Wow, where do we even start? The end of 2018 and the beginning of 2019 has been a crazy time for us. At the end of October we went all the up to NorCal for the UKC shows hosted in Woodland, California, which was also an unofficial meet-the-breed for us. Greyfarer Aludra turned up with her folks (thanks for coming out!) and placed well enough to earn another leg towards her Championship. Our Ashira also showed great, but unfortunately being 2018 UKC rules, there was not enough breed competition for her to earn anything towards her Grand Championship. Now in 2019 though, we hope to fix that with the new rule changes!
In December, Ashira also went and finished her Novice Barn Hunt title. We are so proud of her! Since then, she has also had QQs towards her Open Barn Hunt title. Moreover, in early December, Ashira also went to an OFA Cardiology clinic for an echocardiogram - everything looks just perfect. That's 4/5 puppies from A-litter with normal cardiac clearances (1 is still outstanding). We hope in 2019 the cardiac screenings will also have good outcomes. Ashira has passed all her breeding screenings now with only a repeat of the elbow radiographs at 24 months so her OFA CHIC number will be assigned (her OFA prelims were just great, so it's mainly a formality). She has >95th percentile scores in PennHIP, just like her mother. We are very happy with her results! We hope to breed Ashira to a very nice male residing in Europe in the latter half of 2019.
On top of all this good news, we also had an opportunity to travel from West to East coast to see all the puppies from A-litter as 16-month old teenagers. That was really the best part of the winter season! The puppies are all turning out so well and we are really grateful to their owners for giving them all such great, interactive, and very involved lifestyles.
Since January, Greyfarer Aludra has been staying with us for temperament evaluation for breeding and some training. She is just such a lovely sweet dog, we're really excited to work with her as part of our breeding program. Out of all the puppies, she is the most similar to our first foundation bitch, Łojma II z Peronowki ("Morrow"), in both temperament and build. She would make a great tracking dog and has very good natural inclination and talent for it, so we hope her owners will continue with that training.
Our very last but not least update is that in March we have a trip planned to Europe! Part of it is to reconnect our breeder & fancier friends, but the other reason is because we will be there.. to escort our new family member home! After searching from Poland to Slovakia back to Poland and waiting on three litters that did not result in viable pregnancies, we are pleased to invite our newest hope to our home: En'enra III z Peronowki at Greyfarer. She comes from a paternal line that we are familiar with, although we have not worked with previously. We're curious how she will develop, and look forward to training with her right away.
Our next public plans are preliminarily the April UKC shows in Northern California - let us know if you want to meet up! We're always down to meet up with folks at the public events we go to. Updates are basically made faster on our Facebook page
We would also like to wish all of our followers a very happy and belated New Years!