Bamboo 1 week old

For some good news around here...this is "Bamboo" the little Pap puppy at 1 week of age.

Eyes peaking out!

Big yawn!

Great sadness here at Pawcific

With great sadness I announce the passing of my first Cardigan, my heart dog, and one of my best friends.
Am/Aust CH Ruatha Aisling CD, RN, CGC (Imp Aust)
June 20, 1996 - August 30, 2009
Hard to say many words right now. Sleep well my Ash.
~Emily

Ramblings for Wed...

(I mean ramblings...so bare with me on the jumping around thing)

This fall...I have the pleasure of doing some judging on the side. I love judging, if you didn't already know and will soon be hanging up my handler lead and putting in my application. It is an honor to be asked to do sweepstakes assignments. I have done many already, but this year I have a couple of exciting ones like the Otterhound National Sweepstakes and the BCSA National Futurity.

Tomorrow I leave for Grass Valley, CA. I am judging the Nor Cal BC specialty Sweepstakes and I am so excited! At the specialty, I am also presenting the BC judges education seminar. This is my first time doing it on my own, so it shall be fun!

For those who were wondering...my thumb is healing. It will be a while before it is totally better but at least able to use it again (with band aids and padding of course!).

This past Monday I brought home another Cardigan girl. It looks like she may be staying. I will tell more later but her sire is one of the top winning dogs right now!

A BC puppy will also be joining the crew soon! I just have to decide which one I am taking!!

Today Chai went to obedience class. He is doing really well and much prefers that to silly conformation. I am going to continue his training in obedience, since he really can't go to any of the upcoming specialties. When he is more mature, I will take him out and finish him quickly. I love my gold boy!

That's it for the moment...you all have a good weekend!!

Heather's Puppy is Here!

Technically he was born on Thursday...right before I left for the dog show this weekend. He came at 5am in the morning. Yes, one boy. Right now we are suspicious he is a black and white like his daddy, but he could be a dark sable and just not showing yet. We will know more as his coat comes in! He is sold, BTW.

His favorite spot...on your chest.

Proud mama with baby.

A little more of his markings.

The saga of the thumb and weekend results...

First off I want to send a huge thank you to those who sent well wishes to me about my thumb. It was feeling so much better after the Urgent Care visit and my PT looking at it on Wednesday. But, the saga goes on. Today during the Open Dog class in Tervs, Jazz accidentally nipped the nail enough on my thumb trying to get the steak in my hand that he popped the nail off. Which, BTW, bleeds A LOT! So, won the class, yelled at the ring steward to hand me a paper towel before WD and went onto winning WD...after getting out of the ring the paper towel was totally soaked with blood...so handed Jazz off to Penny for BOB (THANK YOU PENNY!!) and ran over to the EMT guy. What was really funny though is that even though I was bleeding everywhere...my thumb is no where near the pain threshold it was at in Enumclaw. The EMT guy wrapped it up and sent me on the way. Jazz in the meantime won BOW with Penny. Unfortunately the major broke, but we got 2 pts at least! That was the only drama for the weekend, thankfully!

So, now other results. A big hug and congrats to Judy, our Terv client, who just made us proud to show her dogs. They just did fabulous and we had lots of nice compliments on her dogs throughout the weekend.

Friday, Terv specialty
Chloe (handled by Jenny) was Best in Veteran Sweeps, 2nd in Regular Veteran Bitch
Airie (handled in part by Judy and Emily) was 1st in her Veteran Sweeps class, 1st in Regular Veteran Bitches, and AOM at 14.5 yrs of age!!!
Jazz RWD

Rosey was Best Puppy in Breed at the Fun Match and Puppy Group 3.
Teddie won Best Adult in Breed at the Fun Match and Adult Group 2.

Saturday, Terv specialty
Chloe was 1st in her Veteran Sweeps class and 2nd in Regular Veteran Bitch
Airie was Best in Veteran Sweeps and 1st in Regular Veteran Bitch
Jazz was 4th in Open Dog

Sunday, All breed show
Tervs, Jazz BOW, 2 pts
Cardigans, Diesel RWD (thanks to Le'o for stepping in with my big goof while I was at the BC ring!)
BC's, Mattel, RWD, Reiver WB, 1 pt!

