I was surprised to receive certificates from the United Kennel Club informing me that Miska and Diva had tied for 5th place in Vizslas overall in the United States for 2010. There aren't a lot of Vizslas being shown in UKC conformation but it's always a nice touch to know one's dogs did well in such a big country!
TOP 20 - CKC
Diva and her brother Quest out of our 2008 litter between Ch Hubertus Quality Control FDJ and Am/Can/UKC/Int'l Ch Varazs Kiralyi Kedvesem Am/Can CD, Am/Can RE/ Am RAE, JH, FD, NAVHDA NA PRZ III, CGN finished in the top 20 in Canada in 2010. Quest (Ch Varazs Kedves Quester) is #11 and Diva (Ch Varazs Kedves Quickstep) is #17. These results are unofficial as Dogs in Canada which tabulates the official results, only determines the Top 5 in each breed. Nonetheless, it's still a thrill to be in the Top 20!
Miska weighed in at 55 pounds on Wed., May 18th when these photos were taken. That's a gain of 5 pounds in the last two weeks. During weeks 2-4, she was off her food although still ate. Now her appetite is clearly back and she's getting fed 3 smaller meals/day instead of larger quantities 2X/day. Puppies are due June 1, in two more weeks!
My friend Joan White sent me a link to this video. OK, it's not about our Vizslas but it is funny & this dog is talented. After all he, can play piano and sing which is more than many people can do!
If Randy Jackson of American Idol were judging, his comments would probably be:
"A little pitchy."
"But he's in it to win it!!!."
Steven Tyler would say:
"Man, you stole my heart."
J Lo:
"[Laughing]. You know, you have incredible talent! You just need to find the right song choice."
Simon Cowell:
"Very pitchy. That's the worst performance of the evening. You're definitely going home!"
It's back to Ontario from AZ. Spring in Ontario usually means rain and there was a lot of in April when we were still in AZ. And it appears rain and cool (cold!) temps are continuing throughout May. How quickly one forgets, after being in AZ for the past 5 months, that Ontario = rain = mud = muddy dogs = dog bath after each walk. Sigh.
So it was the case after today's walk. Everyone needed a shower. I suppose I should consider ourselves lucky that we even got out for a walk today since it's been raining for the past 3 days and more is forecast for the rest of the week. But all 3 dogs came back with muddy undercarriages. Plus both Miska and Diva had rolled in something smelly. So into the large walk-in shower they went, all 3 together. I don't have a photo of the group shower but here's one taken of Diva last year.
You can take the dog out of the hunting field but you can't take the hunting out of the dog.
A cactus wren decided to make a nest in the eavestrough of our house in AZ. And BTW, very, very few houses in AZ even have eavestroughs because of the lack of rain. For some reason, our house does. They do serve a purpose during the monsoons so they aren't wasted. But when the wren decided to set up its home on our house, the dogs got a little excited. After all, it's been months since Miska, Tyro and Diva 'hunted' birds.
Since temperatures started rising here in AZ, I began walking the dogs early in the mornings as well as having them don their 'cool coats'. I got these coats before we left Canada. They were made by MustLuvDogs.ca
Miska (wild salmon) & Diva (electric purple)
Tyro, Diva & Miska
Miska & Tyro
We get stopped a lot by people on our walks. The locals think I'm crazy having my dogs wear coats when it's in the 80's & 90's. Of course, they don't realize these are 'cool' coats. One lady who stopped us yesterday commented, "These are the best dressed dogs in Anthem!"
Cool coats certainly help to keep my dogs cool(er). They pant less and therefore drink less water. I still carry water for them, But without their cool coats on, they would need to drink a lot MORE water which is heavy to lug around. However, I've discovered that because of the very low humidity here, the coats start to dry out after about 60 to 75 minutes. In fact, after soaking them, I don't even bother to ring them out. If I did, they would dry out even faster. They are really no complete match for the AZ heat and low humidity. I found one public bathroom in town where I stop and resoak them and refill water bottles. Only works when it's on my route. On the other side of town, I can refill our bottles at Starbucks. Nevertheless, I am so glad my dogs have these coats here.
May 4th marked the start of week 5 for Miska's puppies. She weighed 50 lb yesterday, a gain of about 5 pounds. And her nipples have really enlarged already. Her grand-mother Nekah never showed at 5 weeks; in fact, I was showing Nekah in conformation to finish her Cdn Championshipship and even I couldn't tell she was pregnant. Not the case with Miska. Those nipples are a dead giveaway!
