2013 Spirit of Chilko Award!

Chilko was our first purebred Belgian Sheepdog. She was an exceptional tracker, earned high-in-trial in obedience competition, worked on professional wildlife detection projects, helped us with sheep chores, and had fun in agility. She always had a big smile for humans and dogs alike. Chilko showed us how versatile Belgian sheepdogs can be and she inspired us to become breeders.

To celebrate Chilko’s life, we offer an annual award named in her honor and announced on the birthday of our A-Litter (Feb 12). Each year we select one dog bred under the Obsidian kennel name to represent our hopes for generations of accomplished, healthy dogs to come.

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Joan and I are very pleased to announce that the recipient of 2013 Spirit of Chilko Award is Glace Noire Sabre D’Obsidian BN RN HT CGC, just Sabre to his friends. Sabre is owned by Connie and Rick Batsford of Vacaville, CA who bred Belgian sheepdogs under the kennel name Glace Noire. Our own Rocky is from Connie and Rick and he’s another one of the great dogs whose qualities we hope to be able to produce from our own breeding program. Sabre is already competing in obedience and rally, tested in AKC herding, and is training for agility and tracking. At home, Sabre is something of a service dog, whose strong shoulder’s provide Connie some stability as she climbs stairs (Two knee replacements and Connie is still doing dog sports!). Sabre also patrols the Batsford yard doing his best to keep deer from eating all the roses. Sabre really demonstrates how versatile our breed is. Connie says of Sabre “Everyone loves his exuberance and flash when working. Like others of his litter, he loves to be busy and he’s fun to work because of it. He’s a great ambassador for the breed.”

soc_sabre_2013Thank you Connie and Rick for all the time you put into training Sabre and showing others in the canine community what a fantastic breed we have!

Sabre will be receiving a cast figure of a Belgian sheepdog by Czech craftsman Milan Sorm with Sabre’s name engraved on the base. More information about the Spirit of Chilko Award can be found in the files section on the Obsidian Yahoo site.

Dave and Joan

Obsidian B Litter Arrives!

Obsidian B Litter: Blue and RedWe are very happy to announce that our Heart whelped two male and three female puppies on November 4.  Unfortunately, we lost little Pink Girl a few days later due to a heart defect.  The remaining four are vigorous and growing by leaps and bounds.  Heart is a wonderful mother.  If dogs are capable of having pride, then Heart’s big smile whenever we enter the whelping room certainly shows a lot of satisfaction in what she has produced (with a little help from Sota).Color Bands

We will be streaming video from the whelping box for the next couple weeks. The camera is usually on from about 8 am to 8 pm Pacific time.  The live video feed can be viewed at: http://www.ustream.tv/search?q=obsidian+b+litter.

The sire and dam of the B Litter are CH Isengard’s Tall Sippin’ Sota RN MX MXJ XF and Kaponomana’s Heart of Obsidian TDX MX MXJ PT.

 

 

Obsidian B-Litter

Heart Landing
Kaponomana’s Heart of Obsidian

We are very pleased to announce that our talented little Heart will soon be bred to a dog we have known and respected for years.  He is CH Isengard’s Tall Sippin’Sota RN MX MXJ XF PT, owned and trained by our friend Mary Jane Stiles, bred by Lorra Miller.  We have been able to watch Sota develop from his earliest agility trials to the fast and confident competitor he has become.  Heart has also shown success in agility, but has proven a special aptitude for tracking, earning her TD and TDX on her first tries.  This year we’ve been focusing on tracking in urban environments as we prepare Heart for VST tests.  Both Sota and Heart have demonstrated good herding skills and have received AKC Pre-Trial titles.

CH Isengard's Tall Sippin'Sota
CH Isengard’s Tall Sippin’Sota

We think these two dogs demonstrate just how versatile Belgian sheepdogs can be.  Sota and Heart also have great temperaments and social skills.  Both have separately produced one previous litter and their earlier kids are in already competing successfully in agility trials, training in search and rescue, being tested in herding, and making great companions to some lucky families.  We think these Obsidian B-Litter pups are also going to be excellent performance prospects and still easy to live with.

This breeding is planned for early fall 2013 with pups probably ready to go to their new homes in late December. Send us a note through the contact page on the Obsidian website if you have questions about this breeding or wish to receive a puppy application.

