Balou (Phanuel de l'Esprit de bonté, was best puppy at the Dutch Club Match this weekend! He had hard competition from his brother Frits, who was placed as no 4. In the female class Luna and Yeye competed together and Yeye was placed as no 3, and Luna no 4! A fantastic result for all of Yatzie's children! Well done!!!!

During the past two years my spare time has been filled with writing a book about the barbet, with co-author Brigitte Waller-Rengelink. In April I started making the book design and a few weeks ago the book was finally ready to be sent to the printing house. Now we are eagerly waiting for the delivery of the books which should be the coming week if everything goes well! The book is made in two language versions: English and Dutch. With the help of many barbet lovers from all over the world we were able to gather hundreds of photos of different barbets! THANK YOU! See more about the book here: www.barbetbook.com and www.barbetboek.nl. 

As much as I want to thank everyone that has contributed with photos I want to thank Yatzie and Moët for their patience with me during this work. They were an active part of the production by lying next to me or sitting on my lap while I was writing and designing on my Mac, to get just a little bit of the attention they were used to get -  and to bless my work! 

During the last phase of proof reading, the book came along with me and the dogs everywhere, even on our walks! I would sit down somewhere reading, reading and reading while the dogs were running around and coming to check on me once in a while... Even to the beach I brought the big bunch of papers! Now things are back to normal and I am enjoying more time with my beloved dogs again - not to mention time with my darling husband and children of course. Writing and designing a book while working full time (and having puppies during the same period) is not to recommend ;-), but it has been fantastic to write about my passion, and to present that passion with text and images, spread by spread, in this book. I hope you will enjoy the result!  I'll let you know when the book has arrived!

Beli (Ambeloui de l'Esprit de bonté), Yatzie's daughter, is pregnant! She was mated to Billabong de Pré de Redy on Sept 21, and puppies are expected end of November. Beli is a lovely working barbet, with a soft character and a silky, wavy barbet fur. She lives in Poland with her devoted owners Irek and Marzena. We are looking very much forward to see the sweet barbets from this special combination. See more about the development on Irek's website: www.barbets.pl

If you are interested in a puppy from this litter you may contact the owner on e-mail: ireneusz.szczepanski@barbets.pl

Moët is crazy about water! Every day she takes a dip once, twice or three times. She flies into the water, never checking out the ground or how cold it is first! And she really needs to cool off, because I have never seen such an active dog - she runs like a gazell over the fields and through the forests, never seeming to get tired. After a refreshing dip in the water, she again takes off on her investigations of the wild nature where she belongs!

Today we did some ring training with Yeyezel, our puppy from Yatzie's second litter, and her co-owner Wouter. Yeyezel will be shown for the first time at the Barbet Clubmatch at the end of October. She is a very lively young dog, 8 months old now, that still finds it really hard to stand still and follow around in the ring when other interesting things are going on around her! She is a lovely barbet though and hopefully the judges are used to this kind of behaviour in young dogs. We will practice some more before the Clubmatch!

It was a lovely warm fall day and we took off with the doggies to the large dunes in Soesterduinen. It is such a wonderful place for both dogs and their owners, and after a long walk we sat down all together in the sand under  a tree. I am so happy to be able to spend more time with my doggies now that the barbet book is written and designed - a challenging and wonderful project I undertook that asked a lot of time from me over the past 6 months (or in fact 2 years..)! It is being printed now! I will tell you more soon!

Enjoy some shots of Moët posing in different angles by our rental house in the Ardennen!

What could be more precious in this world than real quality time with your dogs - and hubby;-) ? Bart and I took off to the Ardennen for a long weekend. We rented a very cosy house in the forest and were quite lucky with the weather. I just share some impressions from our days there.