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19/06/2008

All About Dogs 2008

A feverish baby prevented us from flying to France last month. The good side of the story is that we were able to attend All About Dogs in Brentwood instead, which turned out to be a great event once again. If last year was wet, this time was definitely hot. It was actually good news for the search dog team SARDA Cantech (http://www.cantech.org.uk/) as one of their fundraising ideas was to sell cooling bandanas. They were made for people but I think as many were purchased for dogs during the week-end. Their display on Saturdays saw hovawarts in the ring as the 2 lovely black and gold girls Chloe and Lilly volunteered to have a go.

The breed experts tents was busy again, although I think the audience has changed slightly compared to the previous years. We did not see a lot of people who were actively looking for a breed suitable for them. Most visitors were just browsing around. Julia Christopherson and her daughter Sarah were manning the stand with their hovawarts Jacob, Chloe and youngster Nel. Julia had to explain to visitors on the Sunday though that Nel was not giving a true image of a 14 month old hovawart as the hot weather had her gently subdued. She is normally still very much a bouncy pup.

Saturday saw several of Pines Penny Whistle’s 11 months old puppies, Bono, Lilly and another little girl whose name I unfortunately missed. On Sunday, it was one of Nel’s brother who visited. We also had on the stand a family who is currently waiting for one of our Scamp’s future puppies. It is nice to see all these new faces and we hope we have motivated them to be on the stand with us next year.

Birmingham National

As I was planning to be abroad, I had not entered the dogs to the National Dog Show. I notice that we had 20 entries this year which is disappointing as I believe we had over 30 hovawarts being shown last year and the year before at this event. Stewart’s Pines Riley was still a very worthy BOB, under judge S. Hall. BD was Inches’ Tyehelva Neo Nexus. RBB was Travis’ Annvad Carefree Princess and RBD was White & Witmore’s Minches Jason Of Driftingsky. Congratulations to all of them.

A Spicy champion

Spicemill Steamy Wasabi, who lives with Ana Pieczynska in Poland is now a Polish Junior Champion. After Poznan show where he became Poland and Mid&East Europa Junior Winner, he won 2 additional certificates at National CAC shows, first at Lublin in April then at Plock in May, leading to his champion title. It is very nice to see a British bred hovawart becoming a foreign champion.

Spicemill Steamy Wasabi

Gold for Poppy

Spicemill Chili Kick, Steamy’s spirited black and gold sister from Kent, also known as Poppy, was taking her Kennel Club Good Citizen Scheme test at gold level on the 18th May. Despite her owner Jo being all worried about it, she made her proud and passed. At only 15 month of age, I wonder if it makes Poppy the youngest ever hovawart to pass the gold test. She is definitely at least one of the youngest so big congratulations to Poppy and Jo.

Poppy and Jo celebrating their success

News from the Hovawart Club

Members of the Hovawart Club of Great Britain will have recently received in the post a copy of the year book 2007, very nicely put together by Julie Condron. On the front cover is a nice picture of the very sadly missed Mercedes.

I found out in there that a Dutch female hovawart is in the process of being imported to the UK which is very excited news. I hope we will hear from her future owners and maybe get some pictures of the little girl to share with our readers. Watch this space.

2008 Puppies

Min Inches had a litter of 8 puppies in Scotland on the 6th of April from Minches Kees Killarney and her own boy Tyehelva Neo Nexus. There are 6 girls, 5 black and gold and one blonde and 2 boys, one blonde and one black and gold. If you were to add a black girl to this, it would be exactly the same “composition” as the Spicemill litter we had last year. When I talked to Min, she was waiting to see which names had been accepted, but they are all Minches Neo’s and then a name started with L. At least 2 of these puppies are going abroad. Min was very busy looking after the pups so no pictures, but we are very grateful she took the time to drop us a line to let us know more about this.

We may have the following litter as we are planning to mate our Polish import Scamp with a French dog this summer.

Driftingsky are also planning a litter. They are planning to mate their bitch Tyehelva Super Summer Of Driftingsky ‘Drift’ with Pines Saxophone ‘DJ’. So hopefully, the first Driftinsky litter will be born in 2009.

IHF Club Show

We were in France last week-end to have a look at a few dogs for our Scamp as it was the French Hovawart Club Show, which this year was also the IHF Show. Several British hovawart owners had braved the long car journey to show their dog. We had to leave before the end to catch our train, so I am waiting to hear back from them on the classes we have missed so we can report fully on the event in the next set of breed notes. Any pictures of the winners would be most appreciated.

Read the previous breed notes