Shannon Down Whippets

Winnie has the blues - part 6

2010-08-05T08:30:00.000-07:00

We had Winnie ultrasounded yesterday by a friend of ours who is VERY good at counting puppies, she is carrying at least 8 puppies, possibly 9 (but this 9th puppy was smaller than the rest) and a set of twins as well (two puppies in one sac)! We are so excited!!! We started her on the Panacur Protocol on August 3rd, she will continue to get Panacur until the puppies are 2 weeks old. She's eating great, 3 times a day and doing wonderful. Below is a picture of her on day 40! SO EXCITED!!! Rhythm is a very happy boy, he did his job well ;)

Winnie has the blues - part 5

2010-07-28T15:25:00.000-07:00

It was confirmed the other day that Winnie is indeed pregnant! Now we just wait :) She's due around August 25th and we have her first pregnant photo since she's been home (she arrived home on Monday, July 26th). She's not eating kibble very well so we are thawing some chicken backs out for her to get her eating. She's back to snuggling with me in bed and we are so happy to have her home! This photo of her is taken on day 34 from the first natural breeding.

Winnie has the blues - Part 4

2010-07-11T22:00:00.000-07:00

Haven’t updated on Winnie in a while because there hasn’t been to much to tell. They got two natural breedings on her (24th and 26th of June) so now it’s just a waiting game. She’s still with Debbey and her boyfriend Rhythm and I’m sure she is LOVING all of it. She got to go shopping (pictures below) and had a new collar made (previous post) and had some lovely date nights with Rhythm who is a perfect gentleman! We can’t thank Debbey enough for everything and there is a cute photo of Debbey and Winnie included at the bottom of the bost - Debbey with her doggie daughter-in-law Winnie :) Can’t wait to get her home and wait and see if she is pregnant! Enjoy some incredibly cute pictures :)

Winnie has the blues - part 3

2010-06-25T20:05:00.000-07:00

6/21 - Well, thanks to the “Love Dr.”, Miss Kim Otero, we got an AI breeding on Winnie and Rhythm. Rhythm’s daddy came over to show Rhythm how to ‘woo’ a lady and we think Rhythm might be getting the idea finally. He has since started to try and breed her naturally, it could be he’s just a very smart boy and knows that she’s not ovulating yet. Thanks ladies for all your help ;)
6/24 - YAY, Winnie and Rhythm had a natural breeding this evening. And, as I expected, Debbey took a picture of the ‘act’ and sent it to us :) I had a feeling she would do that. Winnie and Rhythm have really hit it off, they are such a cute couple and Rhythm took a few days to court Winnie in his own fashion, he really wanted to get to know her before he got to physical. So, if she catches at this breeding she will be due late August, she would be due the week mom is up in Canada racing so she will miss Winnie whelping yet again! Winnie has had two previous litters and mom has missed them both due to work, so again I will be whelping Winnie’s litter by myself. It’s a good thing she’s always been an easy whelper, and I actually prefer to whelp the litter by myself as mom adds stress to the situation by being stressed herself - LOL So it all works out for me :) So everyone think, blue blue blue! I want to see lots of blue babies in August!

Winnie has the blues - part 2

2010-06-21T09:28:00.001-07:00

6/17/2010 - Winnie arrived at Debbey’s house on the night of June 16th and the following day she had a little play time with Rhythm. She’s being a hussy as usual and doing all her flirting tricks, but he’s a bit confused by it all. They are getting along great and he’ll catch on soon enough. Winnie has always been breedable early and stayed breedable for quite some time. She was introduced to her new ‘digs’ - she got her own bedroom and is being treated like a princess. I’m afraid she’ll return a total diva and demand her own bedroom instead of sharing the bed with me and several other Whippets.
6/18/2010 - Miss Debbey is going to work on making Winnie a special new collar because apparently Winnie is complaining about the one that we sent her in, which is fairly old and getting a bit ragged, so she wants a brand new one before she comes home. She’s settled right in and is flirting a lot with Mr. Rhythm but we think he continues to be a little confused.
6/21/2010 - Winnie and Rhythm are still in the courtship stage - I have some adorable pictures of them to share. Debbey has made Winnie a brand new collar which suits her quite well. Thank you Debbey for everything, I’m sure Winnie will return a spoiled rotten diva with an attitude - LOL Liz Littlejohn (owner of Marius - an Anna x Tigger kid) went over to Debbey’s to meet Winnie and fell in love. She will be getting one of the puppies from this litter, she is hoping for a blue boy and I am hoping for a blue girl so we hope for lots of blues to appear! Enjoy some pics.

New Rabbit Hutches!

2010-06-19T10:47:00.001-07:00

Well, FINALLY, we got some rabbit cages made for my 4 New Zealand Rabbits. My father made 3 of them - 24" x 36" and I put the doors in and made hay feeders out of the scrap wire. We still need to make one more but need to get more wire. The sides and top are made of 1" x 2" wire and the floors are made of 1" x 0.5" wire, it takes one of each to make 3 cages. So we need one more roll of each to finish making a cage for the buck (and hay feeder from the scrap) but for right now he's got a temporary cage. Then we have to build a frame to permanently raise them up (right now they are raised but it's only temporary until we actually build a frame). They are growing quite a bit, my buck "Bialy" is quite a good size now, probably around 10#s but I need to weigh them all when I get the scale out. Now that my does are separated from one another they should grow a little faster. They are handling the heat quite well, no problems at all, they are under shade ALL day, sun never hits that spot and they have a tree limb that kind of hangs over the cages so they have additional protection with all the branches and leaves over top of them. I took some pics with my mother's iPhone and our crappy little digital camera - our good camera is in the shop AGAIN, so will take better pics when we get that back. In 3 months, we have spent just over $200 on the rabbits which isn't bad at all - considering this includes all their food, hay, all the materials to make their cages so far, feeders, water bottles or water bottle converters and the actual purchasing of the rabbits. Most of that $ has come from purchasing the wire, j-clips and the j-clip pliers just this week and then a decent portion of that actually came from the purchase of the rabbits themselves. They really don't cost much in food, will be spending more on food once they have kits and we'll need more pellets and hay to feed them but all in all I don't think that's bad at all :)

Enjoy some pics!

3 new cages, hand made by my father :) Hay feeders made and installed by me!

This is what Bialy (the buck) thinks of the girls new cages

Zurina in her new hutch (before hay feeder was installed)

Vanora in her new hutch (before hay feeder was installed)

Jeneva in her new hutch (before hay feeder was installed)

Winnie Has The Blues - Part 1

2010-06-16T20:37:00.000-07:00

I have forever wanted a blue Whippet, I have envied all the breeders who have produced blue puppies in the last several years. We bought Byelobog who is either blue or blue fawn, but he’s pretty much solid white with just a few freckles on his ears and it’s hard to tell whether he’s blue or blue fawn, either way - he’s mostly solid white, so that just didn’t do the trick for me and settle my craving for a blue. I was hoping with a few of our past breedings that the parents would carry the dilute gene and we might get a blue. I thought that if Bosley carried the dilute gene there was a high possibility of having a blue pup or two out of Winnie when they were bred back in 2007. But alas, Bosley obviously doesn’t carry the dilute gene as we didn’t have one single dilute in that litter and Winnie herself is a blue fawn. When we bred GiGi to Infineon in
2009 I was expecting solid or parti colored red puppies, but I was surprised when she produce a blue fawn. In my excitement I was thinking she might be a blue, she was so vividly blue when she was born, but after thinking for a minute she couldn’t possibly be blue because she had two red parents so she had to be blue fawn. Though she’s a gorgeous blue fawn color, probably much more ‘blue’ than ‘fawn’, I am still left craving for a blue. So I kept waiting and waiting, and looking at pictures of blue puppies and blue dogs just waiting for the day when I would have one myself. When it came time to think of who we would breed Winnie to for her last litter we discovered Rhythm. Rhythm is a handsome and speedy solid blue boy with a sweet temperament. So now we have a dilute on dilute combo that SHOULD produce some blue puppies and blue fawns with the possibility of black and red as well. So I sat and waited and planned to breed her early 2011, but she took so long to come back in season since her last litter that we figured we would go ahead and breed her this season instead of next time because right now was good timing since we thought she would be in season much earlier. So on June 16, 2010 she caught a flight to California to meet her betrothed.

I will continue with this story in just a few days - at the very least I will try and post a part to this story every week as we follow the breeding, pregnancy and whelping of Winnie and Rhythm.

Winnie

Rhythm

Okay, I have made up my mind :)

2010-06-16T20:19:00.000-07:00

It's been difficult keeping up with the blog because I basically post everything on the website as far as news goes so it seems pointless to post everything in two places. But I have made up my mind to devote the blog to other things involving the Shannon Down family, stories and events that aren't mentioned (at all or in full) on the website. I'll be writing little stories about what is going on around Shannon Down starting with a several part story called 'Winnie Has The Blues' which will follow her breeding, pregnancy and whelping of her last litter. I will also be posting on my New Zealand meat rabbits, we will soon be making their hutches and I hope to take pictures as they are constructed as well as taking new pics of the rabbits themselves. Our camera is currently in the shop but I have another small digital camera that I can use, though the quality won't be nearly as good.