Download B-Litter Pedigree [35 Kb]

Light Green Boy

One of the best things about being a breeder is the new friends we’ve made through the puppies we sell.  Stacy Hebert for example.  Joan met Stacy at Wonderdogs in Philomath, where she was showing up at classes without a dog. Stacy was actually going to socialization and obedience classes before she even owned a dog!  Not many prospective dog owners demonstrate that level of preparedness.  So we were very happy when Stacy showed an interest in our A-Litter puppies in 2011.  Stacy and her husband Brian came to visit our home while all the pups were still here.  First they had to get past our boisterous, adult Belgians.  Brian wasn’t entirely comfortable around large dogs at that time and his previous experience with Belgians wasn’t positive. So it took some nerve on Brian’s part to push past Rocky and Rogue.  But all was quiet in a few minutes and we could turn our attention to the puppies.  It was a fun visit and although the pups were almost irresistible, Stacy and Brian needed some time to think about buying a pup. This would be the first time Brian lived with a dog and they were treating the purchase like the big commitment it really is.  Good for them we said.

belgian sheepdog puppy lucaThe rest of the A-Litter were moving off to their new homes and we still hadn’t heard back from Stacy.  Light Green Boy, one of the pups that we thought would be a good match for Stacy and Brian now was the only pup not yet reserved.  We got a call one Sunday morning from a couple that was visiting the Oregon Coast from Utah and came across our website.  They asked if they could stop by that afternoon and visit the puppies.  Sure we said. They were looking for a companion dog and after spending some time with our pups, asked to purchase Light Green Boy.  We talked at length, they filled out a questionnaire, and met our approval.  It might sound impulsive for a couple to decide to purchase a puppy while on a long, sight-seeing trip.  But Belgian sheepdog litters are so uncommon that most prospective owners have to travel hundreds, sometime thousands, of miles to get a pup.  So this couple saw an opportunity to interact with the pups and their mother before deciding to purchase.  I was sitting at our kitchen table reviewing the terms of our contract with the couple when the phone rang.  Joan answered and left the room.  A minute later, Joan was frantically signalling me from behind the backs of the couple, mouthing something that I failed to comprehend.  I was totally confused and now the couple were wondering whats going on.  Finally Joan says aloud in a slow, firm tone, “We need to talk right now.”  And so I followed her outside.  The call was from Stacy.  She and Brian had talked and talked and finally decided they really wanted Light Green Boy.  Joan was absolutely adamant that she wanted the pup to go to Stacy and Brian. But I had already told the Utah couple that Light Green Boy could go home with them.  It was an ethical dilemma for novice breeders.  But then we asked ourselves, “What’s best for Light Green Boy?”  The nice couple from Utah that we just met two hours earlier…or the young couple from Corvallis that Joan met repeatedly at training classes, wanted to do obedience, and would probably try a lot of new activities with their dog?  It was a very awkward farewell to the couple from Utah.

Light Green Boy is now Obsidian’s ‘Alala (‘Alala is also known as the Hawaiian crow), but friends call him Luca.  Stacy and Brian moved to Spokane, where Stacy is a part-time training instructor at Diamonds in the Ruff.  Now she teaches others how to raise well-mannered puppies.  Luca and Stacy are also training for competition agility and they came back here a couple of weeks ago for a very intense, three day mini-agility camp with Joan and I.  Stacy’s handling skills are excellent considering Luca is her first agility dog. They can look forward to having a lot of success together.  The long weekend also gave us a chance to do a thorough assessment of Luca’s conformation at two years.  As dog owners, each one of our companions have our unconditional love. But as breeders, we need to be looking at every pup we produce with a hard, critical eye.  What are the strengths in each dog we want to carry forward in our breeding program?  What are physical or behavioral traits we wish to improve on?  Only by developing long-lasting friendships with our puppy buyers do we get a chance for regular reports about the Obsidian pups as they grow up.  None of the A-Litter pups conform perfectly to the Belgian Sheepdog standard, but we couldn’t be happier with the pups that Heart and Gusto produced.  Finding good homes for each puppy was the one thing about breeding that scared us the most before the A-Litter.  Now we think of each new litter as another chance to make some new friends.  It makes all the work of breeding well worth the effort.

Dave