BrightStar Welcomes "Luna" to our "Dreamcatching Doxie Clan"

Hi All,

With great pride and gratitude, I would like to introduce (reintroduce for those that know her already) SmallTown Fly Me To The Moon ML, aka "Luna". Luna comes to us from our (and many of yours) friend, Angela, at Alaskan Lowriders. Ang has put her program on hold for a few years while her children go through their teenage "growing pains". Once that is over, Ang plans to pick back up beginning with a descendent of Luna's and one from my Rowdy. Before Ang had made this decision, it was our intention to co-own a puppy of Rowdy's. That puppy would have been bred to Luna at some point according to our plans. Understanding Angela's reasoning for suspending her program, I volunteered to bring Luna to the states for her until she was ready to get her back. Instead, Ang gave her to me and we formulated the recent plan.

Angela had hoped to breed Luna to CH Burdach's Brown Eyed Handsome Man, aka "Ehren" at Rabow's. I have arranged this breeding with Melissa for around August. So, Ang will at least get to have a descendant of the mating she had hoped for. She will not be returning to breeding for about 4-5 years, so her puppy will be from one of the puppies I hold back from this forthcoming litter. Luna will be retired before Ang returns. As you might imagine, we are both thrilled and honored that Melissa is allowing the use of her wonderful stud. Luna and Ehren are both PRA clear and DNAed. Ehren has clearance on a number of other tests as well. I am also thrilled to have Luna and adore Ang for allowing me to share the life of this precious hound. In addition, I so appreciate Jen Thon's blessing on Angela giving Luna to me. Jen was Luna's breeder. Luna's sire is Smalltown Goin’ 90 ML, aka Elmo (son of CH Shamrock's Daniel) and Stoneriver Just A Wee Bit ML (daughter of CH Stoneriver's Second To None ML). The Ehren x Luna mating is a linebreeding on CH Orchardwood's Jeremiah, some other Orchardwood dogs, and a couple of the Sleepytime dogs. I love those lines as they are the ones I remember admiring from the 80's and 90's when I was showing my Afghan hounds.

Luna has been trained to show, but shows are infrequent and have very low entries in AK so she has not been shown. She turned 3 years old last month, or I would be attempting to gain her championship prior to breeding her. I do plan to send Luna with my handler when she comes back from her vacation, around June 1st, in the hopes of gaining a few points prior to breeding her. Then, I will just pray that she will be able to return to the ring afterward. She has a temperament that matches perfectly with the rest of my crew and quickly made herself part of the family. We were afraid that after a 15 hour flight, she might take a few days to adjust. But, within 2-3 hours, she was out and about, making friends with Bitty, and watching TV with us on the couch. On her 2nd day, we introduced her to the rest of the pack one by one and she just acted like she had always known them. She is really something special and has the most fluid movement of any of my dogs. I will get some stacked pics of her in a few days to share with you guys. I want her to be totally comfortable here before I start with additional training for her. For now, here is a pic that Ang sent to me prior to Luna's arrival and several taken while she has been getting acquainted with her new family:

Ang took this one in AK. For some reason, the lighting makes her look almost chocolate here. She is actually a very dark mahogany red.


Bitty (L) & Luna (R) instantly became best friends. It is uncanny. They act just alike in behaviors. Bitty is only 8 lbs and Luna is 9 lbs. But, they actually are approximately the same size except Luna is a little longer and her bone is heavier.


Hugging her new "Daddy"


Giving her new "Daddy" kisses.


Rowdy was happy to have another lady to court in the house


Haley had to peek in on the action. She thinks Rowdy is her "Man" only, lol.


We are ecstatic to have gotten Luna a month sooner than anticipated. The winter in AK was milder than usual, so Ang was able to travel the roads to the airport sooner. We had waited 2 months already and it seemed like she would never get here. She was most definately worth waiting for. Ang has done an excellent job of caring for and training her.

Deb

Well, don't forget, Bitty and Luna were at Jen's at the same time, so they might actually remember each other. Congratulations, again on getting her. I'm a big fan of Ehren, so I look forward to seeing the puppies from that litter.

She is a beauty! Ruth

Proud Lake Dachshunds wrote:Well, don't forget, Bitty and Luna were at Jen's at the same time, so they might actually remember each other. Congratulations, again on getting her. I'm a big fan of Ehren, so I look forward to seeing the puppies from that litter.

You are right. That is exactly why we put them together first I do think they remembered. When I was there to get Bitty in 2009, Luna was already with Ang so I did not meet her. I did meet her dad, Elmo, though. Also, Dan, Zoey, etc. Such great dogs!

Good Luck with your breeding/show plans for her and hope all goes well.

