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9 December 2006

Crufts 2007

The run up to Crufts has officially started as the schedules are now out. As planned, our judge is coming from Spain. I don’t know if J. Sanchez has judged in the UK before but I hope that we will have plenty of hovawarts for him on the day.

Maybe babies?

I may well miss Crufts next year though, but that would be for an excellent reason as we just took our maiden dam Pines Piccolo avec Spicemill to Germany to be mated to German Champion Jambo von Wittlerdamm owned by Ulrike Backes.

We always hear these stories of bitches coming in season at the wrong time, I though we were pretty lucky. We had no show planned, we were able to easily arrange the time off from work to go to Germany. There was me thinking, how lucky can you be? Well… that was until the French decided to block Calais as we were starting our journey towards Dover to catch a ferry. Being French myself, I think I can write here what a lot of British probably though that day but did not dare to say out loud: *Beeeeep* French! Ah… It feels better already :o)

Once we finally reached Dortmund, we were welcomed by the loveliest people who were so proud that their dog might have a litter in the UK. Even if our contacts with the German hovawart crowd have been limited, I can only speak highly of the people we have been involved with so far as they have been nothing but helpful to select the right dog, get the necessary paperwork, etc. I guess that when you share the same passion for the hovawarts, it does not matter where you live.

The pet passport can be a bit tricky at time, with the compulsory visit 24 to 48 hours before entering the UK, especially when you don’t know exactly how long you are going to stay. But I think we can be grateful to have an alternative option to quarantine and to be able to take our bitches abroad to be mated and still let them have the puppies in their home. I think it is especially beneficial with a breed like ours that is still so rare in the UK.

I have heard that Pines are also planning to take 2 of their dams abroad next year. The details are still being discussed, but it looks like the destinations will be Austria and France. Is anybody else planning any trip abroad next year?

Made in Britain

I can see that our Scottish friends showed a good entry of hovawarts at the Working & Pastoral Breeds of Scotland. The seven hovawarts had to be entered in AVNSC but they did very well under judge Mr A Easdon as best bitch, reserve best bitch and best puppy were hovawarts.

Best bitch was Ann Stewart’s Minches Jaunty. Reserve Best bitch was Min Inches’ Houwaert’s Jiska and Best puppy was Min Inches’ Minches Chief Ruever. And the icing on the cake, Jaunty also got the best of breed!

It is nice to see our hovawarts doing well amongst other breeds. It was also the case a bit earlier this quarter at the Fylde Open Show, where Julie Condron’s blonde bitch Hofwarth Dewytch ‘Polly’ got the second place in the working group!

I assume it means that the quality of our “Made in Britain” hovawarts is not that bad. That seems to be confirmed by the Dutch judge J. de Gids who recently said that a number of the hovawarts he judged at the Hovawart Club of Great Britain Show in October could easily compete with well qualified hovawarts on the continent. Very encouraging!

Read the previous breed notes