Show Reports and Other News

We recently enjoyed a very good show weekend at the Ottawa Kennel Club’s three shows in mid-November. 

Cdn.Ch. Avalonia Blueberry Lemonade (Summer, sired by Fin.Swed.Cdn.Ch. Scheik’s Ardbeg Avalonia out of Cdn.Ch. Avalonia Wispa Jesta), and owned by Debra Wright was Best of Breed at two of the three shows.

Avalonia Oscar Peterson (Oscar), returned to the show ring for the first time since he was a junior puppy (when he picked up three points and then was taken home to grow up and mature), and was Winner’s dog twice and Best of Winners once, earning another 4 points towards his Cdn.Ch. title.  He looks terrific now that he is a young adult, and we plan to get him out in the early spring in hopes of completing his Canadian title in 2008.

Avalonia Trixie Smith (Riley), who is a full sister of Oscar Peterson from a later litter (they were sired by Cdn.Ch. Avalonia Wotta Jesta out of Cdn.Ch. Avalonia Barbados) made her show debut in the 6 – 9 month old junior puppy bitch class and earned her first championship point during the weekend.

Cdn.Ch. Dumond Bohemian Rhapsody

And Dumond Bohemian Rhapsody, owned by Jalynn Almond, came north to Canada from Maryland, USA and handily picked up 6 points, completing her Canadian championship title with points to spare, in style, with two back to back Best of Winners wins.  Dee Dee – pictured here with Jalynn -- is a daughter of Cdn.Ch. Avalonia Wotta Jesta out of Cdn.Ch. Spicewind It’s All About Me.  Dee Dee’s grandmother -- Cdn.Am.Ch. Frontrunner’s Ruby Malone – was imported by Avalonia from Frontrunner’s kennels in Denmark when she was a year of age.

A new litter expected at Avalonia after Christmas – and perhaps a second in the New Year as well

We are very pleased to be able to confirm that there will be a new litter at Avalonia, due in the period between Christmas and the New Year.  Dam of the litter is our mahogany brindle girl Buffy -- Cdn.Ch. Avalonia Lagavulin (Cdn.Ch. Nevedith Local Lancer x Cdn.Ch. Sporting Field Perfection).  Sire of the litter is our Danish import Cdn.Ch. Frontrunner’s Full Monty (Monty) (Dk.Swed.Ch. Nevedith Veefa Vagabond x Int.Germ.Dk.& 2 times World Ch. Honey Honey du Tadjoura).  This will be Buffy’s last litter for Avalonia and we look forward to it with keen interest.

News of the litter will be posted after it is born, or you can email us at avaloniawhippets@yahoo.ca for details.

Also bred, though we cannot yet confirm the pregnancy with certainty, is a much anticipated litter featuring Eng.Cdn.Ch. Nevedith Ceefa Ceely (Eng.Aust.NZ.Ch. Nevedith Rare Rogue x Eng.Ch. Nevedith Justa Jenie).  Ceely has been bred to Cdn.Ch. Avalonia Edradour, the young male most visitors to our property go crazy over when they watch him move through the yards.  Apollo is a son of Cdn.Ch. Nevedith Local Lancer out of Cdn.Ch. Avalonia Barbados.  This litter, which would be the first out of Apollo, is due the last week of January 2008.  Stay tuned for details!

Finally, those interested in black bloodlined prospects sired by our jointly owned black and white boy Andrew – Ammardan Dumond Avalonia – may not have to wait much longer as Jalynn Almond plans to breed Cdn.Ch. Avalonia All Hallow’s Eve (Cdn.Ch. Avalonia Wotta Jesta x Eng.Cdn.Ch. Nevedith Ceefa Ceely) to Andrew in the Spring of 2008.

Best Wishes for the Holiday Season

We wish website visitors all best wishes for the Holiday Season, and good health, prosperity, and happiness in the New Year.

August 26 is an important date in my book, because it is a special anniversary.  Twenty-five years ago, on August 26, 1982 , I paid $300 and bought my first whippet, beginning the sojourn that has taken me – and Avalonia -- up to today. 

My first whippet – and indeed the first four whippets we at Avalonia ultimately owned were dogs best described as rescues.  None were show dogs, and all were essentially rescues that had problems that made a home with someone like me – anxious to own and love a whippet regardless of its problems – ideal for them.  Tiffany, Jack, Laura, Max, We loved them unreservedly despite their problems -- an abused dog, a monorchid male and his china blue-eyed litter sister, and an older dog with an anxiety issue so bad he could never find comfort in the company of other dogs, and scarcely in the comfort of humans.

Getting a whippet was originally entirely my idea.  While my mother loved the gundog and herding breeds she was familiar with in our family growing up, I found myself captivated by a photo of a dog my mother took at the Crufts dog show in London in 1977 – a beautiful, black brindle and white whippet, who was best of breed that year there – Eng.Ch. Black Knight of Carmodian, and I vowed that when I had the chance I would own a dog like that.  When my mother bought a property with a large fenced yard that allowed us to have dogs and she invited me to choose which dog I would own as a companion to her choice -- an Irish Setter -- my answer was immediate.  “I want a whippet”, I said.  I was just fourteen.