So for now, if you would like news on what the Shannon Down Whippets have been doing over the weekends at shows, lure coursing trials, race meets, etc., check the News page on the website, if you want more of an inside look into the family of Shannon Down, come to the blog :)

And so we begin with the first part of "Winnie Has The Blues" in the next post!

Krys

Rabbit pics!

2010-04-12T14:46:00.001-07:00

Thought you all might enjoy some cute rabbit pictures :)

Spring time at Shannon Down

2010-04-12T14:31:00.000-07:00

Well move has traveled back to Arizona for another contract nursing job for the next 9 weeks so our Whippet activities will be minimal. Byelobog went with her and may hit a race or two while he is there but went more or less for company since she can't be without a Whippet :) On her way there (she drove) she took Alexa to her new home with Marco in Texas. She's settled in wonderfully and I'm sure there will be updates to come on her. Alexa's sister Fergie came back home for a while while her owner is going through a tough time with her mother. So Fergie is visiting probably for a couple of months at least and she's been wonderful. The dogs excepted her into the house like she's always been here. She's a goofy little girl that LOVES attention, she's always got to be with someone - she's been playing a lot with her brother Liam.

The National is coming up, mom will be stopping in to visit friends and check out the events since it's being held in AZ. We do not have any of our own dogs entered but there will be a few Shannon Down dogs there with their owners. Maybe we'll have some results to post when the time comes, hoping someone can get some pictures :)

The Charlize x Brooks and Helen x Rupert babies are growing fast. I can't believe how big they have gotten, seems like yesterday they were born. The weather has been GORGEOUS so they are spending a lot of time outside playing and sunning themselves.

Hoping I can get on here often enough to just update on what is going on at home and with the babies - but there won't be too much news reports on here unless owners of Shannon Down Whippets attend some events :) Once mom is done with her contract we'll be hitting the show ring, coursing field and race track this summer!

We also have 4 new additions to the Shannon Down family - 4 New Zealand rabbits. We will be switching to raw sometime this year so I will be breeding our own meat rabbits. It will be September before any rabbit babies are born. In addition to meat for our dogs I will also be tanning rabbit pelts and dehydrating rabbit ears to sell and for our own dogs at home - I can't imagine a Whippet that wouldn't love either of those things.

These are my 4 foundation New Zealands. These guys will hopefully live long, healthy, productive lives. The does are 3 sister that were born Feb 12 so they are almost 9 weeks old. The buck was born on Feb 5 and is almost 10 weeks old. They are doing wonderfully and growing quickly. They will probably max out between 10-12 pounds as adults. If I had to guess I would say they are probably around at least 6 pounds now.

The buck - Bialy

The does - Jeneva, Zurina and Vanora

Some recent news

2010-03-18T12:13:00.000-07:00

Oh - I also much mention some recent news. Ralph (Leigh x Hudson) went to his 2nd and 3rd shows a few weeks ago and on Saturday he picked up his first point and on Sunday he won his first 3 point major!!! He's the first to be pointed from this litter. His sister Widget also earned her JC title last weekend. Caleb (Quincy x Dido) QC'd last weekend and ran in the AKC trial on Saturday (the only day we went) and he placed 2nd in the Open Stake of 21 for his first 3 AKC FC points! His brother Liam placed 4th - he's already pointed towards his AKC FC. Striker (Winnie x Bosley) also went to the AKC trial last weekend on Sunday and placed 3rd in the Open Stake for 2 points towards his AKC FC. Since mom has been home from Arizona (she was out there working) we have gone to a few NOTRA meets down in FL where Byelo has picked up a total of 9 ORC points and 1 NORC point! Tinsley also picked up 4 ORC points by placing 4th in a 51 dog meet down in FL!!! We also leased Raku's sister Kuruma who ran her first Jax, FL NOTRA meet and split the bottom point, ending up with 0.2 ORC points :) Last weekend Striker's sister Layla and Mya ran at an ASFA trial where Layla won the FCh Stake and was BOB on Sunday and Mya placed 4th in the FCh Stake. Claire (Rupert x Anna) went to her first UKC Show last weekend where she was Best Female and went on to Best of Breed and Group 4!!! There's more news to share but that's what I can think of right now - check out the news page on our website for all the news from this year :)

Wow - it's been awhile

2010-03-18T11:58:00.000-07:00

Wow, it's been a while since I've updated anything on here. Sorry about that :( To much to update since my last post so we'll catch up on some recent stuff. In the last few weeks some of our dogs have gone to new homes. We had a litter out of Anna x Tigger and all of them have moved to their new homes as of this month, we also had the Winnie x Tigger litter that is about the same age. One of them has gone to live with our friend Dee Evans that also owns Winnie's son from her first litter (Striker) and Imagene from the Fiona x Rupert litter. Demetri is staying here with us and Makenna and Ludovic have arrived to their new homes in Holland as of today! Van (Flynn x Leigh) who had come back to us finally found the perfect home and is living in Georgia and will probably get to do some lure coursing with his new family (he's already AKC FC pointed). Caleb (Dido x Quincy) is also on his way to his new home and will get to meet his new owners tomorrow. He also is pointed towards his AKC FC as of last Saturday at his very first (and so far only) AKC lure coursing trial. They'll continue to do some performance stuff with him. Alexa (Dido x Quincy) we also found a great home for but it will be a little bit before she moves down to TX. So now we just have Benjamin and Embry left from our Winnie x Tigger litter and Benjamin may have a home he'll eventually go too. Everyone is doing wonderful - we currently have 2 new litters, an accidental litter out of Helen x Rupert and they are 4 weeks old and WONDERFUL. 5 babies (4 girls and 1 boy), they moved out into the dining room yesterday and are doing great. Not even scared of the vaccum cleaner - LOL Charlize had her first litter by Brooks which I am very excited about. She had a litter of 8 (6 boys and 2 girl) that are 2 weeks old today. Their eyes are starting to open up and they'll be eating mush in another week, Charlize and Helen have been excellent mothers!

And a little bad news - GiGi broke her leg (humerus bone) a few weeks ago, had to place 3 pins in her leg and we had some rough patches but as of today everything looks good. 2 pins have been removed since they started to back out but the other pin is holding things in place and x-rays showed today that the bone is healing! She's feeling much better, much less pain than in the past 2 weeks so things are looking up. She's being a strong little girl and taking things awfully well considering all she's been through. She won't race or course again but her daugthers Skadoosh and Mumble can take her place on the race track and coursing field in the future when they are ready.

Updates to come, I promise to keep up with the blog this time :)

Tragic news

2009-09-26T10:23:00.000-07:00

I must post on the passing of Francois last month. It was a tragic accident and he was so young, his owner Deborah Nieborg of Holland, and the whole Shannon Down family still morn the passing of this youngster who had so much life.

BIF winners!

2009-09-26T10:14:00.000-07:00

We have two new Best In Field winners in the past month of so. Mya finished her AKC FC a few weeks back and the following day, her first time running in FCh, she won BOB and went on to win BIF! (Her sister Layla finished her AKC FC that same day) Then the other weekend Cricket won her first BIF up in Canada and is currently the #1 Whippets in CSFA!!!! Way to go girls! Cricket and Blair are pictured after winning BIF!

Monty

2009-09-26T09:51:00.000-07:00

Got a new picture of Monty the other day - littermate to our Brooks, Leigh & Scarlet from Sweet Pea's first litter sired by Blaze. He looks so happy! I can't believe they are 7 years old now, time flies.

Nigel news

2009-09-26T09:37:00.001-07:00

Nigel won his first AKC Ch. point today by going Winners Dog and Best of Winners under judge Mr. Frank McCartha in Deland, FL! Way to go Nigel and Emily! Good luck in juniors today!

Anna pregnant pic

2009-09-25T17:54:00.001-07:00

Here is Anna, taken tonight - at just over 4 weeks pregnant. She's growing by the day, actually more like by the hour. I'm scared....

BIG news

2009-09-24T18:39:00.000-07:00

Well, it's time to announce it since we have confirmed the news today. Anna is pregnant by Tigger. Anna was accidentally let outside with Tigger (Tigger was hiding) when she was in season, day 10. He bred her and the tie broke before 2 minutes was even up - well we took her in for an ultrasound today and though she counted THREE times, she counted THIRTEEN puppies each time. So it looks like we are going to have a very large litter mid October. I am working on making a litter page for them now to get the news on the website, but here it is. Anna will be a momma again in October and it looks like she's quite the brood bitch carrying huge litters - her first litter being a litter of 12 (11 surviving).

