2015 Calendar Preview

Better late than never.....  Our 2015 calendar is now available.  To order, you can either send Liz an email message if you are in Canada ($20 Can plus shipping) or the UK (12 pounds sterling, including the shipping) or you can order them directly from Cafepress (this is the best options for folks in the USA), using this link: http://www.cafepress.com/blazingstar

Here is a preview of the cover and inside pages:

Bad Blogger

Now that winter has arrived, we have a lot of catching up to do with Blazingstar news.  With a spring litter and all of the usual summer activities, our blog fell by the wayside, but we will endeavour to catch up over the next few weeks.

Stay tuned...

The Lethbridge & District Kennel Club Show

From left to right:  Amber, Bow, Minne (who came all the way from Utah!), Odin, Puffin and Sibley.

The Lethbridge show saw a family reunion of 5 of the 8 Rain litter puppies and their dam, Puffin!  What a pleasure to be able to see so many of them together at 7 months old.   Not to mention the fun of meeting up with their owners and families again.

In other show news......

Cava went back into the Rally Obedience ring after a long break and picked up her final two Rally Advanced legs.

Tinbie's son Blue (Fall Flight's Blue Rodeo) picked up his second CD leg with a nice high score.

Sibley (Blazingstar Rain Bird) picked a whopping 6 points from the 6-9 month class.  Her lovely sister, Amber (Blazingstar Rain Delay) won reserve several times.  Larkin (Blazingstar Black Bubbly WC) surprised us all on the last day by winning Best of Opposite over her mother, Cava, for her first 3 championship points.

Lync (Blazingstar Galwey WC) won another 3 points and is now just one point away from finishing his Canadian Championship.

Gwen and Brooklyn made their debuts in the Junior Handling ring (with Puffin and Bow) and both did a fantastic job for their first time in the ring.

But best of all was the time spent with friends, in and around the show ring.

Puffin Puppies

Puffin is expecting puppies in early April. Our original plan of breeding her to Tygwyn Tawney Porthos did not pan out, as the semen we brought over was not viable when thawed.  That was a very disappointing, expensive and stressful discovery.  A very quick decision was made to breed her to Rainesgift Seymour as we had semen stored from him at the same clinic.  Thank-you to Hayley for allowing us to use Seymour. We have long admired him.  

Puffin was confirmed pregnant by ultrasound on March 7th.  We saw 4 puppies in one frame and our vet thinks that there are at least 6 in total.  But ultrasounds are not very good at predicting litter numbers in dogs. 

Here is Puffin with 3.5 weeks to go.  She doesn't look too different from the side, but when viewed from the top or behind, she is starting to look significantly wider than usual!  She remains happy and fit and very keen on chasing the ground squirrels that are now up and about!

Songdog Puppies

Congratulations to Brian and Katy on their litter at Songdog kennel in Indiana.  The proud mother is Keetch (UH HRCH Songdog Red Flag Warning CDX SH WC), daughter of Annie (Tinbie's sister).  Sire is Pinch (CH MACH2 Ardrossan Inchmarnock UDX TD MH WCX **). Apparently Annie is taking great interest in her grandpuppies and has been helping look after them while Keetch takes much needed breaks.  

Anne counts her grandpuppies

You can follow the progress of the puppies here

In other news from Indiana, Annie completed her Upland Hunter title in one weekend about a week before the puppies were born.  Congratulations Annie! She is now UH HRCH Blazingstar Beaufort CDX MH WCX.

New Blazingstar Champion - Willow

Huge congratulations to Willow and Christine on finishing Willow's championship at the Alberta Kennel Club show in January!

Willow is now Ch Blazingstar Brown Buffalobean.  She is Begbie and Lupine's daughter.

She's a beautiful, sassy and fun little dog that reminds us very much of her grandmother, Tally.

Meet Larkin - Blazingstar Black Bubbly

We have been terrible bloggers.  Having two litters, even small litters, at the same time, was overwhelming and our attentions were 100% focused on raising the puppies last Fall.  It's time to play catch-up!

Which means that we should introduce Larkin, Begbie and Cava's single puppy, born on September 11th, 2013.

Raising a single puppy was a hair raising and stressful experience but we all made it through.  Dogs really aren't designed to have just one puppy so it presented many challenges such as a c-section, mastitis, over-mothering and over-feeding. We were fortunate to have the older litter (Kona's puppies), which meant that we had some good socialization opportunities for Larkin as she grew up.  But a 2.5 week age gap is a chasm in developmental terms, so even that was not straightforward and had to be closely supervised.  When she was 8 - 10 weeks old, we still had Lync here from the older litter and the two of them became great pals and playmates. Between Lync, Cava and our other adult dogs, Larkin was able to learn the appropriate social skills.

We did everything we could think of to make sure that Larkin didn't grow up to be too "odd" as a result of the lack of litter mates and for the most part she seems to be a fairly normal puppy.  She was never fond of being picked up or held, but we have made huge steps there.  As a young puppy she did not show a lot of potential to be a show dog for various reasons, but as she grows, she is looking more promising.  We do wonder if the lack of constant physical contact with litter mates affects early development.  The good news is that at 4.5 months old, she looks and acts like a normal flat-coat puppy.  She was a very feisty and independent puppy and appears be continuing that way as she grows up.

Larkin and Cava

Larkin at about 6 weeks old

Larkin and Lync and a stick

3.5 months old and before her first haircut!