WE'LL BE BACK IN THE NEW YEAR

WISHING YOU A VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS AND A HAPPY, HEALTHY NEW YEAR!

RUDY - THE BLUE PERSIAN CAT

I promised my 27 year old daughter that I would put a picture of her cat Rudy on the blog. Lisa and Rudy came to live with us for 6 months during the summer of 2006. Rudy is from the last litter of Persian/Himalayan cats that I bred. Back in the mid 90's, while still living in the city, I had a small breeding program of Himalayan cats focusing on the 'chocolate and lilac' colour gene which is still quite rare in this breed of cat. Chocolate (bbDD) and lilac (bbdd) are lighter in colour than the more common seal point(BBDD) and blue point(BBdd). The bb gene also has an effect on the coat colour of the Himalayans making it very clear and white compared to the seal point and blue point which often have a muddy colour to their coat. We would breed back into Persian lines to keep the type. Even with the cats, I was fascinated with recessive and modifed colours :-) Rudy is a very sweet, pleasant cat and I miss her living here (and Lisa, I miss you living here too!)

FAVORITE PHOTO

Above is one of my favorite dog photos. I did not take this photo - it was taken at a show site on Vancouver Island. I have been rebuilding my Lhasa Apso website and came across this picture of Sassy at 6 months old. I think Sassy has a very expressive face! The bands are in her hair to keep her from chewing her head coat.

Sassy has grown into a lovely young lady who loves to show.

A DECEMBER SURPRISE

Tuesday was a very busy day. We had three Newfoundland dogs to comb out, trim, bath and blow dry. We had a veterinarian appointment scheduled in Williams Lake for the following day to have preliminary xrays done to check hips and elbows on the Newfies. We like to make sure all the dogs are clean and nice smelling when we visit our vet. Each dog takes about 2 hours to do.

"Am I dry yet" asks Jack.

Part way through our grooming marathon, we happened to looked out the window. In the barnyard we could see four scrawny legs standing behind Starlett the alpaca. Better go check this out. What a surprise we had - an alpaca baby! We were not expecting any December crias.

The hour old male alpaca cria warms up under the heat lights beside his mom.

Young Rudolph, at 90 minutes of age, appears strong and healthy.