Krys

Weekend news and titles

2009-09-20T17:47:00.000-07:00

It was a great debut weekend for two wonderful girls in Antioch, IL. Aesa - from the Bosley x Raku litter - made her WRA debut on Saturday where she finished 8th in the meet and then she finished 8th in the meet today (Sunday) AND finished her CR title!! Congrats to Aesa and her owner Whitney Watts - I know they both had fun! At the same race meet, Michelle ran Tala (from the Bosley x Carina litter bred by Michelle Bernier) in the puppy meet both days and both days she won the puppy meet. There were 5 puppies entered. Steve and Kay took the girls, Mya and Layla, to an AKC coursing trial in Knoxville, MD today only and Mya placed 3rd in the FCh Stake of 7 dogs and Layla was 4th to her in Field Champions! They intend to run at the ASFA Regionals next weekend so fingers crossed that they do well and run safe :) While I was updating the website (and by the way there is a new page for Aesa under the 'Other Dogs' section if you want to take a peek) I went to place Aesa's name under our WRA titled dogs and was amazed at how many of our dogs (owned or bred by us) have titles in certain venues! Here is a quick breakdown but you can also go to the website - under the Archives section (Our Titled Dogs) to see each dogs name that has a title in each venue.

Dogs we have bred or own
5 American Champions - and several others closing in on theirs
2 UKC Champions
1 Colombian Champion
1 Latin American Champion
1 Polish Champion
42 AKC Field titled
18 ASFA Field titled
1 Canadian Field titled
27 NOTRA titled
26 WRA titled
4 Obedience/Agility titled
7 Best In Field Winners
4 NOTRA Meet Winners
1 WRA Meet Winner
1 Best In Sweepstakes Winner

Dogs not bred by us, but out of or sired by a Shannon Down bred dog or bitch
1 Ameican Champion
1 UKC Champion
11 AKC Field titled
4 ASFA Field titled
6 NOTRA titled
7 WRA titled
1 CWA titled
4 Obedience titled
2 Best In Sweepstakes Winners
1 Best In Field Winner

I don't think that's to bad at all :) We couldn't do it without such wonderful owners and breeders who have bred to our dogs. Thanks guys :)

Krys

Weekend news so far...

2009-09-13T12:18:00.000-07:00

We've had a great weekend so far in East Ridge, TN. On Friday we had ASFA lure coursing, Helen won the Open Stake of 10 - her first time running ASFA. Striker placed 2nd to her and Tinsley was 3rd to them and Quincy was NBQ. In the Field Champion Stake of 12, GiGI placed 4th (just coming from having a litter of puppies several weeks ago), Cuda was NBQ in Field Champions. Liam and Imagene both earned their first leg towards their JC titles.

On Saturday we had AKC lure coursing, Liam finished his JC title and placed 2nd in his Open Stake of 15 for his very first AKC Field Champion points! Imagene also finished her JC title but sat out of the trial. Trick placed 2nd in his Open Stake for his first 3 point, the 4th puppy from that litter to have AKC FC points. He was also RWD at the show that morning handled by Deborah Johnson. Cuda placed 3rd in Field Champions and Helen was 4th behind him.

Today, they haven't finished with coursing yet (AKC), but at the show this morning Trick was WD for 2 points! He was handled by Deborah Johnson in his class and handled in winners by Grahm Swayze - thanks guys. If there is anything to report with lure coursing, I'll post more later :)

Krys

Basenji news

2009-09-09T20:08:00.000-07:00

Also didn't mention that my Basenji kids are now showing! Nathan, that I have been showing myself, so far has 3 wins - totaling 6 points and a major.

Then Nadia who I still co-own, has a 3 point major already - handled by me :) She was 1st in her 9-12 month class at the National Specialty this month as well!

And then the other weekend, a 3rd pup (from a litter of 5), Ms. Nellybelle - was Winners Bitch and BOS for a major handled by Jerry Hope. (Haven't gotten the picture yet) She placed 3rd in her 9-12 month class at the National Specialty this month.

Two other pups from this litter remain, one who has only been shown once (Novalee) and one that has yet to enter the ring (Nora). I am so pleased with my first co-bred Basenji litter and how well they are doing in the show ring!

Krys

Time to get back to the blog

2009-09-09T15:57:00.000-07:00

Okay, I have neglected the blog for far to long. I can't go through everything I have missed on the blog these past few months but you can always go to our website and check out the news page to see what you're missing.

I gave the website a re-design which took a few weeks and just went up recently. I am having some issues with our web hoster which is preventing me from updating right now (transferring it over, should be all fixed in a few days when the transfer is complete). Right now our black background is missing so I hope I can fix it ASAP.

Anyways, on to some news - GiGi has given us a beautiful litter of 8 born August 8th sired by Elektra's Infineon RCh, ORC, CC, CM. They are almost 5 weeks now and are growing beautifully! You can see pictures of them on the website.

For weekend news - last weekend was great. On Saturday our Tinsley was 3rd at the AKC trial in Hanover, PA for 2 points. Sunday Mya won the Open Stake for a 5 point major to finish her FC! Sister Layla was 2nd to her for 3 points and Tinsley placed 5th in the Open Stake. On Monday Layla won the Open Stake for a 5 point major to finish her FC!!! Mya won the FCh Stake and took Best of Breed and went on to Best In Field!!! Glenda and David went to a UKC show down in TX. On Saturday Jack (from the Anna x Rupert litter) was Best Whippet Puppy and went on to win Puppy Best In Show! Leo was Best Male which completed his UKC Championship! On Sunday Shinju (Jack's brother) was Puppy Best In Show at the morning and afternoon show!!!! Leo was Best of Breed and Sighthound Group 2 at the afternoon show! Not a bad weekend at all :)

Delite went to her new home this past weekend with Jason Cohen who had our girl Cliona who passed away the end of last year from kidney failure due to lyme disease. She's doing really good so far and settling in great in her new home. She will continue to lure course on occasion, she's already AKC FC pointed.

Well, that's it for now - I promise to keep the blog up to date from now on :)

Krys

I've been bad :(

2009-07-03T12:03:00.000-07:00

I'm so bad for neglecting the blog like this!!! I've been working on a monthly newsletter and that has been taking up a lot of the time I would normally use to post to the blog. I am going to try and figure out how to post a PDF to the website so I can attach a link to the blog so you can view what has been going on this past month or so :) I'll make sure to do better with posting from now on!

Krys

Pictures, lots of them!!!!!

2009-05-14T10:40:00.001-07:00

TONS of pictures to share that we have gotten over the last week or two :)

Joker - taken at the 2009 AWC National - so cute!

Star in Rally - taken at the 2009

Caleb, in his racing gear - getting ready to run a puppy race. Caleb left for his new home after this meet - he now lives with Peppi Grecco of Ladyhawk Whippets.

Huey - pictured at 5 months old - just looking so cute!

Litte Miss Widget at agility class and loving it - 5 months old

The bratness herself, Novalee. She is about 5.5 months now and bratty as ever!

Her bro Nathan, picture directly below trying to take out Isaac the babysitter.

Byelobog - at 5 months old, already measuring in at 19.5 inches

Princess Elisa - our very pretty little tomboy girl - 5 months old

Alistair - FINALLY got some stacked photos of him!!!! He's been so bad about stacked photos that we haven't gotten any of him in months - finally here are some decent shots of him. I really love my Ali boy - 8 months old.

Alexa the menace - looking beautiful as ever at 8 months old

Update

2009-05-13T16:36:00.000-07:00

Neglected the blogspot a little bit this month, not much on news as we haven't traveled much lately. The Anna x Rupert puppies are growing up and doing wonderful... Glenda and us have made a decision as to who we are keeping. We will be keeping the cream boy "Gavin" and Glenda will be getting "Hayden", two very nice boys that we are excited about. We got some new pics of the older puppies the other day which I will attach to another post later this evening. Everyone is doing wonderful, we got a new freezer the other day and picked up a bunch of meat rolls and chicken necks/backs for the dogs which they are loving!

We have changed breeding plans for one of the girls this year... instead of breeding GiGi to Bosley we have decided to go ahead and breed her to "Infineon" Elektra's Infineon RCh, ORC, CC, CM We are excited about what this litter will produce!

As more news happens, I will make sure and post and keep up to date. I will post some pictures in another post :)

Krys

Francois pics

2009-04-21T08:45:00.000-07:00

I thought these were really cute and wanted to share them - these are two pictures we got of Francois from his owner Deborah in Holland.

New pictures - Fergie & Cricket

2009-04-20T12:59:00.000-07:00

Didn't get time to do a full update on the National but all the news is on the News page on the website - check it out. But I wanted to post some new photos - I just got some new photos of Fergie (from the Dido x Quincy litter) and I also was going through some old emails and came across some photos of Cricket is from the 3rd litter of Murphy x Daisy - she was a singleton pup and she had a blue eye, so she went to a home in Canada with Blair Shinski where she could still lure course and race :) Enjoy the photos!

Fergie

Cricket

National - photo album link

2009-04-07T19:52:00.000-07:00

Just the start of the photo album - pictures of the costume contest and Widget (Leigh x Hudson) at 4 months old.

http://picasaweb.google.com/SDWhippets/2009National#

We have a couple boys entered tomorrow - Caleb & Liam in 6-9, Spencer in Novice and Quincy in Open. I believe we also have Scarlet entered in Altered bitches tomorrow evening - fingers crossed!

Update - off to the National!

