CoCo called Misty at home came to us as a grown girl from Wexford.
She was bred by Sean Maguire in Drogheda, out of Shady Mist by Wizard Of Enrale.
Misty is a dear old soul a lovely blue a little soft coated perhaps, that takes more time to groom but she doesn't seem to mind.
She is active and agile and always wants lots of love.
When the time was right, she was mated in 2004 to Wicklow Lad Of Gerrardstown "Fern" owned and bred by Ian Mc Cullloch in Co.Meath.
She is an excellent mother and whelped 8 pups who all survived. Her 2nd mating in 2005 produced 4 exceptional pups who all thrived.
At that time we lived in Co. Louth but moved to Co. Roscommon late that year and have been off the Glen scene for a while, but now thanks to the wonders of mobile broadband we are back.
In the meantime however we have lost contact with many of the owners of our puppies and would love to reestablish contact.
One of Misty's 2nd litter, Bailielands Caoimhe was rehomed to a couple surnamed Baxter, prefix Wyldewyche and qualified for Crufts in 2007.
Big shock, only for wonders of the internet I never would have known she had been rehomed.
Also in Misty's 2nd litter, Bailielands Golden Girl, who we do know the whereabouts of! With the Thames in Roscommon, Golden Girl won best puppy in the Glen class on Paddy's Day Show 2006, well done Freddy and "Brockie"!
Anyone else out there with a Bailielands pup, if we have lost contact, call me! lm.mcneill@gmail.com
Shannon came to live with us in 2005, shortly before the move.
A dear old sweety, she is my favourite girl for a quiet cuddle, safe with other dogs (except for Misty who started the feud...) and livestock she potters about amiably loving a good old roll in the long grass and to bask in the sun.
She has now entered retirement from all duties and is a fulltime housepet. Shannon sleeps at the foot of our bed at night and during the day accompanies us in the car or about the kennels. What a good girl she is!
She is a lovely slate blue with very short wee legs and an easily groomed coat.
She bred a superb litter in 2006 by Bruce, among them Amhain a wheaten bitch now 1yr old(june 2007).
She has whelped her last litter on June 23 2007. This is her last litter now leaving her free to enjoy her retirement.
Shannon safely delivered 5 puppies, 4 blue/brindle dogs and 1 wheaten bitch. She was hearty and well and birthed the puppies quickly and without any noticeable signs of distress to the babies.
3 blue/brindle dogs and the wheaten bitch survived.
The IKC papers arrived after only 5 days! And the names applied for as listed on this page were granted! Which is a great relief as they already answered to these names...
Many many thanks to the IKC, this application for registration was only recieved by them on 17th August and they issued the certs on 22nd Aug.!! A hundred thanks for helping us out so quickly.
Bart, Hugh, Brendan and Sandy have departed to their new homes.
The babies:
Bailielands Brendan, a large strong effervescent pup with quite a hard coat at this age, a clasic looker with considerable early gameness, living near the Glen itself!
Bailielands Hugh, a large, cobby, strong and gentle pup with a thick abundant coat, gone to Italy!
Bailielands Bart, a smaller cobby perky and very playful pup with a thick abundant coat, living in Ranelagh, Dublin.
Bailielands Sandy, a medium sized cobby gentle and very pretty female pup with a thick reddish wheaten coat, living in Glencree, Co. Wicklow.
Bruce is the sire and Amhain a full sister from last year.
We should have started this page with Tess "Sooty" or she will kill me, in fact she is probably offended we didn't put her page 1st of all.
Sooty of all the Glens is such a softy, but that is my fault for completely spoiling her.
Bred by Tommy Conway in Co. Wicklow, she came to us in 2003 as a bewildered ball of black fluff, howled incessantly every night for a month despite all best efforts to settle her; hot water bottles, ticking clocks, radios, companion pup etc. until I did worst possible thing and took her into bed with me, yes I know, rod for own back etc. But come on a whole month!
Well that set the tone for Sooty's development, so now she is the 2nd child of the family.
She is a typical Ballyfoyle Glen in type, short legged, stocky, big head. A lovely silver blue she is a little soft coated and not the easiest to groom, her coat needs to be kept quite short to be tidy, with length it mats quickly.
