Texangals

  Zoot is from the very first litter I ever bred at Texangals, the Monty Python and the Holy Grail Litter, and coming off the back of a wonderful set of five potential show puppies, I have really high hopes for the quality of her litter with Robbie. I bred Robbie, too: he was the gentle and sweet boy from the "Bizarre Adventure" litter from 2019 (Jo Jo's Bizarre Adventure is an anime that I'm particularly fond of, and Robbie's registered name comes from one of the characters on it). He is owned by Tonda Curry and Terry Fehrman from the Canton area of Texas. Rohan Kishibe, aka "Heaven's Door" Both Zoot and Robbie have pedigrees that are heavily influenced by their English roots, with a generous helping of Maggical/Rosewood and a splash of St Lazar. They're also a couple of lovely, portable, compact 10-pounders, and talk about athleticism, Zoot has always shown that she was born with springs in her legs, jumping over 32-inch x-pens from a standstil...

Well, apologies for posting after only a fair few months to say that Zoot's puppies have come and mostly gone (we kept one of them), and in the meantime, Katie has been in the show ring a few times and picked up some points which we're really happy about given that she's only just 7 months even now. To be honest, I'm way more current on the Instagram page that you see by clicking here: TexangalsTMTs In a couple of weeks' time, we'll be hitting the northbound highway for the Manchester Terrier national specialty in Kalamazoo. Katie will show in bred-by, whereas Zoot's keeper, Diego, will still be too young for anything but Beginner Puppy. I've decided to take along Granny Bonnie for a couple of fun classes like Brood Bitch and Brace, just because I'm not sure when there will next be two of Bonnie's puppy in the ring at the same show. This year, it will be Trish, co-owned with Jerri Gillean of Go West Performance Manchesters (Washington state), and...

  Zoot fooled us all and had her litter of 5 puppies in the week BEFORE Christmas, all hearty and hale at the very creditable weights between 5 and 6 ounces. All puppies are currently reserved, but we are taking applications to get on the list for the next set of puppies we hope to have in the summer.

 Ahhhh, COVID time. The spring and summer that basically never was. We didn't completely rest on our laurels, though: we had a litter of puppies, grabbed a couple of trick dog titles, and just this past weekend, we attended our first show since March and brought home a couple of landmarks. First, let's talk about the puppies: Cooper, Aston, and Robin were born on April Fool's Day to our foundation bitch, Bonnie, and the number one OH TMT in the country, Bentley. There are a couple of other posts about this, so I won't dwell on it too long: suffice to say, Robin (now called Kyro Jett on Instagram) has gone up to his outdoorsy family in Minnesota where he spends a lot of time in a lifejacket on a boat!; Aston (now called Rudy) is the apple of his owners' eyes in the Oklahoma City area; and Cooper (unofficially nicknamed Dennis the Menace) has gone to live with his grandsire's breeder in Kentucky where he helpfully inspects fences to let Barbie know where there are...

In mid-December every year, one of the biggest dog shows in the country takes place in Orlando. It's called the Royal Canin show, but even though it's only a weekend show, the whole week before is full of smaller shows at the same venue, including the Manchester Terrier specialty where large numbers of our breed turned up. The event is tiring and requires some stamina, but we also enjoy ourselves at night, going to restaurants or bars or even doughnut shops at 10:30 pm! I do wish we'd come away with more ribbons than the 2nd and 2 x 4ths, but it was an event not to be missed, a chance to meet people you've only ever heard of or seen on Facebook, and to see a large number of dogs to compare toplines, movement, head shapes, and all kinds of things that are hard to appreciate until you see a big group of them, side by side. The weather in Florida in December is a lovely change from dreary, cold winter, though there was more than once than I got caught i...

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...

The past six months or so has seen a resurgence of interest in the breed in the great state of Texas. Whereas I spent most of the early part of 2017 on my own in the show ring, we've seen as many as nine at a single show, and more puppies are coming of age every month. I really should make an effort at the next one to photograph us all together. The top moment so far has been my foundation bitch's second "major" at the recent Austin area show. This means that she has jumped a big hurdle on her way to a championship. As of writing this, she needs five more points, and hopefully, with Navasota, Crosby, Kerrville, Rosenberg, and possibly a one-day appearance at Ft Worth, I think the likelihood of her success is pretty high. Bonnie and Zoot celebrate Winner and Runner-Up at Austin One of the best parts of having more people at the shows is the community we're building up: everyone is friendly and supportive, and we're making the effort to populate th...

Where has the time gone? My little hands-ful of black-and-tan are now arms-ful!! We have been hitting the dog shows in Texas and finding it very useful to have three female dogs to enter, needing only one more girlie to come along and make a major. Bill and Ted's mama won one of these in Tyler, but the big news was when Ted took Toy Group 1 in Beginner Puppy in one of the Belton shows. Our next appearance will be at the Nolan River club's show in Glen Rose on 5th and 6th of January. It would be lovely to see some "fans" to turn up and talk TMT!