2009-04-05T21:12:00.000-07:00

It's been so busy here that I haven't been good about updating the blog :( There are now 1 and 2 week old photos of the Anna x Rupert puppies on the website, some great news on the 2009 News page, check it out. Lena just moved to California with her new owners Suzanne & Janis Bouzard of Paragon Whippets and is now Izabelle "Shannon Down Simply Irresistible". Porter finished his Championship with 3 majors!!!! Way to go Porter and Debi! Dave ran his very first NOTRA race meet today and finished 13th out of a 30 dog meet, Blaine has earned 2 legs towards his RN title and Bosley is now only needing 0.33 WRCh points to finish!!!! I know I have missed some stuff but it's all on the News page on the website :)

Tomorrow we hit the road for the AWC National and we are excited, we have a van load of dogs going with us - 4 Futurity pups to show and racing this coming weekend. It's going to be tons of fun and I plan to take TONS of photos and put them in an album to share. So come back soon to see news and get the link to the photo album I will be setting up for the National pics. Cecilia & GaGa will be leaving to their new home from the National to live with Elle's owner, Janina. They will eventually travel to Poland later this year or next year. They are going to be so much fun!

Any who - tons to do around here to get ready to leave tomorrow, I will be updating the blog this week from the show so stay tuned!!!

Anna x Rupert Puppy Pictures

2009-03-23T14:16:00.000-07:00

Whelped March 22, 2009!

Puppy #1 - Girl (6.8 oz)

Puppy #2 - Boy (9 oz)

Puppy #3 - Boy (9.8 oz)

Puppy #4 - Boy (9.1 oz)

Puppy #5 - Boy (8.7 oz)

Puppy #6 - Boy (9.1 oz)

Puppy #7 - Boy (9.7 oz)

Puppy #8 - Girl (9.5 oz)

Puppy #9 - Boy (7.5 oz)

Puppy #10 - Girl (7.1 oz)

Puppy #11 - Girl (7.6 oz)

A very eventful weekend!!!!!!

2009-03-23T13:46:00.000-07:00

Okay - so we left Friday to head down to Jacksonville, FL for NOTRA racing. We decided to take Tigger with us for some practice so he did his first practice since his injury Friday afternoon and did SPECTACULAR!!!! He handled it wonderfully - he kept close to the rail, no wandering, kept awesome speed and came off the track barking and wagging his tail. No soreness, lameness, swelling to his leg at all.

So we started our day out racing on Saturday - it ended great with Viva getting 3 ORC points and completing her Oval Race Championship and finished 3rd in the meet of 30 dogs!!! GiGi was 5th, Striker 6th, Bosley 7th, Quincy 8th (huge surprise!), Cuda 9th, Tinsley 12th, Winnie 14th, Charlize 18th and completed her OTR title - her very first title, Delite 22nd, Gali 26th, Helen 27th and Rupert 29th for Best of Opposite Turtle Award!!! Then we decided to practice Tigger again, but with a dog this time, so we picked what we think is our fastest dog right now (Viva) and ran him and her together. He passed her coming out of the box, she caught up to him on the straight a bit and then he blew in front of her on the backstretch. He's nearly the same ole' Tigger!!!! Then we get a phone call from Sharron Lane, Blaine took Winners Dog for a point at the Franklin, TN shows!! Awesome day!!!

Then on Sunday we got a phone call around 7:30am on our way to the track, Anna decided to whelp early and already had 3 puppies. My younger brother Stuart (14 years) and my father were acting midwives this day :) We continued to recieve updates throughout the day and she had 9 puppies before we got home. So now on to racing - we decided to run Tigger in the meet - he placed 3rd in the meet (30 dogs) behind Stoney & Brodie!!!! If he had pulled out the 2nd place, he would have finished his SORC, but we are SOOOO incredibly happy that he ran all 3 programs with no problems whatsoever. He is still doing awesome, hasn't been sore at all and is happy as can be! Striker placed 4th for 4 ORC points and GiGi placed 5th for 2 ORC points - way to go kids!!! Bosley placed 6th, Cuda 7th & Helen 9th to finish her OTR title. I will have to check results again to see how the kids all placed, but they all did awesome! We get another phone call from Sharron on our way home to tell us that Blaine was Winners Dog AGAIN for another point (he's a 1/3 of the way there) and all his points he's been handled to have been by his owner Sharron Lane!!!! Huge Kudos!!!

So we FINALLY get home, Anna's had 9 puppies and we can tell she still has more but is tired and hasn't been contracting hard enough, so we give her an oxytocin shot to help her along. She pushes out #10 (with some help from us) and it's a BIG (well, much bigger than her other puppies) white/brindle girl who is dead. We work on her for a long time, but can't get her going and she is incredibly cold so we had to give up on her - just wasn't meant to be. But she has another 2 puppies after that for a grand total of 12 puppies (7 boys and 5 girls). Our final tally after loosing the one puppy is 11 puppers (7 boys and 4 girls) and they are all doing fabulous. We are VERY surprised to have solid white puppies (most likely will be creams), we have 5 of them and they look very strange among their brindle/white littermates. I will post individual photos in another post but here is a group shot of them all after we all got cleaned up.

And then to top it all off, I get an email from Janina today to tell me that Elle won his Intermediate class at a VERY large International All-Breed show in Katowice, Poland!!!! She was thrilled with this, he has to wait until May until he can get his last CWC for his Polish Championship - but they are still showing him in the mean time and he's doing incredible!!!!

We also heard from Janet that Star got her first leg towards her RN and had a great score to boot!!! Not easy with Whippets so we are VERY proud!!!!

AND - Sarah took Dave to a practice straight race and he did awesome - ran through and open box, through a closed box and with a muzzle on - he really enjoyed himself and we look forward to when Sarah starts running him - we think he will do great!!!

What an AWESOME weekend it was!!!!!! And thank you to all our owners and co-owners, we can't do it without you ;)

Lola's at home...

2009-03-17T21:27:00.000-07:00

Lola has apparently settled right into her new home in Canada. Claudine left David to read Cheyenne bedtime stories while she went and tended to the horses and this is what she walked in to - LOL It's too cute and so like Lola :)

Poor Anna!!!

2009-03-17T10:15:00.000-07:00

Here are pictures of her taken the other day - she looks MUCH more pathetic in person. She's not happy with this new condition of hers - her little back legs and feet are swollen and she doesn't even want to get up to go potty. I have to drag her out the door - she can't fit more than a few big bites into her tummy so she has food in front of her all the time. It looks like she may be going for a Shannon Down puppy record! The most one of our girls have had was her momma Pea and her first litter of 10. I hope she doesn't try and beat that!

Lola and Elle

2009-03-15T19:04:00.000-07:00

Got news about Elle today - he showed in Jaroslaw, Poland today and won Best Male/Best of Opposite Sex for another CWC at the National All-Breed Dog Show! He can't finish his Polish Championship until April as the first and last win have to be atleast 6 months apart. But this is awesome news!!! Congrats to his owners Janina and Angelika Wojcik!!!! He has another show (International All-Breed show) next Sunday!!! Fingers crossed, it's suppose to be a BIG show!

And we got Lola's first picture in her new home in Canada at Dreamwindz Whippets....

Saturday news and new homes

2009-03-14T15:13:00.000-07:00

First - Saturday's ASFA Coursing news. Mom went to GA for some ASFA Coursing just for today, on her way home now. Just took a few dogs this time and Viva won the Open Stake and went on to win Best of Breed to finish her ASFA Field Championship!! Cuda won the Field Champion Stake - so it was a good day!

Now - for the new homes...

Shakira got to her new home in Missouri yesterday and is happily in her new home with Mike Broder and doing great. She had a good first night and I just got the first picture of her in her new home.

Landis left today with his new owners from the GA ASFA trial. His new owner is Andy Wiggers and his family and they love him. Hopefully he will get to do some lure coursing but his new two kids love him already and that's all that matter.

My baby girl Lola left today to fly into Montana where her new co-owner Claudine Hamilton (of Dreamwindz Whippets) came down to pick her up and is now on her way back home to Canada. She will be showing Lola up there in Canada and her first shows are next month. She will be bred when she comes in season in a few months.

Krys

New photo of Ripley

2009-03-12T14:18:00.000-07:00

Taken last month at the WRA meet, photo by Lindsey Lobree. Ripley finished his CRX title at this meet!

New pics of ALL the dogs

2009-03-12T08:04:00.000-07:00

Well, after 3 days of photo sessions, we got photos of ALL the Whippets here at Shannon Down, except for Murphy. Here is a link to the photos, including all the puppies. The pictures of Anna and Quincy were actually taken a few weeks ago but since we just got new pictures of them, we didn't take any this time but I included them in the photo album. ENJOY!!!!

http://picasaweb.google.com/SDWhippets/TheDogsMarch2009#

Great weekend!!!

2009-03-08T20:17:00.000-07:00

Ripley finished his CRX title on Saturday!!! Yeah Ripley and congrats to George and Emi on the new title!!!

Today Blaine was awarded Winners Dog & Best of Opposite Sex for another point (has 3 now) and was lead to this win by his owner/handler Sharron Lane!!! Congrats Blaine & Sharron!!! We can't wait to see the new show photo.