Thanks everyone!

We did not take the time this weekend to get stacked pics of Luna as we were working in the yard and Spring cleaning all weekend. But, Tim snapped this one of them while I was at the store earlier in the week. As you can see, Luna is fitting right in with our others. Please ignore the blankets on the couch as we always have them there for them.


The dogs are as follows: Fancy Pants (Chief x Kati), red on far left; Kati, chocolate in back; Rowdy, black/tan; Delana (Rowdy x Haley), black/cream dapple; Luna, red sitting up, Haley, cream sitting up; Bitty, red on far right. Only ones missing are Stetson and Daisy who were outside and Chief who is with Kaye on the show trail Oh, lol, and we are missing from the photo. Normally they are like this, but in and around our laps.

For those that remember the difficulties I had converting the four Rawls dogs to house dogs last year when Janean retired, you can see that they have adjusted. The one that had the most difficult time was Haley and look at her now, right in the middle of the pack Luna has been a much easier and faster transition since she was already used to being in a home with other dogs.

Deb

Congratulations Deb

congratulations!

Hi All!

Sorry for the delayed update. Luna is simply one of the family here now and will be joining my handler around the first of June. I am not certain when her first show will be as she will need a little bonding time with Kaye first. She has already spent one weekend around Kaye, though, when I took her to the specialty in Paducah to watch Chief and get her used to the environment. So, maybe it will be a rapid transistion for her with Kaye like it was here. While in Paducah, I had her evaluated by my 3 friends that are involved with Chief on the road. The evaluation was not quite what I had hoped for in that Luna has a shorter keel, is a little leggy, and IMO could use some more coat. However, all three judges/breeders/handlers that evaluated her still want to put her in the ring. I cater to their opinion because between them, they have 120+ years experience in the ring and none of them will show a dog for a client that they feel does not have the merit to win. It simply wouldn't be a good reflection on them. That all being said, Luna looks better in person than she does in the pics of her evaluation as the wind was blowing at 40+ miles per hour and she was trying to stay on the table, poor girl. We went all weekend saying we were going to get the pics, then forgot until they had already locked the arena where we could have done the pics inside. Time will tell if her faults vs. her virtues compared to others she competes against keep her in, or pull her from, the ring. I am happy that she will get her chance in the ring as I want to fulfill the promises I made to Angela.

The other promise to Ang was that I would breed Luna in her next season as she turned 3 years old in Feb. I had arranged with Melissa Sworab to breed Luna with Ehren at Rabows by AI about August, per Angelas' wishes. When the evaluation did not go as well as we hoped, I notified Melissa of the professional findings and informed her that I would understand if she wanted to retract the use of Ehren. Melissa adamantly responded, with, "Are you kidding?!? She's SO LOVELY OTHERWISE, and Ehren has lovely ribbing and keel, so he could correct that for you." I have shared her additional comments with a couple of you here which were all very positive. So, the breeding will still take place. If Luna does do well with Kaye in the ring and does not fall apart after whelping, she will go back to the ring. If she does not do well, then her offspring I hold back, if any, by Ehren will take her place. I am honored to be friends with Melissa and that she understands that the joint genetics behind both dogs justify this breeding. We may end up with all pets, who knows, but neither of us think so. Angela is very excited with all of this which is so important to me. I talk to her at least once a week. When she is ready to return to breeding, I will be giving her offspring from Luna/Ehren down the line and from Rowdy (whom she loves) to help her get restarted. She is still saying it will be 4-5 years. Though still busy with her teenager's "growing pains", which is what made her decide to suspend her program for now, Angela misses everyone here and on FB and should be in contact periodically now that she is settled into her new home and has internet access again.

Here are the "windy" pics taken in Paducah:


I think I must have hit "Auto correct", then "save" on this one by mistake as the color is off from the others that show her true color.



She does not look like this with feet out in person, just the way she was hanging on I guess.

Deb

Thanks for the update.

She is a bit leggy, hocks are too long at the back, with more coat this may be disguised on the move but not when the judge gets hands on. I would give her a go and if she doesn't come up to scratch then at least you tried.

Being too long in the leg can be put down to too much formal leash exercise in that first year[my mistake with Rhuari,we would walk miles especially on special walks we have gone to in the car] regardless of breed walks should be limited to 5mins for each month of age, running around the garden loose is allowed, pounding the pavements damages those growth plates and it can't be undone.

Even Maizie who was 10 months old when I got her I have limited the length of the walks as she had not had that type of exercise before coming to me, even going round to Mums she gets to walk on the grass verge where there is one or we go via the fields for 80% of the trip, depends how quickly I need to get there.

I wish you luck with her, keep us informed on her progress.