Category: News

Making History!

First AKC Certificate of Merit 2!

Oh my goodness! What can we say?! This weekend at the AKC 69th Anniversary Show at the Silver State Kennel Club Shows in Henderson, Nevada, for the second year in a row, Ashira took both a Best in FSS Group 1 under judge Marjorie Anderson as well as a BEST IN OPEN SHOW under Judge Ms. Lee Whittier, marking Ashira's third BIOS in her career. In just three weekends, Ashira wrapped up her Certificate of Merit 2, a breed first!

Ashira is exclusively owner/breeder handled out of the Bred by Exhibitor class. If you recall, in late 2021 she made history then as the very first Czechoslovakian Vlcak CM, and we're so delighted to once again be here!

What is a Certificate of Merit?

An AKC Certificate of Merit is the equivalent of a Champion title, for dogs belonging to breeds provisionally recognized in AKC Foundation Stock Service (FSS) and the Miscellaneous group.

We are very proud of our breeding program and of our very first bred by, Ashira.

Ashira is now:

Multi.BIS UCH TDCH Greyfarer Ashira RATO CGC TL2 UL2 SD1 DNX RN BCAT CM2

Congratulations to all the other winners this weekend, as well as all of our friends and family and especially to our good humored dogs, that make this all possible!!

2022 Updates. Belated, of course.

Updates, 2022 (Yes, the whole entire year, apparently..)

Finally have a hot minute to sit down and do some News updates, which are so, so soooooo overdue! So much has happened since the last News Update (back in December '21, lol..) that I really hope that we remember most of the major stuff.

At our last News section update we announced that Esper had her litter with Iceman Dakmat in late 2021, 3 boys and 2 girls! They have all gone to their new homes obviously, and they are all doing really well. They turned a year old in December 2022 and we have updated on the puppies here. We kept back La Belle Epoque, call name Ibris, who becomes our second bred-by keeper along with Ashira from our A-litter. Ibris has been a really good, easy puppy and we started her off right away with a series of general group classes in basic obedience with our local OB chapter which she finished easily.

In the meantime, WE MADE HISTORY!! At the end of 2021 Ashira went Group 1 at the AKC Coyote Classic in Tucson, Arizona, going on the win BEST IN OPEN SHOW for 5 full points, finishing her AKC Certificate of Merit in just 2 weekends. Ashira is the first ever Czechoslovakian Vlcak CM, and we are so proud of her! Our first bred-by <3 Since then, in 2022, Ashira has racked up points with two more Group 1s and yet another Best in Open Show. What more can we say 🙂

Belias then started off 2022 with a bang, going Group 1 twice at the February Silver Bay Kennel Club of San Diego AKC Open Shows, then going on to win BEST IN OPEN SHOW for 5 full points, also finishing his AKC Certificate of Merit! In doing so, he became the very first male Czechoslovakian Vlcak to earn his CM. We are beyond words and so so proud to be home to the first two Czechoslovakian Vlcak to hold this title.

Greyfarer La Belle Epoque, 11 months

First Certificates of Merit!!

Ibris also started her show career in early 2022 with amazing results too, taking both a Reserve BEST IN SHOW Novice Puppy and BEST IN SHOW Novice Puppy back to back in Hemet, California at 13-weeks old, with Judge Matthew Proctor citing her outstanding movement and good temperament. With her training and socialization going so well, we decided to bring Ibris with us along with Esper for our 2022 summer show & specialty trip to Slovakia. What a trip. We left in late July for the KCHCSVSR national Czechoslovakian Vlcak specialty in Dolny Kubin, Slovakia. Ibris had just aged into the competitive Puppy (6-9 months) class, one of the largest classes with 22 entries under specialty judges Anna Kochan and Simona Coriddi, coming away with two V-Excellent ratings having made the cut in both shows.