At an ASFA trial in Hanover, PA - Mya and Layla (Winnie x Bosley kids) had an awesome weekend. On Saturday in Open (6 dogs), Mya was 2nd and Layla was 3rd! Then on Sunday Mya won the Open Stake (7 dogs) and Layla was 2nd to her. Yippee!!!! Way to go girls and congrats to their owner Steve! Photographer Steve Surfman got some neat shots of them and here is one of each girl ;)

"Mya"

"Layla"

Widget, Huey & Falco pictures

2009-03-06T12:53:00.000-08:00

Widget, Huey & Falco are all in their new homes and we have some new pictures to share! Shakira will be leaving to her new home very soon as well. Enjoy the pictures!

Falco is owned by Shannon Owen and her family - Falco is pictured with his kids

Widget is in her new home with Janet Phillips and her aunt "Star" - Janet attempted some stacked photos of Widget and didn't do to bad a job!

Huey is in his new home with Sarah New and her family - here her is pictured with his new girl after just arriving to his new family.

Testing

2009-03-01T18:42:00.000-08:00

Testing - want to see if people can see this, please post a comment. I have been told that for some reason certain people can't see the blog posts. Please let me know if you can or not and I will see what I can do to fix this ASAP.

Thanks!

Krys

Black Mail (or White Mail?)

2009-02-26T13:23:00.000-08:00

Ha ha! This is Sterling (another Lyons family member) who fell asleep with Byelobog on the couch. Byelo was quite happy in his little cozy spot!

Anna - CLEARLY pregnant

2009-02-26T13:21:00.001-08:00

WOW - she blew up over night and she has 4 more weeks to go! Looks like we're in trouble :)

Krys

Video #4

2009-02-23T12:40:00.001-08:00

Quincy in #3 - he barks the WHOLE way down the track

Video #3

2009-02-23T12:39:00.002-08:00

Striker in #1 - Tinsley in #2

Video #2

2009-02-23T12:39:00.001-08:00

Video #1

2009-02-23T12:38:00.001-08:00

Lots of weekend news!

2009-02-23T12:10:00.000-08:00

We had an awesome weekend, so much fun and great weather - awesome running dogs and huge meets!

Saturday we started out with 50 dogs! The Shannon Down kids placements...

7th - Raku
11th - Striker
14th - Tinsley
18th - Viva - new OTRM-2
19th - Winnie
23rd - GiGi
24th - Charlize (story for her just below these results)
26th - Rupert
32nd - Gali
33rd - Delite - new OTR
37th - Murphy, still running at 9.5 years old!

Okay - so the story on Charlize is she was my girl that got loose at the Kansas Nationals. We got her back safely but it left her with some emotional damage. I've tried to get her coursing, but she runs about half way and then realizes she is alone and comes back to me. We took her this weekend just because I was going (and she is MY girl) and wanted to see if she would show any interest. We needed to put her in to have a 50 dog meet so I did a practice run with her (hand slipping) and let her run with Rupert and she took off like a bullet chasing the bunny. The loud screeching sound of the rail never bothered her. So for her first run, since she hadn't been in a box, I held her inside the box and let go of her when the front opened. That worked great for her, she took off as soon as it opened. The second run we did the same, the third run we closed her in the box and off she went when the door opened!!!! She gained 10 points towards her OTR title, a dog I thought I would never get a title on. She was also high FTE (first time entered) out of the Top 10!!! She ran 24th out of 50 dogs and I couldn't be happier with her! On Sunday she ran all 3 programs out of a closed box and earned another 10 points towards her OTR (needs 5 more) and she had the time of her life. She was so happy when she finished each run and I was beyond proud of her! My baby "Jelly Bean" who was born a singleton out of my girl Scarlet, on my 18th birthda - she is special to me and I was so happy to see her out there, running and having a blast!

Okay - Sunday placements for the Shannon Down crew
42 dog meet

6th - Viva - earning 3 ORC points, needs ONE more to finish her ORC title!
9th - Striker - earning 0.33 ORC points (1 point split 3 ways with 2 other dogs)
12th - Raku
15th - GiGi
20th - Helen
21st - Rupert
25th - Torin - finishing his OTRM-3 and still running strong at 7 years old!
29th - Quincy - new OTR
30th - Gali
32nd - Charlize

Also, as the WRA trials in Camden, SC - Bosley and Cuda were being run by our friend Wanda Bright and George and Michelle also took Ripley & Trick!

On Saturday (22 dogs)
5th - Bosley - earning 0.5 WRCh points
8th - Cuda
14th - Ripley
18th - Trick

On Sunday (20 dogs)
5th - Bosley - earning another 0.5 WRCh points (needs 0.66 points to finish!!!!!!!)
8th - Cuda
13th - Ripley
15th - Trick - new CR

We also heard from Sharron on Saturday - Blaine was showing at a match, I believe he won the Hound Group with a lot of competition there! I am waiting to get details on it all and will post when I have them :)

What a great weekend, tons of fun and lots of new titles and points towards Championships! We also picked up our little Byelobog on Friday evening. He's been awesome! Was totally clean when he arrived, played all day Sat and Sun with the pups (and had a blast!) and slept in bed with me last night and was perfect! He's adorable!

We also got some videos of the kids which I will put in anothe

Weekend plans & SURPRISE

2009-02-19T22:07:00.000-08:00

Mom and I are headed out for Jacksonville, FL racing today (though it's only 1 in the morning) We'll be leaving in the afternoon, taking the Leigh pups and the two remaining Basenji pups with us on their first road trip! And, we are excited to be headed down to pick up our new race puppy at about 5:30pm :) He is QuiXand Intentionally Left Blank and we will be calling him Byelobog (Bell-Oh-Bog) which is the Slavic meaning for "White God" which I think fits him well seeing how he is solid white! He is pictured below at 10 weeks. His father is the awesome RalphEdwards - Oberon Truth Or Consequences RCh, ORC and his mother is QuiXand Fallen Angel RCh, SORC. Thank you so much Sue Heiniger (QuiXand) for this awesome white boy - we can't wait to see him and see how he grows and get him ready for his bunny debut!

We'll be NOTRA racing in Jacksonville this weekend, taking a bunch of the kids so we should have a great time!

Krys

Saturday news - health testing

2009-02-14T20:35:00.001-08:00

Nothing awesome to report from the show today (in SC or TX) but we did have a few dogs health tested. Anna, Lola and Rupert were all CERF'd (eyes) and were normal - Anna and Lola were also OFA Cardiac tested and had clear hearts! Rupert was just Echo'd last year so we did not have his heart done again just yet. Even though there was no news to share from the shows today - I think the health testing results are better!

Krys

Friday's results

2009-02-13T18:31:00.000-08:00

We went to the Greenville, SC show today and had a pretty nice day. We showed 4 dogs - Isaac, Lola, Anna and Rupert. Isaac was 2nd in BBE dogs, Lola was 2nd in BBE bitches and Anna was 2nd in a very large Open class and was Reserve to the 4 point major (SO close - would have finished her DC) Rupert was BOS over 2 other male specials - we decided to get a picture done since we had the podium available so I really hope the picture turns out nice - we haven't gotten a show picture of him since he finished since he's been concentrating on coursing.

Landis (Dido x Quincy) and Falco (Leigh x Hudson) left for their new homes from the show. Falco will be living in SC with Shannon Owen and her family and Landis will be living in Georgia with his new owner Jessica Hoefer. They had safe trips home and are settling in now - sad to see them leave though but it's good for them to get into their new homes and start fitting in.

Also we got awesome news on our way home from the show - Blaine finished his NAJ title with another first placement! He is Shannon Down's first agility titled dog and is now Shannon Down Mind Control SC, FCh, CGC, NAJ and is pointed towards his AKC Field and Show Championship!

Going back to the show tomorrow - but not entered on Sunday. Dido has her first show with Suzanne in CA on Sunday and I believe Debi is also showing Porter somewhere on Sunday as well! Dido needs 2 singles to finish, Porter needs 1!!! I think Glenda is showing in TX this weekend too - so fingers crossed!!!

Krys

Website updates

2009-02-09T20:37:00.001-08:00

LOTS of updates on the website - go to www.shannondownwhippets.com and click on Website Updates on the home page to see where all the new updates are :)

Krys

Elle - another CWC!!!

2009-02-09T20:22:00.001-08:00

Elle was shown in Rzeszow, Poland yesterday and won the Open class and was awarded another CWC title towards his Polish Championship - one more to go! Here is a picture I got of him today!

Puppy Party

2009-02-09T20:12:00.000-08:00

We had a fabulous time at our puppy party yesterday and we hope everyone else had fun. Sacha left for her new home with Janet Phillips and her aunt Star. Sacha is the puppy in the picture with me. We can't wait to do it again!!!!

Krys

Elle

2009-02-04T13:15:00.000-08:00

Here is a new picture we received of Elle the other day - he has another show in Poland this weekend on Sunday and we can't wait to hear how he does!!!!

Ripper

2009-02-04T12:54:00.001-08:00

I received this awesome collage of Ripper from the Raku x Bosley litter from his owner Linda Brenton in Canada. He looks SOOOO much like daddy Bosley it's scary!