Dolly Parton - eat your heart out!
Hard to believe a newborn will be able to grasp this!
Woo-hoo!! Katya,, a.k.a. Ch (Cdn & UKC) Varazs Sziv Jump For Joy RN, RA, RE, CGC CGN from our 2003 litter and her owner, Pauline Helfenstein are in the NASA Saturn book as Cassini team members.
Katya "helps" Pauline on the space project.
"Cassini-Huygens is one of the most ambitious missions ever launched into space. Loaded with an array of powerful instruments and cameras, the spacecraft is capable of taking accurate measurements and detailed images in a variety of atmospheric conditions and light spectra.
Two elements comprise the spacecraft: The Cassini orbiter and the Huygens probe. In 2004, Cassini-Huygens reached Saturn and its moons. There the spacecraft began orbiting the system in July 2004, beaming home valuable data that will help us understand the vast Saturnian region. Huygens entered the murky atmosphere of Titan, Saturn's biggest moon, and descended via parachute onto its surface." Click Cassini Solstice Mission to learn more about this fascinating space project.
There are some dogs that are "once-in-a-lifetime" and one of those dogs was Milo.
Two months ago today, on March 7, Milo crossed the Rainbow Bridge.
June 13, 2002 - March 7, 2011
I had bred and kept Milo for the first year of life, hoping to make him part of my breeding program. Due to the gradual appearance starting at six months of age of white hairs in areas of his body where white is not permissible, I knew I wouldn't be able to use his for breeding. I found his new 'forever' home in Toronto with Corrine Sellars. He was her first dog and first Vizsla. My requirement of Corrine was to obtain one title on Milo and since it couldn't be a show (conformation) title due to the white, it had to be either in field, obedience or agility. I helped her obtain that first title - a hunting tile (Field Dog Jr.). Corrine then began an incredible journey with Milo which culminated in him achieving 28 titles! Not only did Corrine far exceed my expectations (I knew Milo was always capable!) but she was terrific at sending me tons of photos and videos of their achievements and life and times together. In some ways, it was like Milo never left me.
So we were both totally devastated to learn that Milo developed subcutaneous mast cell disease, a malignant tumour, which was in his groin where removing it couldn't be done without 'radical' surgery. Several months prior to this, he had had a small mast cell tumour in the same area which was removed. It's possible the vet didn't excise a wide enough margin around that tumour and that's why another developed in his groin. Tragically, this second tumour proved to be aggressive and because of the location, not possible to remove surgically. He underwent chemotherapy at the Ontario Veterinary College in Guelph which extended his life for 6 months. I saw him a few times during his many visits to OVC. My last visit with Milo was in November, just before we headed to AZ for the winter. Sadly, it was my last with him. On March 7, 2011 it became apparent that the quality of Milo's life had deteriorated and Corrine had to say farewell.
All of the dogs I breed are 'family'. Because of their proximity to me and because of my closeness to Milo for his first year, his passing was very difficult for me and it's been hard to write this Blog entry. And his owner, Corrine, has been utterly devastated by his death. Only time will heal her grief but she will be always have thousands of wonderful memories and probably just as many photos of Milo to make her smile again.
Milo - you were truly a one of a kind Vizsla and you are terribly missed.
For some reason, Tyro LOVES these toys. He is usually always carrying one in his mouth. I don't know how this happened, but he managed to get them all lined up in a row and then laid down for a rest.
It was a pretty chilly morning in Phoenix with high winds when I took Miska, Tyro & Diva out for their walk. When I say 'chilly', it was actually 60 deg F or 15.5 C, not really that chilly but I've acclimatized to AZ weather so it felt chilly to me, especially because of the winds. Therefore I was really surprised to see something like this on the road right next to the sidewalk in front of a house that borders onto the desert. (This was around the corner and a few doors down from our house.)
Gopher Snake
Whoa I thought!! BIG SNAKE! It wasn't curled up so I didn't know if it was dead or alive. I also didn't know if it was a rattlesnake or not. It was pale coloured and perhaps about 4 ft in length. and usually those are harmless Sonoran Gpher Snakes. I couldn't see a rattle on its tale but then again, I wasn't going to go up to it and ask. Or even poke at it to get it to move.
