Texangals

I can't believe that I haven't posted on here since November 2022, and not been bragging from the rooftops that Katie is now the top bitch in the country! We took a big trip up to Pennsylvania in April where not only did Katie grab a Select Bitch, a Best of Variety, and an Owner-Handled Group 1, but she earned enough points to achieve the Silver level of her grand champion title. If you're not a show person yourself, you're probably sort of glazing over - blah blah blah blah. The short version, she's been doing really well in the show ring, and I'm super proud of her. Also at home are my foundation bitch, Bonnie, who is enjoying retirement; Larwood, the boy from England, who finished his championship and has had his first taster of the running event called FastCAT; and Hermia, who is one "major" away from her own championship. Larwood is also going to be a daddy soon, all being well. We bred him to Zoot (who lives with my mom) and are expecting puppies...

 I can't believe how much has happened and I've not been writing about it! Champions then Grand Champions and more puppies: really, what have I been doing, sitting on all these great brags? Let's work our way backwards, starting with the latest little bundle of scrumptiousness, our little Carpe Diem baby, "DJ" - he is the last puppy of our foundation dam, Grand Champion Bluebonnet Dreaming Spires at Texangals TKN. We bred her to her grandson, Grand Champion Texangals Diego's Got His Knives Out, to solidify those English genes before I spay and retire her. Family Portrait: Bonnie with DJ and Diego We had another set of puppies in July when we bred Champion Texangals Zoot Just Zoot to Texangals Rohan Heavens Door: Lois Lane and Jimmy Olsen. Lois is now called Lucy and already starting off her promising show career; Jimmy is now called Winston and is enjoying his life near Dallas as a man of leisure! Texangals Little Miss Lois Lane Our other big news recently com...

While we've all been staying home and sheltering because of Covid-19, we have taken advantage of the AKC's offer to video our dogs doing tricks, submitting them to evaluators online, and qualifying for Trick Dog titles. Today, we got official notice that Bonnie and Trish have both received their TKN titles, meaning Trick Dog Novice. Bonnie, being a champion already, had to do only five tricks, but Trish as a 7-mos old puppy and not yet a champion, had to perform 10 tricks. Their entry videos that their owner/handler junior, Joey, edited and submitted are on our Texangals youtube channel: I'll link to them at the bottom. So without further ado, I now give you: CH Bluebonnet Dreaming Spires at Texangals TKN Texangals Trish Spicy Lady TKN Bonnie's video:  https://youtu.be/H6IWvGwPKSU Trish's video:  https://youtu.be/gzDy05GBfK8

The Bizarre adventure has entered a new phase: all our puppies are now with their new owners and going onto their new pathways. Rohan and Lisa Lisa have gone to show homes, and look for their debuts in February 2020. Suzy Q has gone to a homeschooling family in South Texas, where the big plan is for her to be the daddy's roadie - that is, if he can prise her from the little missy who has attached her to her lap at all times! Suzy's first moment as a barn dog Lisa, the taco bed, and her new sweater Rohan with Tonda And Trish? We've kept Texangals Trish Spicy Lady for ourselves, with my son "Busy Timmy" as her co-owner and future owner handler. He piloted Trish's mama to her championship last year, so we know he's up for the job! Stay tuned for more puppies in the future: we will probably be breeding our 2-year-old show dog, Zoot, in the early part of 2020, and may try for one more litter from Bonnie before we retire her.

Introducing our "Bizarre" litter: Rohan, Trish, Lisa-Lisa, and Suzi Q, named after our family's favorite anime show, Jo-Jo's Bizarre Adventure. Our 3-ounce diddy Lisa-Lisa alongside Rohan and Suzi Q Like most popular culture, particularly films or comic-type stories, we had a lot more boys' names lined up than girls, but are thrilled to pieces that we have 3 girls and one boy from the breadth we get from the stud dog's line and its St Lazar influence. The puppies arrived in the early hours of Sunday, at least four days earlier than expected, but being (mostly) larger than any of the mama's previous pups, we're assuming she had ovulated earlier in the week than we'd thought, and probably just caught the end of her fertile period when we bred her the day of her progesterone test. Phew! That was a close call, then! Mama and babies are doing well, but the up-shot of this is that I'll be having puppies looking for homes in about 8 weeks...

Oh my gosh! You couldn't make this up! I return to Texas from a business trip to the UK to find that my foundation bitch (and new champion), Bonnie, is not only coming into season, but IS IN SEASON NOW!!!! Fortunately, I had lined up a stud dog in north Texas many months ago, and they were around to accept a flying visit right after the vet said, "Yup. She wants breeding today!" I didn't even have a chance to gather up her favorite food or pack her crate or anything, because it was a long drive ahead of me JUST TO GET THERE, much less come back that night. We left her up there for a few days and had a lot of good "action", so all being well, we should have puppies around the middle of August. We are already taking puppy applications for them, so if you want to get high up on the list, you'd better fill one out sooner rather than later! For your benefit, I've included the pedigrees of the dam and sire so you can feast your eyes on some lo...