Next weekend we are off to Grass Valley for a BC specialty and Pap specialty, what fun!!

An update on weekend adventures...

As many of you know who were at the show in Enumclaw...I injured myself pretty badly. Of course it happened on Friday morning before the Pap specialty, so I had to endure pain the whole weekend long. Yes, I stupidly slammed my right thumb into my sliding van door. It was throbbing all weekend long and basically all I could think about was just getting through so I could go home. Last night I went to Urgent Care and they drilled a whole in my nail, relieving the pressure built up from the massive bleeding, no broken bones, thankfully! This morning I am very soar but at least not in unbearable pain.

For weekend news...Pap specialty Walker won 3rd in his 9-12 mth puppy class, Rosey won 2nd in Am Bred bitch...Saturday Lincoln won BOB, Chai was RWD...Sunday Lincoln was BOS, Chai was RWD, Walker won his class, Huck won 3rd, grandpups...Bonnie (owned by Lauren) won WB to finish!!, Denali (owned by Kelly) won BOB, and Vogue (co-owned by Jeanette and myself) won BOS. Probably forgetting something but those are the big ones.

An article on structure...and more ramblings from Emily

On our BC judges education list this article came through from another fellow breeder and I thought it was worth sharing with everyone in blogland. It is titled "The Importance of the Upper Arm" http://darkstarrrotts.com/upper_arm.htm The article is done by a Rottweiler breeder and is very well done IMO.

While I am on the educating side of things...something that has been bugging me lately is the idea of virtue. I see way too many dogs in the ring lately that are in the catagory of mediocracy. They have no glaring faults, nor any spectacular virtues. For those who are listening...be careful of this. I would much rather have a dog with a glaring fault and a glaring virtue in my breeding program rather then a mediocre dog. A mediocre dog will most likely be bred to another mediocre dog, which means you will result into more mediocre dogs. Yes, some of my dogs might not be perfect but I always look at them in having an outstanding virtue, if they don't have that then they won't last at my house.

(A side note...for those who don't know I have a pedigree database of about 13,000 Cardigans. Helen Jones and I communicated a ton about pedigrees, we shared that passion. In recent years I haven't kept it up unless I am interested in a dog or a line. So, it really is mostly older dogs and about every dog I have entered I can just do a sire and dam and have a 10 genereation pedigree. If you ever need a pedigree, email me, I can usually help!)

In Cardigans...faults I have dealt with are things like fluffies. I would much rather have a good structured dog that is coated versus a poorly structured dog that is nicely coated. Many years ago some breeders believed that if you didn't have that occasional fluffy in that pedigree, you would start getting coats that were too short and not as dense and waterproof as we need in the Cardigan breed. I am not sure if I totally agree with it, but knowing pedigrees like I do...I know how to incorporate fluffies in my lines without producing tons of fluffies. Now it may eventually haunt me, but I believe that if you do the research and know whats behind your dogs, you can incorporate an outstanding fluffy without hindering your lines. And no, I do not do the fluff test, maybe I should, but other health clearances are way more important to me then that one.

One dog that some of the newbies around might not remember was a sable named Pawcific Justa Legend PT. He is pictured below. Legend was a dog I bred from my first litter. He was born in Australia and then I imported him and his sister, Ch Pawcific Justa Dream, back to the USA. Legend had two major faults, his coat and he had one floppy ear (after an injury) which prevented him from being shown past 5 points with a major. Legend was an absolute stunning mover, he had a front to die for with a long upper arm, flowing tail set and a gorgeous masculine head. He was not an overdone dog and a perfect size in my opinion without being too big or too little. So, many might ask why you don't see him in my pedigrees? Well, quite frankly it's the fate of not ever having any girls to breed to your stud dogs. He was used 3 times at stud. The one was from my very own Ash, which ended up being a nick, in other words we criss crossed some lines that did not mesh with one another. His second two litters were from outside bitches produced several nice dogs and in turn one of his daughters is the mother to CH Peak's Pippin's the One, who has had a great show career as well as a great performance career (sorry can't remember all of her titles, otherwise I would list them!). When I sold Legend, I froze him before I did so...once I get that perfect girl to go to him, you will see another litter out of him. In the meantime he is frozen in time as a dog that many would have petted out because he had a strong fault, the smart ones would have gone on with him because of his outstanding virtues.

