Shannon Down Whippets: January 2009

It's been so busy around here that I haven't updated the blog in a while, but going to try and catch up on some thing. The puppies (both Whippet and Basenji) are doing awesome! I can't believe they are as old as they are now - today the Basenji pups turn 9 weeks old and the Whippet pups turn 8 weeks! 3 of my baby Basenjis are leaving this weekend to their new homes :( Nova, Nadia and Nora are leaved - Novalee and Nathan will be staying here for now. The Whippet boys all have their new homes waiting for them. Stanley (now Ralph) will be moving to Canada with our good friends Claudine and David Hamilton of Dreamwindz Whippets. Falco will be moving to Greenville, SC with his new owner Shannon Owen. Ryan (his name will be changed, but they haven't decided yet) will eventually be moving to Indiana with our wonderful friend Sarah New and joining another Shannon Down Whippet, "Dave" from our Bosley x Raku litter. The girls all have homes waiting for them as well, just haven't decided who is going where yet. We've had the hardest time deciding who to keep because they are all so nice, but we 'may' be keeping Elisa - the little split face cutie!

The older pups that are here - Liam, Alexa, Landis, Cecilia and Alistair - are doing wonderful and growing by leaps and bounds. Landis is leaving this weekend to his new home with Jessica Hoefer in Atlanta, GA. Cecilia is staying here with us until the National in April and then will go to her co-owner in Indian, Janina Wojcik. We took Liam and Alexa to a fun match a few weeks ago - their sister Belle (owned by Alex Smith) also tagged along. We had great fun, Alexa won the puppy bitch class and Belle was 2nd to her. Liam won the puppy dog class, was Best Whippet Puppy and went on to win the Puppy Hound Group! Alistair is doing wonderful as well, but he's such a goof ball that I can't get him to stand still long enough to take a decent photo, so we are working on that. They are all such wonderful babies and I can't believe they are about 5 months old now!

Now for some good, but sad, news. Dido will be leaving this Monday to go live with our good friend Suzanne Bouzard and her mother Janis Bouzard in California of Paragon Whippets. Suzanne is going to co-own Dido for a while and we will be breeding a litter together. We are very excited about this and we know Dido will be in wonderful hands but we will miss her dearly! AND, her sister Lola will also be leaving in a few weeks to live with her new co-owner Claudine & David Hamilton in Canada. She will be traveling to Dreamwindz with her half brother Ralph from Leigh's current litter. They will be working on Lola's Canadian Championship while she is up there and we will also be co-breeding a litter out of Lola as well.

We have some really exciting litters we plan to co-breed this year with some wonderful people....
(you can see pedigrees for all our dogs and these litters on the website)

Right now the plan is to breed Dido to Suzanne's boy Ethan - Epic Hotwired at Delacreme. He is a "Mork" Ch. Brushwood Prime Time Endeavor son who is a "Moxi" son - she is MBIS, MSBIS, MNSBIS Am/Can Ch. Brushwood Moxi Of Endeavor and Mork is sired by "Dash" Ch. Rhode Paved With Gold ROMX. Ethan is out of Suzanne's girl "Mouse" Delacreme Whiter Shade Of Pale who is a sired by "Oscar" SBIS Ch. Delacreme de la Renta ROMX and out of "Ava" BIS, SBIS Ch. Delacreme Red Cloud Avalon.

And for Lola, the plan is to breed her to a boy that Claudine & David bred and still co-own, he is owned by Landra Wowchuck. He is "L.P." PBIS Can Ch. Dreamwindz Sugar Daddy. He is sired by the wonderful "Toby" SBIS Can Ch. Dreamwindz Howdoyalike Me Now who was so tragically taken from this world on October 1, 2008. He is sired by "Chase" Ch. Brushwood Pursuit Of Endeavor and out of "Cher" Can Ch. Dreamwindz Moonstruck. L.P. is out of the beautiful "Dali" SBIS Can Ch. Edgewater's Leap Of Faith who is sired by "Spex" Can Ch. Baccarat Special Delivery and out of "Whisper" Can Ch. Saxon Shore Speak Softly. I know Claudine & David are extremely excited to have Toby grandkids running around their house later this year!

As for our breeding plans, we just bred "Anna" to "Rupert" - we are co-breeding this litter with Glenda Konopka and after some talking, we all decided that Anna's litter will be whelped here at Shannon Down. We are extremely excited about this breeding, fingers crossed that Anna is pregnant. This will be the first Shannon Down to Shannon Down breeding that is actually bred by us! Funny, the first Shannon Down to Shannon Down breeding was NOT bred by us but by Mike and Sue Conner who bred their Shannon Down girl "Molly" to our boy "Brooks". We can't wait to see what Anna and Rupert produce together. Anna just needs one show major to finish her Championship/Dual Championship and we expect wonderful versatile puppies from this breeding.