Dido at 'Paragon Whippets'

2009-02-03T09:59:00.000-08:00

Dido left yesterday morning to join her new temporary family at Paragon Whippets - we received a few pictures this afternoon and this is my favorite by far. This will be Dido's future husband, Ethan :)

NOTRA News from Sunday!!!!

2009-02-01T11:18:00.000-08:00

Another awesome day today!

Viva placed 3rd in a 37 dog meet and got the top 4 ORC points - she now has a grand total of 11!!!! Striker (Bosely x Winnie - owned by Dee Evans) placed 5th and got the 2nd set of 2 ORC points, his very first ORC points and only his 3rd NOTRA meet! The rest of the kids did awesome as well and placed....

7 - Cuda
8 - Bosley
9 - Winnie
10 - Tinsley
12 - Raku
14 - GiGi
18 - Rupert
27 - Torin
28 - Delite

Striker & Tinsley also both finished their OTR titles!

Yeah kids!!!! Mom is on her way home and everyone will get a nice big dinner and Brookie will get some extra special treatment. He was scratched after he pulled up in one of his races and ambled to the finish. Mom found that he has probably pulled his grucilus muscle in his rear leg - my poor little man. So he'll get a lot of personal attention for quite some time.

Krys

NOTRA News from Saturday!!!

2009-02-01T09:07:00.000-08:00

We had an awesome day of racing yesterday!!!!!! Raku placed 4th in a 40 dog meet and got 5 ORC points to complete her Oval Race Championship! She is now Wheatland Raku ORC!!!!!!!!!!!!

Also more great news - GiGi placed 7th and got 3 ORC points and Viva placed 9th and got 1 ORC point! Bosley also placed 8th and Cuda finished 10th! How awesome - 5 dogs in the Top 10 out of 40 dogs! The other kids ran well too - Winnie placed 12th, Gali placed 22nd, Rupert placed 23rd, Brooks placed 26th, Striker placed 29th, Tinsley placed 30th & Delite placed 31st!

It was an awesome day down in Jacksonville, FL and I wish I could have been there to see the kids do so well - crossing our fingers that we do half as well as yesterday and that everyone runs safe!!!

Krys

Just updates (long)

2009-01-29T10:12:00.000-08:00

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

Muzzles!

2009-01-06T20:46:00.001-08:00

Mom sent out our muzzles after the last race meet in 2008 and here is what they look like now...

My favorites!!!!

The halamars
The wire muzzles

Our newly ordered basket muzzles

Our old used basket muzzles

AWESOME, right? :)

Krys

HAPPY NEW YEAR

2009-01-06T19:28:00.000-08:00

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!

Belle x Teller puppies - 4 weeks (Basenjis)

2008-12-28T20:36:00.000-08:00

Here are the Basenji babies - 4 weeks old already and cute as buttons and their tails are slowly starting to curl :) I can't get over their little faces and how adorable they are, and they all have great little presonalities already.

Novalee

Nathan

Nadia

Nova

Nora

Leigh x Hudson puppies - 3 weeks

2008-12-28T20:25:00.000-08:00

A little late on these photos but with Christmas everything is getting behind. My computer still isn't fixed but I am working on putting FrontPage on a different computer so I can atleast work on the websites a little and get the puppy photos up. Anywho - here are the 3 week old photos of the Leigh puppies :)

Stanley

Sacha

Falco

Ryan

Elisa

Shakira

Lena

GaGa

Jammies!

2008-12-20T14:26:00.000-08:00

We just ordered a bunch of 'jammies' for the Whippets - thanks to Decotogs (www.decotogs.com) - The jammies are AWESOME and the Whippets love them! Here are some pictures we took of them the other day when they were trying on their new clothes :)

Bosley, Lola, Pea, Dido, Rupert, Gali & Charlize

Lola
Dido

Charlize

Rupert

Gali

Bosley

Sweet Pea

Charlize hanging on the couch

Dido (aka Diddle) just looking to darn cute!

Whippet puppies

2008-12-20T09:19:00.000-08:00

Again, since it's going to be a while before I can update the website because of my laptop crashing - I am posting pictures of the Whippet pups (2 weeks old this past Thursday) on the blog! So enjoy - sorry, they were a bit messy, but if I had cleaned them up before the photos I wouldn't have had the energy to actually take the pictures - LOL

So here they are - 2 weeks old!

Stanley

Sacha

Sacha
Falco

Falco

Ryan

Elisa (quite messy!)

Elisa

Shakira

Lena

GaGa

Basenji puppies

2008-12-20T09:06:00.000-08:00

My laptop crashed and that is the computer I do all my website updating from, so since I have to wait to put these photos on the website, I figured I would put them on the blog so atleast people could see them :) 3 weeks old on Friday and had their first meal (which they loved!). Enjoy the pics - they are in no particular order but are labeled with names.

Nova cleaning Novalee's face

Novalee
Nova

Nora (was Naomi)

Nova taking a bite out of Nathan

Nathan - what a sweet boy!

Nadia

First meal - Novalee just dove in

Right before Novalee dove in :)

Nadia

Nathan

Nora

Nova

Novalee

With deep sadness...

2008-12-20T09:05:00.001-08:00

On November 4th 2001 a special black and white litter entered this world. In that litter was a very special little girl - Cliona. It is with deep sadness that I share that Clio passed on Wednesday, December 17th, 2008 at home in the loving arms of Jason and Paula. With the help of fellow Whippet breeder and her vet, Barbara Henderson, Clio slipped from our world and we hope that she is now chasing bunnies and is pain free. She had a tough battle the past year with Lyme Disease and Kidney Failure and we can not thank Jason and Paula for all the love they have showered on Clio for the past 5 years. Thank you. Clio was a special girl! Thank you also to Jason for bringing Clio home several weeks ago to visit with the family a last time. It will always be cherished.

Clio - Shannon Down Cliodhna SC, FCh
11/04/01 - 12/17/08

Milo is now Fergie

2008-12-14T07:27:00.000-08:00

Milo - who is now Fergie - left last night with her new owner Kelly Ryan. Kelly drove all the way down from Massachusetts. We were going to ship her out on Monday, but she got a wild hair and drove the whole way. This is a photo taken last night at 11pm right before she left. Both of them were very happy with each other and we expect lots of photos and updates ;)

Aaliyah left

2008-12-13T13:49:00.000-08:00

Aaliyah left with her new owners Betty Jean Burnette and her family this afternoon, they came to look at her and Caleb and were drawn in pretty quick by Aaliyah and her sweet quiet temperament. We will post updates and pictures as we get them :)

Krys

Fav Songs Litter & Music

2008-12-12T13:43:00.000-08:00

Since our latest litter (Leigh x Hudson) is our favorite songs litter, I decided to put together a playlist of the songs they are named after since some of you probably haven't heard some of them before. Let me know what you think ;) Just click on each song to hear it.

Landis has a home

2008-12-12T10:13:00.000-08:00

Landis will go to join his new owner Jessica Hoefer in Atlanta, GA after Christmas. Congrats Jessica and I know you will love your new boy, but we sure will miss him!

Lizzie left :(

2008-12-12T10:10:00.000-08:00

Lizzie left to her new home the other night - her new owner Dr. Randal Hess drove all the way down from VA to come and pick her up and he loved her. She's doing wonderful in her new home and will be shown and lure coursed! Here is a picture of her the day she left.

Delite pictures

2008-12-12T10:07:00.001-08:00

Here are our first pictures of Delite lure coursing! Thanks to K-9 Photography for taking these shots of her ;) She looks so much like momma Winnie when she runs!

Catching up on congrats!

2008-12-09T11:25:00.000-08:00

Just wanted to take a moment and catch up on some special congratulations to a few great (and busy!!) people who have spent the time and energy, not to mention love, getting their dogs out and earning some wonderful accomplishments along the way. As a breeder, I know we can not do this without the support and love that these owners give our dogs, we all want the best for them, weather it's out running, showing or warming someone's bed:) Some are first time Whippet owners and some are "veteran" Whippet owners, but all have worked hard and deserve recognition!!

Sharron Lane from TN put her very first ASFA FCh on a Whippet a few weeks ago - he is "Blaine" Shannon Down Mind Control SC, CGC, FCH. He finished his ASFA FCh in Georgia recently and Sharron and Blaine also made their ring debut together a couple months back, resulting in Blaine's first show pts (and Sharron's too!!) Blaine also is Major ptd towards his AKC FC and working on Agility!!! Blaine is by Ch Tivio N Windigo In Like Flynn and out of our girl Leigh. Congrats Sharron and Blaine!!!

Dawn Hill of Georgia also had her first Whippet ASFA FCh this past weekend. Spencer (Shannon Down Surprise of My Life JC, FCH) is the first FCH for both his sire and dam as well. He is by our Swedish fella - Burnt Sienna Midsummer Dream SC and out of Shannon Down The Speed of Light JC, CR, OTR. Congrats Dawn and Spencer.

Spencer's brother Elle (Shannon Down Element of Surprise) recently was Best Male, BOS and earned his first CWC Excellent in POLAND (second time shown) - he needs two more CWC's for his Polish Championship! Congrats to his owners Janina and Angelika Wojcik!!

