Tuesday, January 31, 2017
Our Fall of 2016 was busy with a nice litter of 9 puppies out of Marty x Nita. We dubbed them "The Sequels" since it was the repeat breeding that gave us Bennett in 2015. Three boys and six girls kept us busy through the holidays, for sure!
Just before they were born, Pilar took two of the Scotties Noble and Hetty to the Bay Area to support the San Francisco Scottish Terrier Club and Dr. Karen Ericson found favor in both of these pups, awarding Hetty Winners Bitch from the 6-9 month class for a 3-point major and Noble was Winners Dog/Best of Winners from the Bred By Exhibitor Class for a 3-point major and finished his championship.
We decided early on to not show Bennett too much as a young dog, but let him grow up and mature while tending to other matters. However, Pilar took Bennett up to the Napa Valley Kennel Club shows in mid-November, was Winners Dog & Best of Winners both days, and he also earned a Puppy Group 4.
And Mal earned more titles this year, including the CAX2 title - the first Bouvier in the history of the AKC to earn this title. In 2015, Mal became the first Bouvier in the history of the AKC to earn the CAX title and since he loves chasing plastic bags for 600 yards at a time over and over, Brenna and Lenore decided to keep going toward the next title. Mal has also continued on with helping kids learn to read and has well over 300 therapy dog visits logged to his name. We are very proud of this boy dog!!!
Also during the fall, an experienced Bouvier family contacted Pilar about Jack possibly becoming a member of their family. The husband, a current sheriff and former K-9 Handler, felt that he and his wife and their home would be a great place for Jack. We kept him with us through early December, Jack completed his Grand Championship on December 9th by winning Best of Breed under judge Col. Joe Purkhiser (the same judge that finished his original championship), and later that week Jack became a member of the Ferber household. We appreciate the dedication Kevin has to help Jack be all he can be, but it was very hard to have him leave the Ottcienda. He'd been back with us for almost 2 years and we love the Big Guy very much. But part of loving a dog that much is finding the right environment where he can be happy on a daily basis and the Ferbers are the best place for him. Also, Jack apparently loves camping and is a great camping dog!
Spring litter plans went into action when Misty came in season a tad earlier than we had hoped, but since her first litter turned 1 year old in November 2016, it was time to plan for her second litter. We had to shift some of our breeding plans around when we had to consider our own personal matters this year, so we were fortunate to have the approval to breed her to a young dog bred and owned by our friends and colleagues Janice Byrd and Terry Burian-Creel and located in Nevada/SoCal called Bond - CH Terra-Nevada's For Your Eyes Only. With puppies due toward the end of March, Pilar would happily welcome new babies into the world for her birthday this year.
Several of our younger dogs will be hitting the show rings this year either with us at the end of the lead or with handlers as we tend to our own family matters in hopes of having two-legged children one way or another. We look forward to more good news as the year marches on!