I am also really excited about my first "Scarlet" grandbabies! We now co-own "Charlize" with Linne' Wagner of Ortona Whippets. We will be co-breeding a litter together but Charlize will be whelping here at Shannon Down as I can not part with her for any period of time after nearly loosing her in Kansas at the National. The puppies will travel to Linne' at 8 weeks of age. We plan to breed her to Linne's beautiful foreign boy "Bentley" UCI IABCA BIS Int'l & Am Ch. Carry On Von Dutch JC. Bentley is sired by "Täppas" Int'l, Swed, Dan, Norw Ch. Adagio No Regrets who is sired by the outstanding "Robbie" GB, Int'l, Swed, Norw, Dan, Fin Ch. Adagio Love Surpreme who was Best of Breed at Crufts 2008. "Täppas" is out of "Emmie" Swed Ch. Fennaur Emmeline Pankhurst. Bentley is out of "Fina" Swed Ch. Carry On Ebony who is sired by "Panther" Int'l, Fre, Lux, Swed, WCD, VDH, Am Ch. Paris Panther and out of "Moa" Carmodey Minneapolis.

And one more co-bred litter to announce! This is on a different front, the performance/racing front. We are very excited to announce that we will be breeding "Winnie" and "Tigger". We are so happy with Winnie's first litter sired by Bosley and can't wait to see what she and Tigger have. This will be Tigger's first litter! We will be co-breeding this litter with Kiesha Crawmer of Kismet Sighthounds and they will be whelped here at Shannon Down.

And our only litter that isn't co-bred with anyone :) We will be breeding GiGi to Bosley when she comes in season! We are so excited about GiGi's first litter and knowing what Bosley has produced in the past we are expecting some wonderful athletes from these two. We'll have our hands full this year! Thankfully a few of these litters will be whelped by others :) You can see all these guys pedigrees on the website.

On to other news, we are so happy with how the kids finished last year! In AKC lure coursing we had EIGHT different dogs in the Top 20. GiGi finished #3, Rupert finished #6, Helen finished #7, Cuda finished #11, Tigger finished #13, Quincy finished #16, Bosley finished #17 and Anna finished #19!!!! Leo also finished #10 in CWA racing!

As for this years goals, we have many, but for titles we hope to finish Dido's Championship, Anna's Dual Championship and we have no doubts that Tinsley could complete her ORC and AKC Field Championship easily! We also hope to finish Isaac's bench Championship and/or AKC Field Championship - he's so close to both of them! Quincy is also close to his AKC Field Championship and Delite is also pointed towards her AKC Field Championship! We hope to get Helen and Quincy in the ring more this year and start working towards their bench Championships. We are excited about showing Liam, Alexa, Cecilia and Ali this year as well - though Ali may sit out for a while, while he matures. And also Leigh and Belle's puppies that we can start showing later this year. We have a lot on our plates but we are so excited with what we have ahead of us. We have some wonderful dogs and we have made some wonderful new friends this past year. I could go on and on but this post has become long enough already :) I will try and stay on top of this and no get behind anymore.

Weekend plans - mom and Kassi are going NOTRA racing down in Jacksonville, FL. I can't wait to get updates and here how they are doing down there and post results. Wish I was going!!!!

Krys

The first post of 2009 - though it's late, I wanted to post this anyways. We had a great year here at Shannon Down. We had 3 beautiful Whippet litters and one awesome Basenji litter as well as a litter sired by Bosley bred by Michelle Bernier (www.awhippetslife.com) And a litter out of a girl we bred, Heidi - the litter was bred by Janis & Art Castle and Sue Vernon. We finished to many titles to even mention and proud of every single one of them. We had 8 dogs finish in the Top 20 AKC lure coursing this year - GiGi, Rupert, Helen, Cuda, Quincy, Anna, Bosley & even Tigger who only ran a few months before his injury. It's been a great year and this year we have some exciting plans. We will be focusing on our performance litters - we will be breeding GiGi to Bosley and most likely will be breeding Winnie to Tigger and Viva to Murphy. We will also be co-breeding a litter with Linne' Wagner - she leased Charlize for her first litter to breed to Bentley - UCI IABCA BIS Int'l Ch, Am Ch. Carry On Von Dutch JC - the litter will be whelped here as I can not part with Charlize but the puppies will move to Linne' (Ortona Whippets) when they are 8-10 weeks old. We also have a new co-owner and wonderful friend - Claudine Hamilton (Dreamwindz Whippets in Canada) who we will be co-owning Lola with. She will be moving up to Canada with Claudine and the Dreamwindz pack and will be showing there until she comes in season. We will be co-breeding this litter together as well - stud dog is still undecided. Through our litters bred this year and the puppies placed, we have some wonderful new friendships. We look forward to 2009 and more showing with some lure coursing and racing thrown in for good measure.

Happy late New Years from Shannon Down!

Thursday, January 29, 2009

Just updates (long)

Tuesday, January 6, 2009

Muzzles!

HAPPY NEW YEAR