So I decided we should give it a very wide berth and thus we four crossed the road. When we returned from our walk, it was gone. So the photo above isn't an actual picture of the snake we saw but a photo of a Gopher Snake.
While AZ is largely desert, there are several lakes in the state, many of them created as a result of dams. Our closest one is Lake Pleasant and indeed it is very pleasant. It's fairly large and quite deep - about 1,700 ft deep. Today when the temps were supposed to hit 97 deg., we decided we'd take the dogs there for a swim since it would be pretty quiet during the week. They had a good time, especially when swimming out to to try and catch the Mallard. It was their first time swimming since we've been in AZ.
Tyro (L) and Diva (R) decide a Mallard is more interesting than a ball.
Take one very handsome and talented hunter by the name of Int'l BIS BISS Int'l & Am CH Pirok Tegla MH aka "Brick"
and mate him with a very versatile, pretty and good hunter Vizsla named BIS (Veteran) Am/Cdn/Int'l/UKC CH Varazs Kiralyi Kedvesem FDJ, FD, NAVHDA NA Prize III, JH, Am/Cdn CD, Am/Cdn RE, Am RAE, CGN aka "Miska" . . .
and the result is that 5-6 puppies are now expected on June 1, 2011. These puppies should have very good hunting instincts and be gorgeous in the show ring too. After all, life is too short to hunt with an ugly Vizsla. And they should also be very versatile like any good Vizsls should be. Oh - and also have awesome temperaments.
I'm going to be a "grandmother" again! Miska visited the vet's this morning for an ultrasound and she's definitely expecting! We counted 5 pups for sure; maybe 6. These procedures aren't always accurate. But I am relieved it's not going to be a huge litter of 10 or something like that. Miska had 6 in her first litter and given she's going to be 8 years old soon, a medium-sized litter will be just perfect for her and me. Oh yes, puppies are due June 1.
Mozel Tov to Miska and papa Ch Pirok Tegla MH ("Brick")!
To see more photos of Brick, the dad-to-be, click here which will take you to the Varazs website.
I had to repeat Intermediate 1 classes at the Jumping Chollas Agility Club because neither Miska nor Diva had mastered the weave poles. That was OK because there was a lot of new stuff that I'd never done before after being out of agility for many, many year so it was as much for my benefit that we repeated the course as it was for them.
Well after considerable practice over months, they havealmost fully mastered the weaves. At week 4, we did a mini-course - well, not that mini because there were 17 obstacles and a couple of the setups were really challenging for novice dogs: a discrimination exercise with a tunnel and the dog walk and a box jump. Nevertheless, in her first run-through, Miska had a clean run!!! I was so proud of her, especially as she is almost 8 and much of this is still new for her plus she's pregnant. (Don't worry, she only jumped 12" high jumps.)
This is the first part of Miska's run. My hubbie was more intent on watching us than filming so part of our run didn't get taped!
Here is Miska coming off the dog walk and over the last jump.
This is Diva running her course (she has a lot of difficult with the box jump layout and misses the weave entry).
Today, our foundation bitch would have been 20 years old if she was still alive. She was born in New York state and came to be known as Maritza of Kezdet Nekah. "Nekah" was our first Vizsla puppy and first female as we had adopted two adult Vizslas before her. I can still remember so clearly picking her up in Syracuse, NY from Judy Vernon (now Judy Saddlemire). Nekah wasn't Judy's litter but Judy had 'supervised' the breeding. We didn't have a crate because we didn't know how big Nekah would be. So we tried to fasten 2 laundry baskets together to bring her to her new home in Canada. It was about a 5-hour drive and Nekah screamed the entire way!