Lots of quirks in her personality, she speaks on command, and loves belly rubs obsessively.
Favourite things include very big marrowbones, rolling on her back and going Arrr Arrr Arrrr..., going mad Glen and doing laps of the yard until she has to have a lie down, her Glen Babies, going in the car and wanting lifted over ditches as she doesn't like water.
She was hard to breed and only has 2 pups in her last litter by Bruce surviving out of 4.
These pups we kept after all the hassle getting them here and called them the Glen Babies, Sona and Sraotha, but more of them later.
Sooty is a game dog and has been worked to ground. What we learned from the experience was that although she is very willing she even at 12 1/2" high is too bulky, low slung and awkward to escape punishment underground. Sooty is of typical show build and based on our experiences with Sooty and other typical show build glens and the experiences of others in the same vein, we came to realise the show Glen is not built to work EVEN if he/she wants to.
A male dog of similar height is Wolfie but so much lighter in build that he can strike like a snake.
So we came to see the wisdom of STRONG enough, Big enough, for we have seen that in Glens we all fell into the MORE of a good thing is better mentality, but it is not.
If you cannot work a Glen it is in danger of becoming something else and weirdly an old book i found recently had some lovely black and white photos of working Sealyhams and i thought they were old working Glens!!
Which makes sense because bred for similar purposes there would be certain convergences of build given common quarries!
The difference in appearance between show type and working type Glens is profound, and in a breed only ever bred for work in the past, the heavy, bulky monsters called Glens now would not have been accepted in the past.
Cailin or Cuddle-een is Bruce's litter sister.
A really lovely girl what a delight to me she is. As good and gentle as Bruce she is a really nice working type bitch, dark slate blue and hard coated she is active and agile and an eager hunter. She is happy to follow us around all day or stay up at night on rat and fox patrol around the poultry pens, where she takes up her station and cunningly lies in wait for night raiders. Mind you if she is on the night patrol we don't expect her to follow us around all day afterwards, she goes to bed!
Cailin is an outdoorsy dog big time, she loves to go down the bogs and check out the trails, and will happily wade through the shucks and streams.
Cailin was mated to Feohanagh Tadhg, a blue bred by the late Christy Hartnett. Tadhg is out of Feohanagh Eiri Na Greine by Mr. Blue. 7 puppies were born on Aug 23rd.
There are lots of pictures of Cailin in the Glen Gallery.
A wonderful event took place on Aug 23rd, Cailin was safely delivered of 7 puppies that night, assisted by Tommy and Bruce!
Cailin would not let us take Bruce away, she was sleeping in her whelping quarters for almost 2 weeks, but went bonkers whenever she was left on her own, without Bruce.
Tommy tells us that Bruce assisted her during the birth by licking her and the babies, and provided assurance and apparently comfort to Cailin during the event, but got chased by her when the birth was complete and she wanted to sleep! Amazing isn't it! Also apparently when Cailin was very uncomfortable in the beginning he acted just like an anxious expectant father by getting quite worried himself, whining and running after her. Pity I missed all this but needed to be looking after mum and Peter that night of course. On talking to a friend who bred hybrid wolves she described the father's active participation in the birth as very similar to Bruce and Cailin's experience. Incredible, dogs are amazing!
One of cailin's pups was born dead, sadly and there was 5 bitches and 1 dog.
Cailin was very well the next morning, in great form, puppies all sucking and she left the bed and went out to the toilet without protest.
By the 6th of Oct the 6 puppies and Cailin were all well. Cailin was heart and full of energy, doing very well, on high protein feed and meat feeds daily. The puppies abandoned the stable then and started lurking in the hay bales outside! Puppies were hearty and strong, now feeding well on soaked Red Mill's Racer in Lamlac, fresh tripe and red meat dusted in bran and wheatgerm. By 6 and 1/2 weeks old they were vaccinated with their first 8 in 1 Procynon shot, microchipped and registration begun.
At 8 weeks, Cailin's milk started to wind down and the pups were very well grown for their age.
The Babies:
Bailielands Lexi, a wheaten female, the biggest, boldest and brightest of the litter, now in Dublin!
Bailileands Athas, a soft coat blue female, very well built, the second biggest and boldest, now in America!
