Puffin Wins Best of Breed

While Cava won the points on Friday and Sunday, Saturday was Puffin's day! At her first show she was awarded Best of Breed from the 6-9 month puppy class over some lovely dogs. The win gave her 3 points towards her championship.

Puffin showed quite well, given that it was her first show. The mats for the "down & back" had a strip of duct tape half way down - Puffin seemed to think this was a jump and she jumped it every time! The ringside spectators found this very amusing.

Kona, Blazingstar Brown Coneflower RN, was reserve winners female both days and Willow, Blazingstar Brown Buffalobean, won the Open Female class.

Thank-you to Julia for helping me show Puffin and holding Cava and to Pat and Janna for showing Willow. We had our hands full!

Ch Bramatha Under Pressure

Cava was not terribly cooperative about holding her ribbons, she was being rather goofy!

The best part of a dog show is making new friends, even if it requires moving your pen closer to the neighbours.....

At the Evelyn Kenny show in Calgary, Cava finished her championship. She won Winners Female / Best of Opposite on both Friday and Sunday. Cava just turned 13 months old. We are very proud of how well she has done in the show ring so far. Sunday's judge kept raving about how beautiful her head is. Cava loves to show and it's hard to keep her out of the ring, as our friend Julia discovered when Cava kept trying to drag her back in! Thank-you to Julia for holding Cava while I showed Puffin and then showing Puffin for me in the winners class while I showed Cava. Cava was completely owner-handled to her championship by Liz.

The photos don't really do her justice, but it's all we have for now. We will try to get some better pictures of her soon.

Thank-you so much to Sarah Whittaker for sending us such a lovely dog. We are very excited for her future!

Good News / Disappointing News

The disappointing news is that Maisy is not pregnant. We are not sure what went wrong, but likely either wrong timing or just that they are both inexperienced and it took them a bit too long to figure out what they were doing! We had Tinbie's semen checked, collected and frozen a couple of weeks ago and everything looked great there. We now have 5 breedings from Tinbie frozen and saved for the future.

The good news is that Annie has been confirmed pregnant, with at least 5 or 6 puppies. Puppies are due at Songdog in Indiana on February 15th.

Annie with 2 weeks to go.

Master Agility Dog Title for Lindy!

Lindy, Rod & Judge Renee Hughes

Lindy completed her Master Agility Dog title at their first AAC trial of the year! Congratulations to Lindy and Rod - they are a truly amazing team. It's hard to keep up with all of Lindy's titles, but I think her name goes something like this now:

HR Blazingtstar Linnaeus CDX JH WCI RE AgIS AgIJWWS CGN MADC

Lindy was also one of the top flat-coats in obedience for 2010, placing 5th. Well done!

International Friends, Flat-coats, Flickr and Art

One of the best things about owning flat-coated retrievers is the many friends we've made around the world. From long-time breeders that have trusted us with lovely dogs to owners who share common interests, we have met and made many new friends both in North American and overseas. While the initial "meeting" is often online these days, we have also had the opportunity to meet up with many of these friends in person. Some of these friendships have grown out of the photo-sharing site, Flickr, where we have been posting photos for 6 years now.

Last week we received a surprising and very cool email from such a friend in Finland. Anna and her husband Ramin own 3 flat-coats and a golden retriever and we've known them through Flickr and through their blog (Life of Jalo) for a few years. I think their blog is one of the longest running and most comprehensive flat-coat blogs out there (check it out at http://lifeofjalo.com/)

Anna is a quilter. She chose a photo of ours of Teva to make this absolutely gorgeous quilt. It was pretty amazing to receive photos of the quilt in our email. The detail is incredible. Anna writes "It includes 163 pieces of fabric. It took about 20 hours to quilt (fur, background, duck). I used almost half a mile thread while doing this. The eye is made of 4 pieces (plus some slight coloring with fabric paint). I'm crazy and spent 5 hours for making the eye."


We think the quilt is absolutely stunning:

Their young flat-coat, Topi, looks slighty intimidated by the huge liver dog and mallard!

Cava - 1 Year Old

This photo was taken of the Bramatha "Under" litter by our friend Hayley when she went to visit them. We are pretty sure that the puppy that is mid-air must have been Cava!

Today Cava (Bramatha Under Pressure) turned 1 year old. In some ways she still seems very much a puppy, but in other ways she is wise and smart beyond her years (or um, year). In the 9 months she has been with us, Cava has stolen our hearts. Her spark and sass has helped to fill some of the void left by Pipit and Tally. While all of our flat-coats have been born with springs, and like to leap in the air and jump up, Cava is the leapiest, jumpiest flat-coat we've ever had. She carefully manages to avoid hitting us in the face by a few millimetres (most times).... She is agile, graceful and strong.

Thank-you so much to her breeder, Sarah Whittaker, for letting this little spitfire come to Canada to live with us.

The Seabirds Turn Six Months Old

It is hard to believe that they are already 6 months old!

Puffin has been a very easy puppy (so far!), never getting into trouble and is lots of fun to train. She has a laidback temperament very much like her grandmother, Lupine. We are looking forward to showing her this spring.

Happy 6 months to Luna, Ripley, Thor, Sooty, Kit, Odo, Gulliver & Puffin!