 pound very unusually marked seal-merle and white Cocker male named Zecchino, who is one of seven puppies in the Cocker litter shown above. Our puppies are born in our house and during their first weeks they hear all of the regular household sounds--the TV and radio, pots banging and dishes rattling--and we pick every one of them up every few hours and and pet them, getting them used to being handled by people from the very beginning.
We start introducing solid food at about three weeks old, and by five weeks old the puppies are mostly weaned. However we never force weaning and some dams nurse for a few weeks longer. And this three week old Cocker puppy seems more interested in sleeping on the food bowl than eating anything from it.
Each new litter gets a bag of dog toys, and this black and white Cocker boy has staked his claim on the bright yellow squeaky toy. And from 2002 to 2007 we only bred Cocker litters. But in 2007 we developed our Bologco designer mix--which is half Bichon Bolognese and half small American Cocker--and in 2009 we had our first litter of Kobetans, which is half Tibetan Terrier and half small American Cocker.
But this little sable and white Cocker girl decided that the plastic bag that the toys came in was much more fun than the toys themselves. But plastic bags are dangerous for puppies, so she didn't get to play with this one for very long.
And in the height of the Summer our older pups get to play and cool off in our kiddie pools.
When the puppies are between four and five weeks old, weather permitting, we start putting our litters outside during the daytime in our "puppy kennels." The puppies have already spent the first month of their lives in the house, so they are already very accustomed to household noises and all the sights and sounds of human daily life. But we feel that young puppies should also be outdoors as much as possible, where they can really stretch out and run around and play together, so we built these two kennels for them.
We went to considerable expense to construct our puppy kennels so that our puppies would be protected from the wildlife predators that live in our woods. These kennels contain very easy to clean doghouses, and the puppies' denning instinct helps keep the dog houses clean, and they are thus started on their house-training just by being out in the puppy kennels. And while out in the puppy kennels the puppies start exploring the world and getting used to nature sounds. The picture above shows a bright late Winter day, with lots of sunshine in a puppy kennel, and the puppies were exploring the dog house for the first time. But a bit of advice: never buy a white dog house--what were we thinking!
After spending their first month together in a large dog crate, the puppies really love being able to run and play together out in our puppy kennels. We can't understand how other breeders can raise puppies without crates and kennels, as there are just so many dangers in a household for puppies--from extension cords to being stepped on--and the mess that the puppies make just has to be contained somehow to maintain some type of hygiene. For the first two weeks the dam keeps the puppies clean, but after that it's all up to us, and by the time that the puppies are a month old we are cleaning their big crate every few hours.
And even having an indoor X-pen still requires changing newspapers very frequently. So having the puppies in a very safe, outside kennel also makes it much easier for us to keep them clean, as the kennel can be disinfected and hosed down frequently and then dried before the puppies return to it. We have purchased a Wysiwash kennel cleaning system that is environmentally friendly and non-toxic to our dogs, while still being USDA approved for cleaning kennels, as it kills most germs and viruses that affect dogs and puppies. Of course breeders up in cold Northern areas do not have the nice weather that we typically have during the Winter months here in Florida.
By the time that the puppies are ready to go out into the puppy kennel, they are eating dry food and drinking more water rather than nursing, and being out in the puppy kennel helps with weaning.
By eight weeks old the puppies are ready to go to their new homes, and we take their last picture here out on our garden bench. And above is pictured a solid champagne colored Bologco boy, shown at 8 weeks old, and he is having a very good time pulling on a vine that was growing up onto the bench.
In the Summer of 2006 we totally rearranged our kennels, and built a large new kennel away from the other kennels that we used as a puppy kennel for two years--until we built our current two newer puppy kennels. Above is a picture of this big kennel with a Summer dog house and some seven week old puppies in it.
At the same time we also moved several of our other kennels in order to enlarge our dog yards and give our dogs a bit more room to run. We have arranged the kennels so that they get Winter sun and Summer shade, and as this area of Florida gets over 60 inches of rain a year, we have to roof over the kennels for protection against the elements, as well as against wildlife predators in this very rural area.