It was so good to get out this weekend with the dogs and not be hundreds of miles away at a show. March in Texas means bluebonnets, so obviously, I had to get our foundation mama, Bonnie, out there for her annual photo: her official name is "Bluebonnet Dreaming Spires", after all! Then she started running through the butterweed. Zoot and Ted had a terrific time when chasing each other at the local lake, prompting people to come over to us and ask if they were Italian greyhounds!

It felt like the treadmill was on high speed, but the ultimate reward was worth it! Chilling after a crazy month The month of March saw my son and me traveling from dog show to dog show, all of which were more than 2 1/2 hours from our home so we stayed in Air BnBs rather than waking at 4 am and trying to get the girls to the ring in some kind of decent frame of mind. The long and the short of it was that all three of our girls - Bonnie, Zoot, and Ted - were picked as top bitches at some point during the month, gaining points and majors, and ultimately, we FINISHED the championship for Bonnie at Navasota! Bonnie, the new champion Ted gets her first points while still a puppy Zoot gets a major We're so excited that Bonnie can now retire and focus on having babies while her daughters, Zoot and Ted, can continue their campaigns for champion status. If you want one of Bonnie's future babies, be sure to fill in a puppy application and get into o...

I'm absolutely shocked to see that my foundation bitch, "Bonnie", is currently ranked 19th in the country in Toy Manchesters. We were hoping to "finish" her in the next few shows and retire her, but now we are re-thinking that plan: wouldn't it be great to build on this success and actually get INVITED to a show?? This may "pause" our plans to breed her till the next season so she can attend any show that she might get invited to, but I think it's worth it to plunge ahead while we have a start on it already. In the meantime, we are scouring the country from north/south/east/west for the best mate for her when we next prepare for a litter. It's so hard: so many nice dogs around, but we want to get the best breeding lines, best body type, best temperament, most genetically sound, and ... closest geographically??? ... dog we can find, and sometimes, all those competing details are hard to line up just right. Especially the geogra...

Wednesday was a rough day ... my mama whelped, first losing one that hadn't quite closed up its skull (stillborn, thank goodness), and then two more straightforward, head-first, wiggly-body squeakers, and me with my excitement and trepidation, getting all their sexes wrong! My kids thought we'd got two boys long enough to name them Bill and Ted, and now for love nor money, they will not budge on the names even after we discovered that one of them was a girl. So, please meet Bill and "Theodora" or Ted: They're bigger by nearly about 30 g (1 oz) than any of our babies from last year, and over the first five days, they've been gaining at nearly an ounce a day! We are very relieved that both puppies have show homes ready for them, but there are never any guarantees in this kind of situation, so should you want a Toy Manchester puppy, please get in touch to fill out a puppy form. Just in case. The mama has been as good as gold as usual, ...

Meet Justina from Minnesota. Last month, her beloved miniature pinscher of 14 years passed suddenly, and she searched and searched online for a little girl puppy to try to fill the hole in her heart. Justina's Soul Mate Within a few hours of my appeal to online homeschooling moms who pray for people's prayer requests, Justina was contacting me about Dennis. I knew this was the one. We were bandying ideas back and forth, feeling each other out, when her Facebook feed turned up a neighbor who wanted one of the puppies, too, so Tim was now spoken for. It was just a few days later when Justina arrived in Central Texas on a Delta flight to pick up both Dennis and Tim. A Fabulous Threesome! Little could I guess that Justina would bond so much with Tim over night that she talked the neighbor out of keeping him, and has now adopted both puppies into her family's lives. Cuddling Dennis would put anyone to sleep! Don't forget Auntie Bailey, th...

We have puppies! Our lovely English Toy Terrier, Bonnie, delivered four puppies on August 31st, about four days before we were expecting them (thus ruining a romantic weekend for hubby and me, but we've been given a raincheck by the cottages so we'll get there eventually!). Shhh ... tired mama. The children have always intended to use Monty Python and the Holy Grail names for the puppies, so first one out was immediately called Zoot. Bonnie was quite restless and seeming to try to get comfy to nurse, but NO! She was actually contracting to deliver a teeny, tiny little thing we called Coco. The third was called Dennis, even though she is a girl, and finally, we were blessed with Tim. Dennis, Zoot, and Tim with the kids - (Coco was sleeping) Bonnie turned out to be a great mom, but we were worried about little Coco. The others were born at 4 1/2 ounces or around 130 grams, but Coco was only 2 ounces and 60 grams. We think perhaps she was Zoot's twin, sharing...