Ibris, 13 weeks Novice Puppy class

Bratislava Danube Shows, Slovakia, 2022

Esper went V1 Excellent first place twice in the Honour class. It was a pleasure to attend these shows and see the strong competitors and quality dogs. What a treat it was for us! Ibris grew up so quickly over the duration of the trip, by the time September rolled around she was already as tall as Esper when she was shown in the FCI International Dog Show series in Bratislava, Slovakia, Ceske Budejovice, Czech Republic and Tulln an der Donau, Austria, where she became 2022 Junior Bundessieger Winner and 2022 Junior Danube Winner. Esper started on her FCI Czech Republic Championship, placing 1st with a CAC out of the Working class in Ceske Budejovice. We are satisfied with how the girls did among strong breed competition and we are looking forward to seeing how our breeding program can incorporate what we have learned and seen.

We really had so much fun in Europe with the girls, visiting castles, vineyards, outdoors markets, and of course, friends! We made a little roadtrip through Austria, up through Germany and then back down through Czech Republic, visiting our friends along the way and dining at all sorts of restaurants, from dim sum to traditional Czech pub fare (all dog friendly establishments, of course!). We really appreciate all our friends who hosted us, kept our company.. you guys are really the BEST. Towards the end of the trip we tried for a two-sired litter with Esper, but unfortunately, she didn't carry the litter to term, but, well, you win some, you lose some.

Returning stateside in mid-October, we packed up the crew again and hustled off to the AKC The Kennel Club of Riverside series in Perris, California, where Ibris picked up her very first AKC CM points, going Best of Breed and a Group 3. Besides conformation, Ashira and Syrak did well on the dock in 2022 and earned the first DNX and DNA titles in the breed, respectively. All in all 2022 was really successful for our kennel and although we didn't have any litters, it gave us more time to go on roadtrips and other fun things, like, hosting our friend and professional photographer, the amazing Alicja Zmyslowska! Most of the professional art photos on this site are Alicja's work and we just cannot get enough of her talent and vision.

Go, Ashira!

Syrak!

Unfortunately, there is also one teeny dark spot I do have to write about, and that is that we have ended our relationship and membership with the Czechoslovakian Vlcak Club of America (CSVCA), with whom we have been members in good standing for years now. Despite the inertia and lack of events - the CSVCA has not held a specialty or even a club meeting in over 10 years - we decided to sever our association with the CSVCA when Sharon diGennaro, a CSV breeder in Florida, who was voted to the board earlier in the year, unilaterally suspended my account with no explanation for nearly two weeks. We contacted the club president without response. Almost 2 weeks later I received an email from Ms. diGennaro stating she had suspended my account because we had posted about an AKC event that was coming up with a lot of CSV entered, which the club was not supporting. However, I was never informed of that, it was never publicly announced anywhere, and the club has no policy on posting about events that the club is not involved with. Ms. diGennaro also followed up by stating that I could open a complaint against her if I wanted to (lol, wtf.)

On top of that, as a member in good standing, I had repeatedly asked for minutes for the club meetings that had taken place, particularly since I had heard that there had been a hearing for Code of Ethics violations concerned Ms. diGennaro. I never received any response back from anyone, and I have never received the minutes. Due to the secrecy, the behind-the-door governance, the lack of transparency, the tolerance of COE violations and obvious abuse of position we have decided to direct our energy elsewhere to better promote the breed in a responsible and transparent fashion, while upholding quality and ethics. At this time we are working with the Czechoslovakian Vlcak Society of America (CSVSA), a new club established last November. Despite its short presence, I have seen a lot of group effort and I am looking forward to what this club does in the next few years. Onwards with the new.

Anyway, no time to linger on negativity, I think that the CSVSA has opened membership applications now and the more members, the more easily things get done, so if you're interested in CSV, please consider it.

I believe that I've managed to remember the highlights of 2022, and 2023 has already been a whirlwind of events for us.. We will try to update in another post very soon! And yes, we are planning litters this year - both in our kennel and beyond 😉

Greyfarer Litter B is here!

On December 21, 2021, our Esper had 3 boys and 2 girls. You can read more about the litter here.

Mom and puppies are so far doing well!

