A visit to TAMZIN Kennel

I went to London on business on October 8. After a business meeting in London on Friday, October 9, I was to fly to Moscow on Sunday, October 11, which allowed me a free day on Saturday, October 10. Although I was invited to play golf by my colleagues working in England, which was also quite attractive, though, I visited a Scottie kennel called "TAMZIN" in Morley, a quiet suburban town out of Leeds, West Yorkshire.

Mr. Nakahara, whom I owe much of my Scottie care, would import good Scotties from this kennel, and all of my Scotties inherit TAMZIN pedigree.


　　

While it is a breeder's kennel, the house does not appears like a kennel but is a lovely 130-years-old stone house, standing beside the entrance of a beautiful park.




Presently, TAMZIN has one dog and two bitches, one of which is a daughter of "Edward", a Crufts Champion.



　　

　　


The top two are the bitches and the bottom is the dog.

European Scotties have very long eyebrows, and appear to me quite different to American Scotties, which I am accustomed to see. Their bodies are also bigger and more dignified than their American peers.




The owners of the kennel, Raymond and Ava Platt, are active judges in Crufts and other European dog shows.

When "Max", the father of Piacere, won Swedish Championship, Ava judged Scottish Terriers in the dog show in Sweden.

I applied for the membership of the Scottish Terrier Club (England), of which Mrs. Platt is board members, and left annual fee for three years with her.




An ad run in the Year Book of the Scottish Terrier Club (England).

Mr. Platt is also an active breeder and judge of rabbits and pigeons, and Ava showed me a beautiful chinchilla in her room. Raymond would judge pigeons on the next day of my visit.

Although it was difficult to stop the pleasant conversation, I had to leave assuring the next meeting either in England or in Japan. Ava kindly gave me a lift to Leeds Station.

Hi, long time no see! I'm Piacere

Since the last post on the dog show in Gotemba at the end of August, new posts have been absent for almost one and half months. Although there have been topics on terriers during this period, I have been so busy with my business and others as to post articles in this blog.

I now post a couple of articles on recent experiences.

The first one is a dog show. As I mentioned in my last article in August, Pieta was qualified as a champion and I am in process of registration. The registration for a champion can not be completed only by winning four Champion Challenge Certificate, of which one must be a major one, but needs to be certified for being well-trained by a Certified Dog Trainer. The DNA registration, which Pieta has not made, must also be completed, and these require time, effort and expenses.

Piacere, who was born on Christmas Eve last year, reached nine month and one day old on September 25, which qualified her to compete in the regular class of dog shows.

Piacere's debut to regular class was made in "FCI Saitama International Dog Show" on October 4 at footsal courts in Kawagoe Park. In spite of making her debut in a very big show, Piacere walked vividly and pleasantly.


As I was not able to handle her for some reasons, Piacere was handled by on of my
Scottie friends.

Pieta completed

A dog show was held yesterday, August 30th, at "Dog Run Ashigara COCO" in Gotemba, near Mt. Fuji.

My Scottie friends also took part in the show; Mr. & Mrs. Kato with their "Cockpit" and " Creme", Mr. & Mrs. Fukuoka with their "Masamune", and Ms. Shigure with her "Agatha".

Since Pieta obtained her third Champion Challenge Certificate in May, I brought her to a show in Takasaki in July with the purpose of obtaining the fourth certificate, which is necessary to register her as a champion, but, although she obtained BOB there, a certificate was not issued due to the shortage of the number of attending dogs. So, it was the re-challenge this time.



The judge was Ms. Sandra Mashford from Australia.

The championship match of Scottie bitch was competed by four bitches. A young bitch born in last September, who has already drew attentions among Scottie faniers, was a strong rival, being handled by a professional handler.

After conquering the adult class without difficulty, the breed match was fought by three, a junior, a young adult and adult. Pieta obtained BOB winnig against the strong junior, and won the fourth certificate.

Pieta then proceeded to the group match, in which she has never won.


The round gait of the all participants.


After the round gait, the dogs stayed in line and the judge compared the dogs.


Sandra did not make all the dogs walk but picked up one of two to show their gait, and Pieta was selected to show her gait. At this point, I felt that Pieta would be chosen as one of the three excellent dogs, but it was not.