This picture shows the big kennel being construced, with our sable-merle and white boy named Max supervising. Max is in his annual Summer clip here, as we do not keep long coats on our dogs in the Summers.
This picture shows an area being cleared for new kennels at the end of our large dog yard. We have spent quite a few thousand dollars constructing sturdy kennels for our dogs, so that we can keep our dogs both safe and clean.
And this picture shows the wonderful big green machine that made short work of all of that kennel building!
All of our kennels are large, paved, and roofed over, and deliberately put at a slight slant for good drainage. This picture shows three kennels all in a row at the South end of our large dog yard, with the one closest to the camera still under construction, with no metal roof fastened over it yet, and the tag is still on the kennel itself. Unfortunately the very sturdy, igloo style dog houses that we prefer only came in white for many years--the better to reflect the sun we were told--so we are forever cleaning dog houses. At least the large dog house in the middle kennel is a nice gray color, and our latest igloo style dog house is also a nice gray color.
And we have put some distance between each kennel so that the runoff from one kennel does not go into the kennel next to it, so as to be better able to contain any germs. Plus dogs in one kennel cannot touch dogs in another kennel, as we keep our males separate from each other, as they do get a bit competitive when one of our girls is in heat, and each male is also very territorial about "his" kennel.
These kennels are all set about three feet apart, and each kennel has a gate into the large, fenced adult dog yard. We segregate our dogs not only by sex--keeping males apart from each other--but by size and age, so that no dog is totally intimidated by a larger dog. Dogs in packs have the same hierarchial instincts as wolves, with whom dogs can still mate, as dogs and wolves are the same species, so there is no such thing as a "wolf-hybrid."
All of our kennels are on a rather even but slight slope, thanks to that big green machine, and they thus drain very well after either their daily cleaning or after a rain storm. None of our kennels have ever flooded, despite our getting over ten inches of rain in one two day period during Hurricane Jeanne, which was just a few weeks after Hurricane Frances, and the ground was already water logged.
Of course when the dogs are outside they are quite protected by both the insulated dog houses and the metal roofs, and predators can not get into these kennels, as any spilled dog food does attract predators, including opossums, large racoons, armadillos and wild cats. And we have even seen a small alligator waddling down our sandy dirt road in front of our property.
It is also easier to keep our dogs free of fleas and ticks if they are not roaming our woods, and every week we have to rake all four of our dog yards so fleas and ticks will not reproduce in the leaf litter. This weekly raking is in addition to the daily cleaning of all kennels, and we pick up the dog yards at least once a day--sometimes twice a day in the heat of the Summer, and we compost our kennel waste for eventual use in our flower gardens, but never in our food gardens.
We also have immediate neighbors with horses and chickens who do not like our dogs coming onto their property, scaring their horses and/or hunting their chickens, and we do NOT want any of our dogs to get shot at a neighbor's home, which would be perfectly legal here in our rural area where livestock are protected legally from dog predators. Our dogs may be cute and perky, but dogs in general, and especially Spaniels, still have hunting instincts.
And this entire kennel setup is entirely portable, should we ever decide to build a different configuration of kennels. And in the future we hope to be able to build a separate dog house, for whelping and grooming and for securing the dogs during really bad weather.
And in 2004, when we had the eyes of both Hurricane Frances and Jeanne come directly over us, with 80 mph plus winds, all three of the kennels that we had at that time survived with only a few dents in the metal roofs where some branches had been blown down on them, whereas more enclosed kennels would have been blown over on their sides and probably crushed. We were told by some long time dog breeders in this area of Florida to construct our kennels in this way, so that the strong winds can just blow right through them, as this area is sometimes hit with severe storms coming in from the Gulf, and even hurricanes.
Our longest dog yard is almost 60 feet long, which is quite a bit of running room for such small dogs as we have here. And all of our Cocker dams are smaller than the Cocker standard, and our Tibetan Terrier girl only weighs 18 pounds. And our Kobetan designer mixed girls are all under 15 pounds. And the dogs run figure eights out in the dog yards, building actual banks, like a race track. And they play on the roots of our huge trees as if they were jungle gyms, and they have many rubber toys and balls to play with.