Summer 2021

Dolny Kubin, SK, 2021

Wow, so where do I even start? It's been a whirlwind last three months. Like most summers, we planned to attend the specialty shows and club meetings in Slovakia, possibly Czech Republic. Instead, we ended up attending the specialties in both Slovakia and the Czech Republic, but also Poland, and then also over to Brnenka shows at the World Dog Show, and 3 FCI International Dog show weekends in Slovakia as a cherry on top. This year we took along Esper as we had done two summers ago, and she was rated V-excellent at all five specialties, as well as placing 3x. Specialties (ie., single breed shows) are always the most meaningful to me, providing very strong breed competition and an opportunity to see the best of what other breeders are producing. Sometimes Esper was feeling more like clowning around, but overall she showed wonderfully and ended our trip with a Best of Breed and a Grand Prix National Slovak Breed 3, finishing her FCI Championship - Slovakia. We are just over the moon!

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We set off for Europe at the end of July with some COVID-related loops to jump through, but nothing major. First stop - the Slovak Club Specialties and Bonitation in Dolny Kubin, Slovakia. This meeting is honestly one of the highlights of our summers, where you can see many dogs from some of the best litters and kennels in Europe. We always enjoy great organization on part of the club with really friendly folks. For the last several years there has been really great turnout from across Europe, almost always owner-handled. Esper did well at the specialties and the day after we entered her in the bonitation evaluation, a mandatory exam for breeding CSV in the Czech Republic and Slovakia.

SVP-1 40km test; photo: Michal Volárik, Milan Krajčovič

It wasn't all work and no play though, of course! We also took our time to drive around northern Italy and up through Germany visiting friends and kennels (and the beach! and restaurants!) By the end of August we made our way over to the V. Polish National CAC Specialty for CSV. I won't go through a boring re-collection of all the shows and specialties (you can read about that on our FB if you're curious). I'll just mention that we participated in and successfully completed the KCHCSVSR organized SVP-1 40 kilometer breed exam for CSV. Esper has now met not only the breeding requirements of the US national club but also of the Slovak club. It's a nice accomplishment for us to know that we have striven to measure our dogs against the standards of club of the country of origin, and that they have met that standard.

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Summer haul!

We rode the trains to a bunch of places, visited so many great restaurants across Germany, Italy, Czech Republic, Slovakia.. visited the vineyards in Vienna proper.. shopped some crazy dog supply shops and really just had an awesome time. We had such a great time visiting all of our friends and we really owe our entire experience to them.

Oh - and one last thing. We're crossing our fingers for Christmas puppies! We selected an amazing stud in Europe and we are waiting for confirmation of Esper's pregnancy. For that reason we are skipping the AKC Open Shows in November with her, but Syrak, Belias, and Ashira will be at the Arizona set if anyone is interested in meeting our dogs 🙂

Expected Litter B – May 2021

Litter B Expected

We're happy to share that our litter "B" will be born in mid-May 2021 between Bruno Verny Volk and Greyfarer Ashira. This is a breeding that we have long had our eye on and one which we attempted last year without success, so we're super excited about this year and the new addition to our home. This is the first and very likely only litter of Bruno outside of Finland, where he has sired limited get. Bruno is a tall, 8 year old male around 70cm from the line of Dak Kollarov dvor. He represents an opening of our female lines with a litter COI 10 of 4.6%. He completed his Finnish Championship in limited showing and has been thoroughly health-tested to the equivalent of an OFA CHIC.

Ashira is our keeper from A-litter. She is about 64-65cm and a great mover. This will be her first litter. Ashira has been shown in both FCI and UKC systems with multiple Best in Show and Reserve Best in Show placements. In the sports rings, she's a typical CSV - she's mainly 'works' if she feels like humoring you that day.. she has trained, trialed, and titled in multiple sports, mainly in scentwork related venues, but also in the rally ring and dock-diving pools.

From this litter we expect dogs of standard type and temperament suitable for show and sport, and we hope for dogs with exceptional color.

This is a CSVCA qualified litter and both parents meet and/or exceed the OFA CHIC health testing guidelines. Puppies will be whelped, raised and released under the terms written here.