Glenda Konopka has been busy in Texas. A week ago Leo (SDW Annadar Kiss of Fire, SC, FCH) finished his ASFA FCh and then this Sunday he won his AKC Open Stake for his second Major towards his AKC FC. He also has 8 ARX pts and is singled out in the ring. I can't thank Glenda enough for all of the hard work she puts into the dogs and the love she gives them!! I know they are all in good hands:) Thanks Glenda.

Our friend Joanne Ronning of MD has been VERY busy with coursing and rally (she's almost as crazy as I am:) She completed an AKC FC and ASFA FCH on her boy Derby (FC Chesara Jaytea Curlew SC, FCH, CR, OTR, RN, CGC) as well as a Rally Novice title on both he and his sister Avery. (Both bred by Joanne but sired by our boy Brooks) She also has Major pts and completed the RN title on Marseille - Shannon Down French Kiss SC, CGC, OTR (Leo's litter sister) Now that RN was a big accomplishment for the ultimate wiggle butt:)

And to my long time friend and co-owner - Kiesha Crawmer - thank you for intrusting the girls and Murphy to us. This weekend our girls Winnie (FC Windyglen Winning Colors SC, FCH, CRX3, ORC) and Viva (FC Appaws Vivid Imagination SC, CRX, OTRM) both earned WRCH pts. Both have taken it easy in 2008 but they are tuning up for racing season in 09!!!

And last but not least - Debi Adams earned a 2nd Major win on her boy Porter, whom she co owns with Janis Castle and Sue Vernon (his breeders) Porter needs a single to finish and is out of Shannon Down Shakin The Tree sired by Zafara Rainbow Connection. We are so proud of them!

Congratulations to everyone - the time and effort you put into your dogs and the care you give them does NOT go without notice and appreciation. Krystyl and I are very lucky to count you as friends!

Shannon

Weekend news

2008-12-07T20:12:00.001-08:00

On Saturday - Dawn took Spencer ASFA coursing in Calhoun, GA. Spencer won the Open Stake and became a new ASFA Field Champion! The first ASFA FCh titled kid for both Quincy and Gali.

At the races (WRA) on Saturday in Camden, SC there was a 32 dog meet. Winnie placed 4th and got 2 WRCh points! Tinsley placed 7th and Bosley placed 8th. We had some others place outside the Top 10 but I was SO proud of Delite who decided to come out of the box and run and finished the meet as the Valiant Effort (aka "Turtle") and got an awesome new toy.

On Sunday - Glenda went AKC coursing in Florence, TX. Leo won the Open Stake for a 3 point major, he now has both majors towards his AKC Field Championship! Brom placed 4th in the Open Stake as well.

At the races (WRA again) in Camden, SC, 21 dog meet - Viva placed 4th and picked up 1 WRCh point! Bosley placed 5th, Winnie placed 6th, Tinsley placed 7th and Cuda placed 8th. And my girl Lola was the Valiant Effort (aka "Turtle") today! So we got another awesome toy for that though the dogs are all to tired to think about playing with them.

They are all whooped and will really sleep good tonight!

Leigh's puppies!

2008-12-05T04:04:00.000-08:00

Leigh whelped her puppies in record time last night! From the first one (7:40pm) to the last one (9:24pm) she spent less than 2 hours having EIGHT puppies! She had eight beautiful brindle beauties - 3 boys and 5 girls and even a split face!!!!!! There are individual pictures of all the puppies (both sides and head shot) on the website under Current Litters. We are so pleased with Leigh and the puppies!

Leigh - about to pop

2008-12-03T13:08:00.001-08:00

Still waiting on Leigh to pop - here are some pics of her taken last night. Her first due date has come and gone so she should be going pretty soon!

Cadence & Milo

2008-12-01T13:38:00.000-08:00

Cadence and Milo will be leaving to their new homes soon :( I want to congratulate their new owners on their new pups - Kelly Ryan in Massachusetts (getting Milo) and Terri Pointer in Washington (getting Cadence). These were the newest photos of the girls taken just the other day - 3 months and a week old. They sure are growing up so fast!

"Milo"

"Cadence"

News on the boys

2008-12-01T13:34:00.000-08:00

Almost forgot to report on some wonderful news for two wonderful boys - Blaine and Spencer. Both of them went ASFA coursing this past weekend in Calhoun, GA. On Friday Spencer won the Open Stake and was Best of Breed! He only needs 10 points for his ASFA FCh now. On Sunday Blaine won the Open Stake and finished his ASFA FCh! Congrats to their owners as well, Sharron Lane and Dawn Hill - thanks for letting these boys go out and have fun on the coursing field - even though it was rainy and cold - brrrrr.

Krys

New RN!

2008-11-29T11:43:00.000-08:00

Joanne took Marseille to try for that last leg of her RN yesterday and received a qualifying score of 88 for her last leg of her RN - she is now Shannon Down French Kiss SC, OTR, CGC, RN

Congrats Joanne and Marseille!!!!

Krys

"Delite"ful news :)

2008-11-29T10:16:00.000-08:00

My baby girl Delite - from the Bosley x Winnie litter - went coursing (AKC) today and placed 3rd in the Open Stake of 15 for her first 2 points towards her AKC Field Championship! I am so proud of our little 17.5 inch girl!

GO DELITEFUL!

Krys

Belle puppies!

2008-11-29T10:06:00.000-08:00

Belle whelped 5 beautiful puppies on November 28th - 1 tri color boy, 1 tri color girl and 3 black girls - pictured below...

Novalee, Nathan, Nadia, Nova & Naomi

"Naomi" - black/white girl

"Nova" - black/white girl

"Nadia" - black/white girl

"Nathan" - tri color boy

"Novalee" - tri color girl

Belle is getting HUGE

2008-11-23T18:12:00.001-08:00

The countdown has begun - Belle is due November 26th, and I don't think she can hold off past that. She is HUGE! The picture above was taken just a little bit ago and this doesn't even begin to show how big she really is in person. I can't wait to see what we get - the web cam will be on when she whelps so hopefully some of you will join in to see Shannon Down's one and only Basenji litter - LOL

The link for when she does begin to whelp (keep an eye on things starting Nov 26th) is www.live.yahoo.com/ShannonDown

What an AWESOME weekend!!!!

2008-11-23T16:48:00.000-08:00

We had the most awesome weekend this weekend!!!! We ran 14 dogs each day at the WRA/NOTRA race meets to make numbers and they had so much fun, they are SO tired and will be sleeping really well tonight. To start off we will post about the other Shannon Down Whippet news...

On Friday - Joanne took Kira (mother of the Bird litter, she was bred to Brooks), Aren (a Murphy son bred by Kiesha) and Marseille (Sweet Pea x Blaze) to work on some obedience/rally titles. Kira finished her CD!!!! Aren finished his RN and Marseille earned her second leg towards her RN - way to go Joanne and kids!!!!!!!

On Saturday - George and Michelle took Ripley ASFA coursing in VA, Ripley placed 3rd in the Field Champion stake of 8 dogs - he's well on his way to his LCM! Way to go Ripley! Glenda in Texas took Brom and Frenchie to work on some coursing stuff, Brom completed his JC title and both he and Frenchie pre-certed for ASFA!

On Sunday - Glenda took Leo, Frenchie & Brom ASFA Coursing. Leo won the Open Stake of 7 or 8 dogs and finished his ASFA Field Championship!!!! Brom placed 4th and Frenchie placed NBQ!!! What a great weekend and we've only just begun!

Okay - mom and I went racing in Camden, SC. On Saturday it was 32 dog WRA meet...
Bosley placed 3rd and got the top WRCh point, FOUR!!! Now he only needs 1.33 points to finish his WRCh!
Cuda placed 4th and got the bottom set of points, 2 WRCh, his first WRCh points!
Tinsley ran her first meet and placed 5th, just short of getting points but what an awesome finish for her first time running!
Striker (Bosley x Winnie that Dee Evans owns) ran his second meet and placed 9th and finished his CR title!!!!
Gali finished 10th in the meet and also finished her CR title!

Now for Sunday... I think it was even better than the day before! A 42 dog NOTRA meet.
Viva, who hasn't run more than a handful of times all year, finished 6th and got the top set of ORC points - a whoping FIVE ORC points!!! She now has 6 ORC points. We were so impressed with her today.
And then Cuda, Bosley & Tinsley all tied with the same points and placed 7th, 8th and 9th - since Bosley is finished already, Cuda and Tinsley split the 2nd set of points - 2 each!!!! Tinsley's first time running the oval and she got ORC points!!! AND Cuda got points both days in a row - how awesome!
Striker ran his first NOTRA meet and finished at 13th - not bad at all - considering there were 8 ORC titled dogs at the meet!!!!
Brooks finished his OTRM-3 title and had the best time in months, he hadn't been running in a long while.
Also - Torin, who just turned 7 years old this month is running better than ever. He had a great day of running and is now only 11 points away from his OTRM-3!!!

The dogs all had a blast, we are incredibly tired and we will all sleep really well tonight!

I snapped some pics on Sunday that I am posting...