So, I think I could ramble on for days about this. I probably will do another installment on this another day or later when I get a chance to sit down again. One more thing before I leave...in this day in age, we for some reason don't have the breed mentors we used too. Many breeders have stopped passing on the knowledge that we have, so that those younger generations can start where you left off instead of go backwards...I think this is extremely important and feel that the more knowledge I can share with others, the more good I am doing for my breeds.

Signing off...Emily

More Brayden Puppies!!!

Puppies arrived late last week...since I was off on the weekend I didn't get a chance to post pictures. Proud mother is CH Wedgewood Lena Lemoges. The grand total is 6, 3 boys and 3 girls. Congrats to all!

Camping weekend

Michael and I had the pleasure of going camping this past weekend. We left Evan with Grandpa and Grandma and took our new tent trailer (well new too us!) and headed off to Cougar. From Cougar we went up to Lower Falls in the Gifford Pinchot National Forest. It was pretty much way the heck in the middle of no where...but we had fun. Here are some pictures from some of our hikes/photo opportunities...

Beautiful Lower Falls...we camped on this portion of the Lewis River.

Another view of Lower Falls.

Langfield Falls

Big Creek Falls

The pictures above and below are from the Ape Caves. Michael decided after we took the guided tour to go back and experiment with his camera. Well...an hour later...he came back to the car with these two pictures. Pretty amazing for a completely dark cave!

Skywatch Friday

Another picture from Michael worth posting...enjoy!

Oregon Zoo

Yesterday we went to the Oregon Zoo in Portland after my classes in the morning. The animals were not as active because of the heat, but Michael got some good pictures of a few of them. Also, a few Evan pics thrown in (of course!). After the zoo we went downtown to the Old Spaghetti Factory. It was a nice day.

Picture from Idaho

Here is Diesel's win picture from Idaho. He won his second major going BOW. He is just one single from finishing and hopefully will do that in August!

Pony ride

Evan had his first pony ride yesterday evening at my parents house. His bike helmet was the best helmet to fit him, so we may have to get him another helmet. Truman was really good and Evan carried the saddle most of the way, got off by himself, and helped stop and start Truman. Truman wasn't even phased by the barking dogs, chickens, sheep, and new surroundings that we introduced him too during the ride.

Evan carrying the saddle.

As you can see it's a little dusty on the roadway right now as they are trying to redo it!

Evan loves his new pony!

Hip Hip Hooray!

Just got back...CH Pawcific Secret Wish passes her OFA with a Fair rating. Phew!!! She is of course totally bald right now, so it will be a while before she is back in the ring!

A well needed weekend off...

This week is Michael's vacation. So, instead of going off to a dog show...I actually get to do fun things and be with my family. It's amazing how much you miss just having family fun, when you work on the weekends! On Saturday we began in McMinnville, OR at the Evergreen Air and Space Museum. Then off to my Grandpa's 85th Birthday party! After the party we drove onward to Lincoln City to stay for the night. Then on Sunday, we spent mostly on the beach, did a little touring, and of course ate at the famous Mo's. It was really nice to spend some quality time with the three of us. Here are some pics from Michael...

Evan trying out one of the toys in the air museum. (note: his cowboy boots never come off!)

Silly face.

Evan in front of one of the space exhibits.

Evan outside on the playground, climbing a rope.

Evan at the beach.

Truman...pony for Evan

Some of you may already have read on Megan's blog...but thought I would post my picture I took yesterday. We leased Truman from Megan for Evan. He is really excited about it. Truman gets to live at my parents house and Mom is going to do some more training with him. It works out well for all involved and I am sure Evan will enjoy him while he is here! Truman has a few days to settle in as Evan I am sure will want to ride him Monday morning when I am at school!