Getting Started!

Well here I go ... not computer savy but encouraged by "Golden" friends Kara Ferri of SunKissed Golden Retrievers & Linda Flora of TruHeart Goldens!
("True Love" collage & "header" detailing credits to Kara Ferri)

In 1972 I got my first golden "Ruff" from Sutter Creek Goldens and sadly Susan Breakell died last year, so I can't let her know how far I've come in my 37 years of owning, loving, training and occasionally showing my family of goldens:

Ruff (obedience/tracking/field wc)
Sage (sweet rescue/therapy/canoeing)
Cedar (conformation/obedience/agility/kayaking)
Sutter (my agility-wildchild/hiking/camping/kayaking)
Lyric (retrieving swimmer/agility/conformation/hiking

So, with all that history said, I'm now moving on to my dream and "menopausal adventure" ... READY here we go ...

It starts with a brief look back to 2007 ... my then 5 year old "wild child" Sutter and I had been living together "in heaven" on 14.6 acres with an open pond surrounded with wild blueberry bushes and enjoy our days with gardening, water sports, chainsawing fallen trees for winter firewood, enjoying/challenged by our weekly training sessions with C.A.T.S. dog club, enjoying kayaking together and summer "van camping" on vacations to Maine's Acadia National Park, 2002 mile trip thru Nova Scotia Canada, overnight camping with "agility" friends at trials/shows!

Got the idea? ... human and dog together with everything they could dream of ... my good job, my ideal log cabin homestead and my best friend ... so I thought! Now enter the sight of some absolutely gorgeous Golden Retrievers at an event at Muddy Paws Training Center in Westminster Vermont ... oooh, my type of Goldens ... I have to follow up on seeing that kennel!

OK ... fast forward many months and I finally connect with the kennel owner and arrange a visit! I made it very clear that I was just "looking" and wasn't ready for a puppy in my life yet!

Long story short, second visit to Kara Wetherby's SunKissed kennel to see "a puppy looking for a Performance home" and I came home with "Lyric" from SunKissed Golden Retrievers in Charlestown NH ... hummm, just in case I had brought a puppy crate up from the cellar and put it in the back of the van!!!

Sutter spent the first 2 days isolating herself in the cabin loft and I was sure I'd made a huge mistake! On the 3rd day, I went to the car to get my camera (never can have too many cute puppy pictures!) and as I slowly started to close the car door I was startled by a yelping ... my new baby had followed me and luckily the door had only startled her ... well, what I thought was my worst nightmare ended up to be a special bonding between my girls ... Sutter came flying at her gazzel speed, over the snow covered yard to check on her new crying sister and they've been best buddies ever since!!!

Weekly agility classes (CATS, MuddyPaws, AK9C, Breeze Thru training centers), seminars, a few trials and conformation shows ... now to the BIG dream ... SunKissed Emerald Lyric's planned breeding to a carefully selected stud (Kara's sooo good at the research thing, where as I go with my what my eye sees ... then I email her "what do you think?")

Anyway ... we're anxiously awaiting Lyric's 8 month heat cycle which should happen in this month of December!

That special stud, Am CH Westin Having A Party UD JH OA OAJ WCX VCX ::Mr DJ:: well, he's in Tennessee and a 20 hour drive in the dead of NH winter ... but "he speaks to me" ... his owner, German born Heike Stroup, her repro-vet Dr Adams, our Vt repro vet Dr Pratt, Kara and I are all in email contact and we're just waiting on Lyric and Mother Nature!

Oh, did I forget to mention that with the "long distance" thing, a surgical artificial insemenation (AI) is planned ... semen shipped from Tennessee to Stowe area Vermont and then a 3 hour drive for us from NH to VT ... need I say I'm praying for no snowstorms, not on/after my 7p-7a shift to work and not on Christmas or New Years ... is that too much to hope for???

OK ... I've heard all the "your CRAZY" comments, but there are a few who understand and are excited about sharing my dream ... PUPPIES!!!

So that's the start of this blog thing ... if I haven't bored you, please come back and follow the CELEBRATION LITTER "puppy dream" ... see more info at:
www.sunkissedgoldens.com/celebrationlitter.html
I'll learn to post photos and you can bet Lyric's updates will be forth coming from me!!