I dearly loved Nekah. She became the first Vizsla that I handled to her Canadian and American Champion titles. I also earned her American & Cdn Companion Dog title. She eventually became, Am/Can CH Maritza of Kezdet Nekah Am/Can CD,CGC. We lost Nekah at too young an age but she started the Varazs legacy. She was dam of:
1993 VSO Booster Best of Breed: BPIG Am/Can CH Varazs Kiraly Sassy Sasha Am/Can CD, Am/Can CDX, FDJ, Am RE, Am RAE, TT, CGC, CGN (Sasha)
#3 Vizsla in Canada in Conformation (1998): Ch Varazs Blackbullets onthe Wing - Rex
Best Cdn Bred, Vizsla Canada National Specialty Show (1998, 1999) - BPIG Can/Am CH Varazs Abracadabra TT (Abby)
#4 Vizsla in Canada (1999): Ch Varazs Blackbullets onthe Wing - Rex
#5 Obedience Vizsla (1998): BPIG Am/Can CH Varazs Kiraly Sassy Sasha Am/Can CD, Am/Can CDX, FDJ, Am RE, Am RAE, TT, CGC, CGN - Sasha
#3 Obedience Vizsla in Canada (1999): BPIG Am/Can CH Varazs Kiraly Sassy Sasha Am/Can CD, Am/Can CDX, FDJ, Am RE, Am RAE, TT, CGC, CGN - Sasha
Best of Opposite Sex, 1999 Vizsla Canada National Specialty Show & Vizsla Society of Ontario Specialty Show: BPIG Can/Am CH Varazs Abracadabra TT - Abby
My first Agility-titled Vizsla (Keira), my first Rally-Obedience (AKC)-titled dog (Sasha, 2005)
VSO 2007 Tibor Reiter Trophy winner for versatility - Sasha
Varazs Summer Solstice (Bob), who was the inspiration of the book, Mr. Bob's Magic Ride in the Sky
And she is the grand-dam of:
#4 Obedience Vizsla (2002) & #1 Obedience Vizsla in 2003: M-OTCH Szuni's Shooting Star CD CDX UD FDJ FD FDX TD AGN AGI AGDC AADC (Mila)
Best of Opposite Sex, 2004 N. California Vizsla Club's Specialty Show: Am CH Varazs Sara's Full of Grace MH ROM - Sara
IABCA Best in Show Veteran: Am/Cdn/Int'l/UKC CH Varazs Kiralyi Kedvesem FD, NAVHDA NA Prize III, JH, Am/Cdn CD, Am/Cdn RE, Am RAE, CGN - Miska
First Vizsla in Canada to earn the RAE (rally) title from the Cdn Kennel Club: RMCH Varazs Mokany Ficko FDJ, Am/Can CD, Am/Can RN, Am/Can RA, RAE AgNJ, AGN, RACL (CARO), RVCL (CARO), RXCL (CARO), SSGDC, SADC, CL1-R, CGN CGC - Milo
Our first AKC Master Hunter and our first Registry of Merit (Vizsla Club of America) Vizsla - Am CH Varazs Sara's Full of Grace MH ROM (Sara)
Thank you Nekah for being a big part of my life, although not for long enough, and for starting it all. Happy 20th Birthday! You are still loved, greatly missed and will never be forgotten.
Best of Breed with Judge Nigel Aubrey-Jones (1994)
My dogs absolutely LOVE Bowsers' Beds. However here in AZ I didn't want to place any Bowsers' Dutchie & Donut Beds outdoors where scorpions and other nasty critters could find a new home. I thought seriously about buying elevated beds for them. But one day I popped into Bed Bath & Beyond in Chandler, AZ (love that store but the prices in its Canadian stores are ultra-high) and saw these bone-shaped, memory foam mats and bought 3. They look like they will wash easily and they are cushiony enough to provide comfort while lying on the patio. Tyro and Diva try them out.
On and off for the past while, I've been trying to teach Miska and Diva to weave using Susan Garrett's 2 X 2 method. I say "trying" because the training hasn't been serious. And then, Companion Dog training school, where we training last summer didn't use the 2 X 2 method. They use the channel method so the dogs were switched to that method. So when we came to AZ this winter, I brought 5 stick-in-the-ground, made-at-home weave poles with me to resume teaching them the 2X2 method. It was a challenge setting them into the ground here. Our backyard is xerascaped so we have no grass; it's all granite gravel over soil. Since the ground is rock hard, the poles wouldn't stand straight but it was better than nothing. More successful was going to a local park where there is grass. But when we started classes with the local agility club, I learned that they teach the straight method using guide wires. Yet another method!
To make a long story short, I ordered some new training weave poles and guide wires from the local pet supplier. I set 6 poles up in our bedroom (which is HUGE) to restrict the 'habitat'(one of Susan Garrett's terms). After 1-2 sessions where Miska and Diva went through the poles a couple of times, I set up my video camera to film the results. Miska (at 7.5 yr of age) made more mistakes initially - jumping over the guide wires or going under so I lowered the wires for her. Here are the results after just 2-3 practice sessions lasting 1-2 minutes.
