Wow, we've been so remiss about updating the website.. I realized our last news update was back in February, 7 months ago 😯 .. I guess having a new puppy can do that.. Esper is now 9 months old and no longer the bat-earred awkward thing we picked up in March 🙂 . Since our last update, we've been training, showing, and trialing as usual, and Ashira has completed 3 more titles under her belt (you can see details of them here). Esper started her show career at the Woodland UKC shows in April, placing Reserve Best in Show Novice Puppy while Ashira took her very first Best in Show, becoming the first female CSV to win BIS in the USA.
Esper also successfully completed her graduation requirements for her Beginner's Obedience courses at our local obedience club, and in early August we traveled to the Czech Republic for the KCHCSVCR Czech Club Specialty Show for CSV as well as the XXIII. European Winner Show for CSV, with 125 and 112 CSV entered on the respective days. The following weekend, the KCHCSVSR Slovak Breed Club hosted the annual specialties at the Club Show for CSV (119 entries) and the Special 30th Anniversary Show for CSV (115 entries). Because of the favorable timing, we were able to enter Esper in all four specialty shows, and she came away with 4 Very Promissing ratings and 3 Reserve Female Puppy (6-9months) placements! Thank you to the judges for seeing the potential in her! We were also able to meet up with many of our friends again and had a very nice vacation in between the events. Thank you for the great conversations, laughs, and just being fellow crazy CSV folks!
Stateside, Greyfarer Azov's owner in Maine had his OFA echocardiogram completed, so that's now 5 of 5 puppies from our A-litter with perfect cardiac results, which is really affirming for us. We also finished Ashira's outstanding health testing, and she was issued her OFA CHIC number in late August. We require passing OFA CHIC certification of all of our breeding dogs, and so with that, we are happy to say that Ashira is the projected dam to our B-litter, planned for sometime in the spring of 2020. We have provisionally selected a stud for her already - a beautiful Europe-based male who complements her both morphologically and by pedigree. At this time we are only waiting on the results of his echocardiogram, but we hope to share litter plans soon.
The Autumn events we plan to attend are all local - the UKC circuits in Bloomington in mid-October and in Claremont at the end of November. Interested in the breed or a puppy from us? We encourage interested people to come and meet the breed and our dogs 🙂 Until then, the dogs are in back-to-school mode just in the time for September - Esper starts Intermediate Obedience today and Ashira continues her agility and conformation classes. Hope everyone had a very nice Labor Day weekend!