Lola striking a pose - she ran great and even had a big tumble and recovered great!

Just a cute shot of Viva watching the bunny

A wonderful family photo - momma Raku, daddy Bosley & daughter Tinsley

Striker

Prego girls

2008-11-18T20:22:00.000-08:00

Here are pictures of the prego girls taken today. Leigh is about 2 weeks away from her first due date and Belle is about 1 week away from her first due date!

Francois - first pictures in Holland

2008-11-18T07:47:00.001-08:00

We got these pictures this morning, he seems to be doing really well and she says he's really happy. He has another Whippet friend that lives with him named Hector (brown dog). She met up with her mother and two other dogs - her mothers black Whippet named Hollywood and the Greyhound named Hit. He's having a lot of fun and seems to be settling into his new home with no problems what so ever. We are so happy that he made it over there safe and sound and that she fell in love with him so quickly.

Elle wins in Poland!

2008-11-17T16:10:00.001-08:00

This past Sunday (November 16th) Elle was shown at a National All-Breed dog show in Kielce, Poland - he won his Intermediate class and went on to win Best of Opposite Sex (Best Male) for his first CWC title. He needs 2 more CWC titles to complete his Polish Championship - one from a National show and one from an International show!

YEAH!!!!

Thanks so much to Janina and Angelika for this wonderful opportunity for Elle AND Shannon Down!

Francois in Holland

2008-11-17T14:38:00.001-08:00

Francois arrived safely to his new home in Holland this morning and his new owner Deborah LOVES him already :) She's hoping to take some pictures of him tomorrow and email them to me.

Krys

Our dual sired litter, not so 'dual'

2008-11-17T12:28:00.001-08:00

Got DNA back on Belle (formally Aurora) and Landis today - they are the two remaining parti colored pups. We are still waiting on DNA for the 4 solid pups, but we are sure they are Quincy. Both Belle and Landis are sired by Quincy. We got Cadence's and Aaliyah's back the other day and they were both also Quincy's so it looks like our dual sired litter wasn't really a dual sired litter :( I even gave Brooks a head start knowing how these Swedish boys are but I guess Quincy 'out swam' Brooks :( I was really hoping to have some Brookie kids since he will be neutered soon - but even though it's not a dual sired litter, it's a really nice litter and we couldn't be more happy with them. The bright side is we only have to nominate ONE litter instead of two and we don't have to pay the $200 fee for registering them with AKC - we paid for DNA and microchips but there isn't a down side to that, it's something we would like to do with every litter whether they are dual sired or not - so we didn't loose anything in the process.

Anyways, we got some very nice puppies and we couldn't be happier with them in every way. I will still post when we get the DNA back on the other 4, but it should be no surprise that they are also Quincy's - it will be a few weeks still until we get theirs.

Krys

Prego Basenji

2008-11-15T10:11:00.000-08:00

Here's my very pregnant Basenji girl Belle eating her lunch this afternoon. She's about a week and a half away, her first due date is on November 26 (hopefully she doesn't go on Thanksgiving!) We can't wait to see what she has - we're expecting tri colors an black/whites - hopefully several girls as the co-breeder wants a nice girl from her ;) Her first litter (before I got her) she had 5 puppies, 4 boys and 1 girl and produced several Ch, FC and DC!!!

Update on the puppies

2008-11-15T08:43:00.000-08:00

First, the Scarlet x Bowie pups - pictured at 8 weeks, I am using the head shots - you can see all the stacked shots on the website.

"Lizzie"
She's still looking for the right home, she's an outgoing little bugger and is still the mouth of the litter though she doesn't make nearly as much noise as she use to.

"Cecilia"
Cecilia is going to live in IN with Janina who got Elle from us, she will probably move to Poland to live with her sister next year and will be shown!

"Alistair"
Ali is staying here, since I have a Scarlet daughter (Charlize) I wanted to keep a boy this time. He reminds me so much of his big sister Charlize, same personality but extra sweet!!

Now for the Dido x Quincy/Brooks puppies, they are pictured at 10 weeks.

"Milo"
Milo may be traveling to Brazil, not sure yet. She's a spunky little thing, but the little ones are always the spunkiest ones ;) Still waiting on her DNA

"Liam"
Liam is staying here and my little brother Stuart will be co-owning him and showing him in Juniors. Still waiting on his DNA

"Landis"
Landis is waiting for the right home, he is such a handsome boy that I hope we can find a good show home for him. And he is the BIGGEST sweetheart! Still waiting on his DNA

"Caleb"
Caleb is waiting for the right home, he's the biggest of the puppies and I think he will end up being the tallest, he is so much like his daddy in personality. Waiting on his DNA

"Cadence"
Cadence is also waiting for the right home. She is a big sweetheart, loves to play with my necklace when I hold her. She is sired by Quincy.

"Belle"
Belle, formally Aurora, she is in her new home with Alex Smith - you can see the other posts of her in her new home. Waiting on her DNA

"Alexa"
Alexa is staying here at and will be co-owned with my sister Kassandra Lyons. She is so much like her mother in personality, she is very laid back and is just so regal about everything. Waiting on her DNA

"Aaliyah"
Aaliyah is waiting for the right home, I think we will be holding on to her until the right show home comes along, she is just a stunning girl! She is sired by Quincy.

Well, that's all of them - hope to get some new pics of them this week :) They have handled the change in weather very well. They normally run to the back door and hop out to go play and potty, but when it's really cold in the morning or at night or if it's raining, they just stand at the door and look at me like I'm nuts. Except for Scarlet's puppies, they don't care what the weather is like, they are always the first 3 to hop out the door.

Leigh's belly is growing

2008-11-15T08:19:00.000-08:00

These were taken just the other night, when these were taken she had just under 3 more weeks to go! I hope she doesn't try and out do her last litter of NINE!!!! Her due date is December 2nd, so we still have a bit of a wait, haven't figured out a theme yet but hopefully soon :) I have new pictures of Belle I have to download, she is getting so big and lumpy :) Her first due date is Nov 26th, I have no idea what to think of her size since we've never had a pregnant Basenji before.

The first DNA results are in!

2008-11-12T12:46:00.000-08:00

We got the first DNA results back on the Dido dual sired litter. Funny because it was the second set we sent in, we got Cadence and Aaliyah's back and Aurora (now Belle) and Landis were the first ones we sent in, they should be here any day now.

Drumroll......

Cadence & Aaliyah and sired by

QUINCY

Aurora - now "Belle"

2008-11-11T12:40:00.000-08:00

Aurora has been renamed "Belle" - here is Belle in her new home with her new best buddy "Watson"

Cliona visited...

2008-11-11T10:55:00.000-08:00

Jason was on his way through this past weekend and stopped by with Cliona, she just turned 7 years old this month and we got some pics :)

GiGi injury

2008-11-11T10:44:00.001-08:00

It was a nice weekend for the Shannon Down crew (you can see the weekend news on our News page on the website). But on Sunday while GiGi was coursing she crashed and fractured her skull. Mom took her to the vets yesterday morning, our vet put her on Vancomycin and we're keeping her quiet (not easy for GiGi) and watching her closely. She is acting like her normal self, the sub-Q air under her skin is going down (she has a little split in the skin where she hit her head), her head has swollen up that night but it is also going down, but mom can now feel really well where it is broken. The depression is a little longer thanan inch and about 1/2" wide, our guess is she either landed on a pulley or a rock. She will just be taking it easy and being a couch potato for now and we'll keep an eye on things.

Krys

Aurora

2008-11-07T18:49:00.000-08:00

Aurora, from the Dido dual sired litter, left this afternoon with her new owner Alex Smith. Here she is pictured today right before she left.

One more poster

2008-11-07T17:24:00.002-08:00

Here is the latest one I have done....

"Bosley"
I can feel the wind go by when I run. It feels good. It feels fast.

I'm making POSTERS!

2008-11-07T16:57:00.000-08:00

I am trying my hand at making posters, we have to find a good place to have them printed - they are all 24 x 36 inches or 36 x 24 for the ones that are horizontal. The ones I have done already and pictured below - you can click on them to blow them up. I have little quotes on all of them because you can't read them with them this tiny (click on them to see larger size) Let us know what you think of them!!!!

"Tigger"
The little reed, bending to the force of the wind, soon stood upright again when the storm had passed over.

"Scarlet"
Love is always bestowed as a gift, freely, willingly and without expectation. We don't love to be loved, we love to love.

"Rupert"
Green is the prime color of the world, and that from which its loveliness arises.

"Leigh"
Love is the beauty of the soul.

"Cuda"
The jet stream is a very strong force and pushing a balloon into it is like pushing up against a brick wall, but once we got into it, we found that, remarkably, the balloon went whatever speed the wind went.

"Brooks"
The key to realizing a dream is to focus not on success but significance - and then even the small steps and little victories along your path will take on greater meaning.

Behind on things...

2008-11-07T16:51:00.000-08:00

I am SOOOO behind on things - don't remember posting that Leigh is pregnant! I palpated her a while back and she is indeed pregnant to "Hudson". Her first due date is Dec 2nd!!!! Anyways, updates will be coming, pictures, news, etc. So keep your eyes peeled!