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The Kooikerhondje Club of the USA (KCUSA) held it’s fourth Fun Match last weekend in Weyers Cave, VA. Participating were 10 dogs from five different states: Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia. Next year’s Match will be held in a different geographic location to accommodate the kooiker population not on the East Coast!
AKC judge Carol Noe was the professional eye evaluating the animals on that sun-splashed autumn afternoon. Many of the dogs and owners were in the ring for the first time, and Carol was patient in explaining what was expected of everybody.
 Fall Fun Match Participants We took four Rosewood dogs to the Match: Hamlet, Elsinore, Yorick, and the new puppy, Rosalind. One of the advantages of having a very small number of participants in each category was that every dog placed and got a ribbon!
 Hamlet and my niece Carissa Taga’s Quarto-Hamlet, Prince of Denmark: ……….. First Place, Altered Adult
 Joyce and Elsie Taga’s Weika, Lady Elsinore………………………….First Place, Altered Female
 Rose and Yorick Germanic (Yorick)…………………………………… Second Place, Intact Male
 Pat and Dwayne Martin with AKC judge Carol Noe and Rosy Ammervills Rosalind……………………………………………Best Puppy
Two other Rosewood dogs were there–Duncan and Dragon, litter-mates from Bianca’s and Yorick’s litter this June.
 Dragon takes Nathan for a turn around the ring.  Wayne and Duncan show their confidence in the ring.
Yorick, the kids, and I took a road trip to see Yorick’s puppies in Statesboro, GA.
 Four By Eight We picked up Jorie’s son Brett along the way. Jorie, on the home stretch to finishing her doctoral degree and with a boxful of demanding puppies in her study, hosted us graciously. The puppies and the boys got some good inter-species socialization!
 Jorie and Rose, Litter D I guess Yorick and Bianca took a cue from their prospective peeps to further populate the world with sons. Between us, Jorie and I have nine sons! Here are my four boys with Brett, whom Jorie adopted into her large family as a young adult. Yorick and Bianca round out the portrait with their seven sons and Daesha!
 Jorie, Bianca, and Daesha with more boys than anyone knows what to do with!
Over Thanksgiving weekend, I had a visit from Bianca and Jorie, on their way to have Thanksgiving with Jorie’s son Brett who is a student in Washington DC. The last time Bianca and Yorick met, Yorick was a fuzzy puppy.
 Yorick and Bianca in November, 2010 This time, the two dogs lost no time re-establishing their relationship, and Bianca made some coy older-woman promises to this handsome adolescent about things she could teach him later!
If all goes well, the two will have a litter next Spring. Check back for more details!
 Racing through the front lawn.
A Call About Dogs 101, Spring 2008
I was sitting in my sister-in-law’s living room when my cell phone rang. It was a producer from Powderhouse Productions, who creates Animal Planet’s Dogs 101 series. They were featuring rare breeds in an upcoming season, and had seen the Rosewood website. They wanted to know if we were interested Continue reading Rose’s Dog Blog—The Animal Planet Dogs 101 Story
On a recent trip to the Outer Banks, my eight year old got two hermit crabs for his birthday. More than a month later, they are both still alive and doing well! On a wet, rainy day, I put one on the floor today to see what the dogs would do. Hamlet didn’t show much interest, but Yorick, freshly showered from playing in the rain, was transfixed!
It was a beautiful July day, and my three sisters and I were anticipating a long hike along the Appalachian Trail. Just the four of us. No kids, no responsibilities–just the mountains, the sky, and each other’s company. And the dogs, of course.
I called the dogs and we hopped into my husband’s car–an old Mercedes he had converted to run on used peanut oil we picked up in five gallon buckets from downtown restaurants. The car smelled like french fries driving down the road, and there were lots of reasons the dogs like to ride in it.
I drove to the south side of town, where I was picking up my sister. I stopped by Sharp Shopper for some peach/mango juice to take along. I browsed for a few other bargain items, paid, and went back to the car.
Yorick was gone.
Continue reading Rose’s Dog Blog–Yorick’s Incredible Journey
These pictures were taken on June 6, 2010. Hamlet is getting to be an old man, and turned nine on June 28. He can still run with the best of them, and doesn’t let Yorick push him around! Yorick is almost one year old in these photos (his birthday is July 24).
Yorick is a bright kid–in the space of a couple of minutes, I taught him to stand on a rock, stay, and jump off on command. Hammie might think this is ridiculous entertainment, but that doesn’t keep him from joining in and having fun! Click on the photo to enjoy the slideshow.
 Hamlet and Yorick on a Sunny Afternoon
This album illustrates Yorick’s first six months in Virginia. To read the captions while you are watching the slideshow, click on Show Info in the top right corner.
 Yorick Comes Home
This photo album chronicles Yorick’s puppy hood in Altforst, The Netherlands. He was bred by Roel Steenhuis. The album identifies Yorick’s mother and father, and gives an introduction to the kennel he came from. To read the captions while you are watching the slideshow, click on Show Info in the top right corner.
 Yorick's Beginnings, album
After two years of trying to breed Hamlet and Elsie with no results, we faced the possibility that we were dealing with infertility issues. The easiest thing to do was to test Hamlet. We did so, and realized that, in effect, he was shooting blanks! A microscopic investigation revealed that he had a very low sperm count, and the sperm that were visible were deformed. Thus, Hamlet’s excellent qualities were unhappily retired from the kooikerhondje gene pool.
We began to look for another stud dog. At the time, we were living in Charlottesville, Virginia, and found a Finnish couple, Ari and Virpi Partti, working in Washington, DC. They had their Finnish kooikerhondje, Unto, with them. We made arrangements for a breeding.
Elsie came into heat right before Christmas. I knew that Ari and Virpi were planning to spend the Christmas holidays in Finland, and were taking Unto with them. We looked at the schedules and realized that they would be leaving a day or two before Elsie’s fertile days in her heat cycle.
This was maddening. After two years of trying and failing, and disappointing all the people on the waiting list, it looked like we would miss the opportunity yet again! We decided that we would try it anyway, the day before the Partti’s departure. We lined up a reproductive vet in case Elsie would not stand for him and we would have to do a semen transfer. Since a male dog’s sperm can live for several days, even if the mating occurred before Elsie ovulated, there was still a possibility of conception.
Elsie did not accept Unto’s advances. Veterinary intervention was required. The semen transfer was accomplished. Champaign was served!
Ari, Virpri, and Unto departed for Finland, and Elsie and I returned to Virginia. We waited. Elsie began to raid the trash cans, consuming objects both edible and questionable. Her appetite was insatiable. We built a whelping box. And on February 20, she delivered Rosewood’s first puppy, Ambassador One!
 Amy, three months Click on Amy’s picture to visit her blog.
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The great pleasure of a dog is that you make a fool of yourself with him and not only will he not scold you, he will make a fool of himself too.
– Samuel Butler
Personally, I would not give a fig for any man's religion whose horse, cat and dog do not feel its benefits. Life in any form is our perpetual responsibility.
- S. Parkes Cadman
Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend. Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read.
- Groucho Marx
To his dog, every man is Napoleon; hence the constant popularity of dogs.
- Aldous Huxley
Dogs are our link to paradise. They don't know evil or jealousy or discontent. To sit with a dog on a hillside on a glorious afternoon is to be back in Eden, where doing nothing was not boring—it was peace.
- Milan Kundera
Heaven goes by favor; if it went by merit, you would stay out and your dog would go in.
- Mark Twain
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