Lhasa Apso Blog: Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas to all my readers! I hope that you enjoy every minute of this blessed season and that you are surrounded by friends and family who love you.

My December began with a dog show in Belleville, Illinois. The entry was smaller than expected because one dog was absent on Saturday and Sunday, and one bitch was absent on Sunday. Even so, things worked out for all of us who entered. Josh needed one last single point and he got it on Friday. I showed him on Saturday. He took reserve and Pat's Tashi got the last single points he needed. Both Pat and I showed our boys on Sunday so that there would be a point available if the judge decided cross over the point for the bitch. Tashi took Winners Dog; Josh took Reserve, and Sandy's bitch took Best of Winners and earned her championship! It was a happy weekend for us all.

That ended our show schedule for 2014. Josh just needs a 3-point major to earn his championship. We'll work on that in the spring.

I traveled with my Shiba Inu friends, Jane and Rebecca. They needed to do some Christmas shopping. Mine was mostly done, except for a couple small things. Here is what one of the beds in our hotel room looked like on Saturday evening. By the way, only one of the bags on that bed was mine!

You should have seen us as we packed all this extra stuff in the van Sunday morning, upacked it to get the dogs and the show stuff out of the van, and then repacked it once we were done showing. I wish we had before and after pictures. We accomplished the task!

Once home I had three days to prepare for company. Our daughter, son-in-law, and 3-month old grandson arrived from Florida for a visit. The next day my sister, brother-in-law, and mom arrived from Nebraska, as did our son who lives in southern Illinois. Our oldest son, his wife, and daughter live in Macomb. We had a houseful. What fun to be surrounded by my family!

Lhasa-wise, Lizzy left for her new home, and Luna did not even bother to be upset. I think she was secretly glad to be an "only puppy." Luna is very full of herself and is very stubborn. She is not fond of having her face groomed or her nails clipped and is quite adamant about resisting. She is not afraid of Henri, our daughter's Affenpinscher who is living with us for a while. So far Henri has been tolerant of her, which was a shock to me.

As predicted, Luna is not always called Luna. She has become "Luna-Tuna" and "Looney Toons" on occasion.

Ella had a birthday recently and I received a nice note from her owner. Maria wrote, "We wanted to share the pictures of Ella's birthday! She was very excited all day and climbing the tree was a first. She usually looks out for mr. squirrel. But today decided to search him out! She still has her pink baby that you sent her home with and cares for her ever so gently! She celebrated tonight with a peanut butter honey paw pop treat that she couldn't stop eating until it was gone..."

Here is Ella on her birthday:

Some of you will be glad to know that Windy is definitely pregnant! Her puppies are due on January 3rd.

I'm including some links you might be interested in. The first is an article in the December 5, 2014 issue of Dog News that features pictures and a narrative from the Lhasa Apso National Specialty week. Here is the link to the issue. issuu.com/dognews/docs/120514/3?e=1543084/10528140. The article is on pages 142, 143, and 167. It is a nice summary of the high points of the specialty week in St. Louis. The 2016 specialty will be in MA in October.

The second link is to an article in the recent issue of Best In Show Daily, "Pet Overpopulation - Prove It" by Elizabeth Brinkley.

Brinkley's opening paragraphs speak to the myth of pet overpopulation: "The time has come for ALL breeders to take the high road against the animal “rights” threat to our animals. For too many years we have been playing catch up and even repeating the propaganda put up by the AR groups. It is time to say stand up and say – PROVE IT!! We hear over and over again about the “pet overpopulation” and yet there are NO accurate statistics to prove that this is happening. No one has gathered an accurate accounting on a national level. NAIA has started a shelter statistics study but they haven’t even begun to get total figures on a national level. We hear that rural shelters have an overabundance of animals being euthanized.
Yet there are rescues transporting animals from one state to another, one shelter to another by a form of underground railroad run by volunteers."

In the remainder of her article, Brinkley proves her point and offers some solutions for accountability, endorsing Nathan Winograd's book, Redemption, the Myth of Pet Overpopulation, as a good source of information for shelters.

Finally, I wish you all the best for this holiday season. Have a safe and happy holiday and a
Happy, Healthy, Prosperous New Year.