Pieta, however, has already obtained the fourth certificate, which was the purpose of this show, regardless of the result of the group match. Pieta will now retire and Piacere will start her show career in October or November.

Summer has come

You may think that the summer has already come, but if you define the end of rainy season as the coming of summer, it is still unclear this year.

Although Meteorological Office announced on July 13th that the rainy season in the Kanto and Koshin Districts was over, this might have been overeager, considering the sticky rainy days during the first half of the last week. The last weekend saw hot clear weather of the summer.

The coming of summer for my family is defined as the beginning of all-day air-conditioning of the rooms, where my dogs are kept.


Leeds is 13 years old. This is equivalent to 70s for human beings. At the changes of seasons, she shows slight disorders like diarrhea and vomit, but she is quite healthy in other time. The hotness, however, would surely put burden on her, and I would like to let her live in comfortable environment.


Chilwell is 11 years old, which is equivalent to early 60s for human. Since Cairn Terrier is the origin of various terriers and is closest to the ancestor breed, she is most healthy among the five terriers. While the room is air-conditioned, she would sit and lie in various places in the room and does not seem to choose cooler places.

Well, when I opened the windows to change air, someone giving a walk to his/her dog came to the road in front of my house. In such cases, my dogs would rush onto the sofa by the window, and call (bark on to) the visiting dog. The "space race" is a fun.


In the case of this photo, Pizzicato and Pieta first realized the intruder, and are gazing outside together.


Then, other dogs noticed the change and got together. At first, Leeds took the left end of the sofa as the best position, right end of the sofa, the best position, had already been occupied by Pizzicato and her daughter. As Leeds was not able to watch the stranger, she tried to move to the right corner, which was intercepted by Piacere. Piacere was not very much interested in the external situation, but rather interested in the excitement of the adults, and trys to participate "joy" in some ways. Chilwell is small and alert enough to stand on the back of the sofa.




A catch up of Piacere is shown here. Since she had her coat trimmed about 10 days ago, her "Scottie" expression has become natural to her. The photos show relatively large head, but this is due to the camera angle. As she is still at the stage of "puppy" in definition, the balance of head and body has getting better. Her large loin seems to promise becoming a good show dog.

The first full-scale trimming of Piacere

Due to a matter of conveience of the owner, Pieta has passed up the best timing of her trimming for two weeks, and I brought her to Nakahara-san. Although he murmured "At the absolute edge of being beyond care", he finished Pieta very nicely.


Pieta's coat, which was damaged by the childbirth las December, has been entirely replaced, and Nakahara-san praised up the good quality of her coat.

I brought Piacere together to be checked by Nakahara-san, while no reservation for trimming had been made. When I asked him how to deal with Piacere's coat in preparation for dog shows from the fall some weeks ago, Nakahara-san told me to leave is for a while. And when he saw Piacere in rough coat, he said "It is about to have skin disease", and I decided to have Piacere trimmed immediately.


A photo of "BEFORE".


And a photo of "AFTER". Piacere has changed as if she were another dog. Nakahara-san told me that Piacere had been tame without refusing trimming touches.

　　
Piacere has been reborn from an unkept child to a "beautiful girl". Pleas compare with a photo on the right (bottom), which was taken only a week ago.

Catch up with terriers

Today, I would like to show you my dogs, who spent the last weekend at my second house.


Leeds is watching out at a window, while Piacere wants her to play with her. Leeds really loves watching out, and we can see her in this posture quite often. The pair of a white Westie and a black Scottie is the authentic combination of the whisky and fashion brand, "Black and White", but it is very hard to take photos of this combination. Both in automatic and manual exposures, if you adjust the aperture to the Westie, then the Scottie would be entirely black and you can not see the expression. In the other way round, the Westie becomes too exposed to see the shape of the body.

Well, Piacere has become fairly large. Viewed from directly above, the length of her body is now almost same as her mother's. Piacere is now 10 years old for human being, and we often see 5th-grade school kids who have same body size as adults.


From left, Pizzicato, Pieta and Piacere. This photo reveals that Piacere's head is still smaller than those of her grandma and mother, and that Piacere's expression is still infant.


But, when viewed from a little higher so that we can see their bodies, the position of Piacere's buttock is almost same as those of Pizzicato and Pieta.

Six month old

Today, June 24th, Piacere celebrated 6-month old. According to the book by Mr. