Big news ....

We bred our girl Willow (Giants Dance Poinciana) to the handsome Milo.  If all goes well we should have puppies in early February.  This litter could provide us with a rainbow of colors -- brindle, black and white and red.  Here are a couple of pictures of Willow taken in September.





Willow





Willow



Here is a link to a picture of Milo (CH Lynn Farm's What Not to Love)
http://www.stubbyacresfarm.com/Dogs.html

Here is a link to the pedigree of the litter:
http://www.cardiped.net/testmating.php?sire=81446&dam=83894

Group 1 Picture

I just received this picture of Gloria from the Benton AR show back in October.  This is her winning the Herding Group 1.  I am proud of this girl.



Gloria continues her winning ways

It has been a fun ride in the dog show world this past few weeks for me.  Gloria has exceeded all expectations by being a Herding Group placer a few weeks ago at the NW Arkansas KC show.  Here is a picture of me and Gloria showing off the beautiful Group 3 yellow ribbon.  I am proud to say that I handled her to this win myself.  Or maybe I should say that she won despite me being her handler.  Either way I was thrilled.

 

 

 

Then this past weekend at the Benton Arkansas KC show she did even better.  She became a Herding Group winner!  Unbelievable.  I have been show dogs since 1984 (yes I am old) and this is the first dog that I have had that won a group.  I am thrilled beyond belief.  In the three weekends she has been shown as a Special -- she has accumulated almost all of her points needed to be a Grand Champion.  The amazing part is that she is only 18 months old.  This has been a fun ride already and she is still a baby.  Here is Gloria showing off her blue ribbon with handler Linda Williams who does a fantastic job with all of my dogs.

 



 





Cybil's New Home ....

Cybil went to her forever home yesterday.  She is now in residence with new mom Janet and her Pembroke brother Woody.  By all accounts they have all hit it off famously.  I am sure she is ruling the roost!

 

 





Gideon

I have made the difficult to decision to place Gideon.  As you can see by the pictures he is a great looking boy who easily finished his championship.   He is a very sweet  --- but, it does take him a while to warm up to new situations.   Gideon would do best as an only dog in a house without kids.  He has been around my young grandkids -- but does get nervous with loud noises and a lot of bustling activity.

I would consider placing him intact to a serious Cardigan fancier.   But would equally happy with him going to a special home as a neutered pet. Email me at mark.clarke@cox.net if you are interested.

Happy update

Happy is the girl that we kept for the Cybil X Dickens litter born in late March.  We are really pleased with how this girl is turning out.  Here are a couple of pictures of her practicing to be a show dog. 

 

 

 

 

The picture below was taken at the Little Rock, Arkansas where she is enjoying a ringside visit with handler extraordinaire Linda Williams.  Linda is taking Happy on the road a few weeks to get used to the sights and sounds of dog shows.

 

 





Molly update

A few months ago, Molly went to her new home.  Today I received the following email from her mom Kristine.

     Hi Mark--

     I just wanted to write you to let you know that Molly is doing great! She is so
     wonderful and we are so happy that she is part of family. I will never be able
     to fully tell you how much joy she has brought us. Thank you so much!!

There are definitely ups and downs with showing dogs -- but emails like this -- make it all good.

Kristine shared this picture of Molly waiting for breakfast.  Doesn't Molly have great ears?

Her name is Jolly

This pretty girl -- Jolly is looking for a great home.  She turns 11 weeks old tomorrow.  She is up to date with her shots and is well on her way to being crate and lead trained.  Jolly is a sweet fluffy brindle.  Her father is the famous Champion Dickens and her dam is the ultra sweet / smart Champion Cybil.  See information on earlier blogs about Dickens and Cybil.  Here were a few pictures taken of Jolly this evening.

A rare moment when Jolly is actually being still

 



Jolly getting ready to pounce on her unsuspecting sister

 

 

Something has caught Jolly's eye

 

 

Good news --- Jolly has been placed with the Rowlett family in Texas.



Happy

Happy (aka Ana) is another puppy from the Cybil X Dickens.  She is officially registered as Giants Dance Because I am Happy.  This girl is personality plus.  We have hopes for her.

Happy playing with the tennis ball

Happy trying to escape !
 



Gloria's win picture

Here is a win picture of Gloria taken last month.  She won a 4 point major at Columbia, MO.  Linda Williams is handling her to this nice win.



Gloria is now a CHAMPION !!

The big news from weekend before last was that Gloria finished her championship.  She needed only three single points to finish -- and earned them the hard way -- by winning 1 point on each day -- Friday, Saturday and Sunday.  I don't have Gloria's show picture yet --- but, here is a casual picture I took a few weeks ago.  I think she turned out really nice.



Rapunzel / Nia

Rapunzel now called Nia has found a great home with Rachel and her son in Massachusetts.  Here are a few pictures that I snapped yesterday of the lucky girl.  I have decided to hold on to the other two girls for a couple of months to see how they turn out.  Nia will leave for her new home in a couple of weeks

Meet me in St Louie .....

Yesterday we returned home after several days in St Louis which was this year's sight of the Cardigan National Speciality show.  This week long event draws close to 500 Cardigans competing in all types of events -- obedience, agility, herding and conformation.  Although I had attended the National before -- I never took a dog to compete with.  

 

 

This year I decided to enter both Gloria and Gideon in conformation.  Gloria did really well by placing in second in a class of twenty one 12 - 15 month old girls.  You will notice that the rosette looks a little shop worn.  Molly decided that she needed a new chew toy and chewed the rosette portion off. 










Speaking of Molly -- she met her new owners Kristine and Jason from Illinois.  She decided that she really liked them and wanted to go home with them.  As a result Molly is now a resident of the great state Illinois.  Below is a picture of Kristine, Jason and Molly.  You will note that Molly is not in the picture.  That was because she was twirling around when I snapped the picture.  Since she wasn't putting her best paw forward I cropped her out.  I did add a better picture of Molly girl.  Since I am not a Photoshop expert you will have to use your imagination and just believe that she was on the other end of the leash that Kristine is holding.


 

 

Although Gideon failed to win any ribbons at the National he did garner a few nice compliments.  As a result he is going to be a father again someday soon.  The lucky girl's name has been withheld until the new owner announces.

 

 

 

 

 









Meet Rapunzel ....

My 3 year old granddaughter is a big Disney princess fan.  She has decided to name the puppies after her favorite princesses --- Ana and Elsa (from Frozen) and Rapunzel (from Tangled).  Unfortunately although Rapunzel is a cute girl --- I am not sure that she is aptly named.  You can see by the pictures below she is a cutie (apologies for the fuzzy picture) -- but the tail doesn't quite live up to "Rapunzel expectations".  Remember Cardigans are the Corgis with a tail!  As a result Rapunzel is available to a loving pet home.  If you are interested in this cutie feel free to email me at mark.clarke@cox.net.
Rapunzel and her sisters are 2 weeks old.

 

 





Sad news ....

Unfortunately we lost two of the puppies.  Despite heroics from my vet and a couple of all nighters by me --- the tiny girl and the boy didn't make it.  The little girl was not a surprise as she was stressed after the section -- but, the boy was totally unexpected.   Saturday night I found him in the corner of the whelping box and his mama had no interest in him.  Despite around the clock supervised feeding it just wasn't meant to be.  This is one of the heartaches of being a breeder.  We now are focused on the 3 girls that are remaining.  They all seem hale and hearty and Cybil is being an extraordinary mama dog.  I will post pictures of the babies tomorrow.

Cybil X Dickens puppies are here

Via emergency C-section Cybil delivered 5 brindle puppies last night -- 4 girls and 1 boy.  The boy is the biggest of the litter and there is one very tiny girl.  We had scheduled a C-section for today -- but, Cybil (and Mother Nature) thought that was to long to wait.  So far, everyone is nursing, and Cybil is recovering as expected.  However the first few days are critical and I always worry about the tiny pups.  If you don't mind say a quick prayer for the pups and Mama Cybil.

 



Planned Litter

Today I took Cybil (Champion Notz Cybil Liberty) for her 30 day post breeding ultrasound.  I thought she was probably pregnant, due to her expanding waist line, but was surprised that the vet saw 5 or 6 puppies.

Although the breeding had been planned for a while every thing that could go wrong with the breeding seemed to happen.  The Reader's Digest version of the story was that Cybil came into heat early, needed to be bred on a Sunday (stud dog in Florida -- Cybil in Arkansas), semen prep kit did not reach the stud dog owner as planned and she had to use an outdated kit, stud dog escaped the fenced in yard prior to collection and when found was overheated,  semen arrived and was implanted on Tuesday a couple of days post "optimum" day, etc.  Needless to say I was less than optimistic that Cybil would get pregnant.

I guess the good Lord is smiling on me as I have wanted to do this breeding for a long time.  Cybil had produced a very nice puppy girl from her last litter that has already done some big winning in her young show career (see blogs about Gloria).  I was really anxious to breed Cybil for her last litter to Dickens (Grand Champion Twinroc Santa Paws) -- who is a proven producer of some very nice dogs.  His most famous offspring being the beautiful Coco that recently won the Herding Group at the world famous Westminster Dog show.

Here is the pedigree for the litter. 

Cybil is due on or around the 28th of March.  I am expecting brindle and red puppies.  If you are interested in a puppy feel free to email me at mark.clarke@cox.net.  At the earliest these puppies would be available to go to their new home some time in June.  All pet puppies are sold on a strict spay / neuter contract.

Cybil

 

 



 

Dickens

Introducing Molly

Here is a picture that I took tonight of Molly who is the girl that we kept from the Sadie X Gideon litter.  She is growing on nicely --- and has personality plus!  Molly is owned and loved by my son Adam and daughter in law Jessica.  They have agreed to let me show her ---- so, we will be getting her out to a few local shows in the Spring.  She will be a fun girl to show.  She is 15 weeks old.