My first whippet was scarcely Black Knight of Carmodian, but the blue fawn brindle and white girl who came into my life on 26 August 1982 and lit it up our home for 16 years and 10 months when she died peacefully in her sleep, confirmed that whippets were, our dog of choice.

I did not breed any whippets at all during the 1980s, choosing instead to study the breed and care for the whippets we had acquired during that decade.  In 1991, however, my mother made the decision to breed a whippet litter, and bred a fabulous litter based entirely on English bloodlines that ultimately served as the foundation of the Avalonia breeding program.  She bred just two litters – in 1991 and 1992, before she stepped away permanently from breeding – content to provide inspiration to me in future in litters.  In 1992 I bred my first litter, using her Glastonbury affix for one litter until, with my second litter in 1993, I selected my own unique affix – Avalonia – to breed and build upon.   

As Avalonia I have, in the past 15 years bred sometimes none, sometimes one, sometimes two litters a year, carefully selecting the sire and dam and breeding and raising every Avalonia litter with the continued critical advice and suggestions from both my mother and, more recently, from my partner, Jennifer Patterson.

Whippet puppies between birth and 8 weeks are what the English so lovingly refer to as time wasters, and we have certainly learned what that means:  the more time, care, cuddling, affection and playing you do with young pups between 3 and 8 weeks of age, the more sociable, happy, outgoing and genial the young dogs become.  This makes them ideal dogs to live with, and ideal dogs for families and individuals to adopt and take into their hearts and homes and love as unreservedly as we at Avalonia do the dogs we choose to keep for the rest of their -- mercifully and happily -- very long lives.

 Breeding programs are incredibly personal and individual, and so, while I certainly hear and listen to ideas from others, the final decision about who will be bred, and when, and who to keep and who will be shown, has ultimately been my decision.

For those who do not know me because I have not attended many shows – and none in recent years because I frankly have never enjoyed the showing experience at all, and besides my boarding business does not allow me the luxury of being away from home on weekends when business is busiest – I have in fact, in the past, enjoyed the thrill of showing some of my dogs to their Cdn.Ch. title.  But I have to confess I have been far more content, and have greatly more enjoyed the vicarious thrill of having others far better at showing my dogs than I can do, doing the same for me over the years as well.

It has been a fabulous 25 years, with so many wonderful companions, so many wonderful friends made worldwide, and so many Avalonia whippets living with so many good whippet families in Canada and around the world.

We – collegially -- take huge delight in the 40 plus Canadian champions (including several Irish Setters, Greyhounds and Labrador Retrievers) we at Avalonia have owned and/or bred here in Canada, and in the several dozen foreign championship titles dogs from the Avalonia breeding program and carrying the Avalonia affix have earned in more than a dozen countries around the world.

There is no highlight greater than any other but if pressed I would have single out a few as remarkable that swell our collective hearts with pride.

When we sent a young male dog, Cdn.Ch. Avalonia Wheatfield Waving, to Finland we had no idea how Nicholas would be received there.  But his new owner, Jarmo Vuorinen, quickly showed us as Nicholas became first, a Finnish champion, and then, in the Summer of 1998, he became a World Ch. at the World Show in Helsinki , Finland , under one of the most esteemed sighthound judges in the world.  For someone still in their 20s, as I was then, that was a moment that will be forever memorable to me.  Later Jarmo imported another Avalonia whippet into Finland , Avalonia Glen Scotia, and campaigned her to five titles across Scandinavia and top whippet bitch in Finland .  We are forever grateful to Jarmo.

More recently, Bart Scheerens, of Boxing Helena Kennels, visiting from Belgium , asked to “borrow” a petite female he saw in our girl dog pack.  Cdn.Ch. Avalonia Macallan traveled to Europe with Bart and in the next two years delighted us all with her phenomenal show successes, winning the breed and group in both her first and last major shows in Europe and in the process becoming a Belgian and an International champion, and qualifying to be shown at the greatest dog show in the world, Crufts in England.   Before returning to Canada , Bart had a litter out of Tess whom he bred to one of the great English whippet champions from Nevedith Kennels in England .  In 2007 we had the unique thrill of seeing Tess’s look-a-like granddaughter, Boxing Helena’s Fi Fie Fo Fum be made Best Puppy in Show at the World Show in Poznan, Poland  -- our second connection to World dog shows and success with Avalonia whippets.  Such memories are priceless to us all.

This is a breed that is impossible not to love.  They are, in fact, the perfect breed.  They have over two and a half decades given all of us far more than we have ever been able to give them back in return.  Whippets are the love of our lives and a lifetime commitment, and we never expect to live without them.