Bailielands Siochan, a hard coat blue male, well built, still with me! (Feb 2008)
Bailielands Siamsa, a hard coat blue female, only up the road in Croghan!
Bailielands Croidin,a hard coat blue female.
Bailielands Saoirse, a hard coat blue female, sadly deceased before registration, we have named Sooty's only 2007 pup for her.
Dubhie (pronounced Dovey) or Dubheen (Doveen) is out of Gerrardstown Delight by Bruce.
She was born March 2006 and after being sold on returned to us in May this yr. We were glad to have her back as her mum was out of Shannon by Knockroe Big Boy.
She is a hardcoated working type Glen with plenty of oomph. Still rangy as her mum was at that age we are still feeding her up plenty as she is a slow developer. Her mum did not muscle up well until 2 and 1/2 yrs and then she was some dog.
She likes to tear about the yard at full speed and does everything at a gallop. When she has put on some serious condition we may show her at the club shows.
In October 2007, Dubhie is gaining weight rapidly, filling out nicely and is being walked out over the bogs weekly, building muscle and confidence. She is turning out to be one of my favourites, due to her exceptionally gamey nature. Her coat is beautiful now, well groomed and trimmed, she is a lovely silver blue shot with wheaten hairs.
She is a smallish Glen i must measure her and weigh her, but she is so active and feisty and inquisitive. She like Wolfie has made her official debut and has made a good start as a gamey, intense, hard biting dog.
Not a pretty pretty girl she is eye catching still due to her exceptional va voom which will be tested over the winter.
now in december 2007 she is in season and i MUST breed her to Wolfie brecause here is a combination of two exceptional 100% working Glens both carrying the apparently influential Big Boy Factor (wink wink) ;-)
Amhain ( Aah-waan) was born to Shannon and Bruce in June 06 and was always a big girl. Her name means The One and she was the only wheaten in a litter where everyone wanted a wheaten bitch and she is mine!
She is a very strong pale straw wheaten with a hard coat. Very soft and affable in temperament she is a total big softy. Very playful and giddy she is a great character and a very good eater, in fact she is fat and was always a fatty. It will be interesting to see as she puts on a year or two what is actually under the fat! Appears to be good bone anyway.
Pictures in the Glen Gallery show her at 1 yr in June06. A bit wet and muddy, she is, but you can get an idea of substance especially if you compare her to Cailin, and she is just 12 months.
She came into season at the end of June, which ran its course naturally. Phew!! As some female Glens may have very strange cycles.
Amhain has shown a lot of promise as a working glen at this early age, responding favourably to early tests, we'll be watching her.
Pretty Penny is Wolfie's litter sister and another recent addition like Dubhie. She was rehomed to her breeder from Wales who offered her to us.
We were glad to have her as we were very pleased to have Wolfie.
She is a tidy little bitch, very light silver blue, very pretty and much more civilised than Wolfie. She has settled in well and is another galloper, tearing around the yard at full speed.
I really do have good hopes for her and she is very sweet.
Sona (Sun- ah) and Sraotha (Shh-ray-ha) loosely meaning Happy and Sneezy as Sooty their mum is occasionally called Dopey (sets the tone for any future litters of Sooty, eh?).
The Glen Babies are now 12 months old. Sona is slightly bigger, hard coated and resembles Bruce her da a little more than Sraotha who is very like Sooty! There was a stage around 7 to 11 months i was quite disappointed with their development as they seemed so ungainly, as if made up of bits and pieces of different glens, kind of 'franken' Glens!
But reassuringly around the year mark their bodies, necks and chests started to 'grow into' their legs and heads. By now they look a lot better to my eye. Sona is lower slung on the leg and longer in the body with a hard dark slate blue coat well sprinkled with bright silver hairs. Sraotha is higher on the leg but thicker in the neck and chest area than her sister and shorter in the body. We'll give them another 6 months.
They are quite mad and very funny, hours are still spent every day playing with their mum, who still loves them.
Sona is easy to groom with her hard coat but still fusses a little. Sraotha takes more time but seems to enjoy it more and stands very well.
They still answer to Glen Babies, which is handy if you want to put the two of them to bed, they can be called together.