So all of our dogs have a lot of muscle and a lot of running endurance, and our vet always comments on their excellent physical condition. And this picture to the right shows two of our Kobetan girls that we have kept here--Dixie, a black girl with white tuxedo markings, and Trixi, an apricot girl also with white tuxedo markings--running at full tilt out in our largest dog yard--with their intact tails sticking out, up and behind their bodies, and no doubt their intact tails are helping them to keep their balance while running so fast. And these girls are shown at about 11 weeks old, so even before three months old our puppies have already developed strong little bodies.
We do use crates in the house, but we do not believe in dogs living full time in crates, and we have gone to considerable expense to ensure that our dogs get plenty of healthy exercise and fresh air and sunshine, while still being protected from the more unpleasant aspects of nature. And we do endeavor to make sure that each dog gets eight to twelve hours of exercise time in our dog yards each day, and our dogs have the muscles to prove it.
We are currently feeding Intimidator, a high performance, chicken based dog food that contains no corn or soy that we buy at our local farm and ranch supply store. This dog food is made up of 31% protein and 21% fat, and we free feed it to both our puppies and our adults, but none of our dogs are at all fat, as they all get so much exercise. A lot of high performance, hunting and herding dog breeders in our area feed this dog food to their dogs, and so far we are quite happy with it, as our dogs seem very healthy and fit on this food. Dogs are carnivores, and they need a mainly meat based diet in order to be healthy, and dog foods that contain a lot of grains are mainly "fillers" for dogs, without much nutritional value for them.
Once puppies are older, the ones that we keep for ourselves can graduate to playing out in the dog yards, but we keep dogs grouped according to age and size. These four-month-old Cocker puppies are playing near one of the gates between dog yards, and by Summertime this area is very shady.
These four-month-old merle Cocker boys are wrestling out in the dog yard, and for some reason all of the dogs like to hang out near the gates.
And these seven week old champagne colored Bologco puppies are shown playing in our paved puppy play area in front of our two puppy kennels in the slanting sunshine of an early Spring day.
But during the hottest parts of Summer day--and here in Florida we have almost six month long "Summers"--the dogs like to hang out on the cool pavers in the deep shade of the kennels.
Our property was originally an old hunting and fishing camp located on six acres of virgin live oak forest, and our area is very close to the huge Steinhatchee Wildlife Winderness Area, and is often quite difficult to find, sitting back on winding sandy dirt roads. And we have dozens of huge old oak trees, dripping with Spanish Moss, with their branches covered with Resurrection Ferns and Green Fly Orchids, which block out the hot Summer sun from the forest floor. But in the Winter time we do get peeks at the beautiful blue skies that we have here in Northcentral Florida for most of the year.
Our climate is very mild, and we are able to grow sub-tropicals such as hardy bananas, Satsuma oranges and Meyer lemons in the ground here. The above picture is of a small stand of gingers--called Curcumas--that are only two years old, but are at least six feet tall, and they are spreading rapidly. We have quite a lot of gingers growing in the ground, and although all of our gingers are killed down by our rare frosts every Winter, they all come back up in the late Spring every year.
Our property is heavily wooded, and all of the trees provide quite a bit of cooling shade during our hot Florida Summers.
We own a legal kennel here under all zoning, local, state and national laws, and we have obtained all licenses, etc, that are required pertaining to our operation of the kennel. All of our dogs are regularly treated for all of the parasites that are so common here in Florida, and they receive all necessary shots and innoculations. All of our puppies and dogs are sold with a health certificate issued by our veterinarian, as required by Florida law, and we do collect sales tax on all sales, again as required by Florida law on all sales of pets.
CONTACT INFORMATION
WE ARE LOCATED IN THE NORTHCENTRAL FLORIDA AREA, just a few miles from the Gulf of Mexico. We can be contacted by E-mail at:
jolie.chiens@gmail.com
"It's not really important that Tip was a good doog to hunt over, but it is important to me that she was a good dog to be with. She was my pal. We enjoyed being with each other. I don't know that you can ask for much more."
Gene Hill