Ghost to (finally) be a father!

Our Wintermoon z Lasow Preczowskich ("Ghost") will become a father for the first time 🙂 The litter is expected at the Minnesota kennel Vegvisir, the first CSVCA national club qualified litter in over two years. Both parents are fully health screened, OFA CHIC-certified, and titled front and back. Please contact Vegvisir kennel directly to inquire about waitlisting.

Spring – Summer 2019 Updates

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.

Best in Show - Greyfarer Ashira

RBISNP - En'enra III z Peronowki (Esper)

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!

Summer specialty ribbon haul!

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!

Winter 2018-2019 Updates

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!

Greyfarer Aludra (L), Greyfarer Ashira (R)

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.

Greyfarer Azov

Greyfarer Adrammelech

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.

Puppy!

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!

Vegvisir-Greyfarer Litter B Plans, January 2019

Earlier in 2018, we had planned this litter along with the kennel Vegvisir in Minnesota. However, with Morrow's passing, we had decided to forego litter plans this year, but things work the way they do, and it appears that we will (hopefully) have our co-bred B-litter in mid-January 2019. We currently accept a few more select non-binding waitlist placements. You can contact either me or Vegvisir (their site is www.vegvisirkennel.com) We expect a litter with good bones, color, coat quality and be of good breed type.

The pedigree of the litter will be an interesting combination of Czech and Slovak lines, in a match that is not often seen in the breed (not only stateside). Both parents are fully health screened, meeting and exceeding the requirements of the Czechoslovakian Vlcak Club of America.

We look forward to mid-December when the confirmation sonogram has been scheduled. This litter will be whelped in Minnesota and will be raised under Puppy Culture recommendations.

A Summer in Slovakia, and the first UKC Champion from our kennel

In August we hopped across the pond to go to the CSV Summer Camp hosted by the National CSV Club of Slovakia, a week of CSV-related events this year including two specialty shows - the annual Club Show and the XXII. European Dog Show for CSV - and a bonitation. Although we did not attend with any of our dogs this year, nevertheless we're happy to have seen so many quality dogs in one place. More than 140 dogs were entered and many more just in attendance for other club events. We also had a chance to make a few trips out in eastern Slovakia to see some potential studs. The photo albums we shot from the shows can be found on our Facebook page here.

All of the stamps!

Through the years we've traveled quite a bit to go see potential studs, as we always prefer to see them in real life as opposed to just evaluating them on photos and so on, and this trip was no different. This time it was the first time none of my dogs have accompanied me, though, so that really was different. I kept feeling like I was forgetting the dogs somewhere. In any case, we enjoyed Slovakia as usual, the camps as always, seeing all our friends old & new (thanks, guys!) and a bit of sightseeing and sampling cuisines.. Summer camp was just great! We're looking forward to another visit next year if we can swing it.

We're also very happy to see that all the dogs from A-litter are growing up and active in training, shows, and so on, and all are doing great with their families from whom we regularly hear from. In fact, in mid-September our Greyfarer Adlon became our very first bred-by to finish his UKC Championship and we are so proud of him and his family! He was of course owner-handled.

In October there are two series of shows in both Southern and Northern California we'll be at, too. The shows are a great way to meet and greet the dogs and us 🙂 We don't generally allow folks to come over to the house due to security reasons until we get to know them better, so public spaces and events are the best way to meet up.

In the meantime, we've gotten a lot of questions about future litters. If you are interested in importing, we suggest the litter listings at www.wolfdog.org to start at since there are actual requirements to listing your dogs there - minimum health screening and a complete pedigree without suspicious (read: possible mixes) pedigrees. If you are interested in a dog from us, we suggest you read all pages here thoroughly, becoming involved in the US club, ask questions, be active, keep in contact and optimally try to meet up with us. In the second half of 2019 or first half of 2020 at the earliest we plan two litters. All details are pending passing evaluations for the outstanding health screenings we require of breeding stock, which will be finished around August of 2019.

We generally update on our Facebook page a few times a week, with only major updates here. If you would like to keep up with us more look us up on Facebook!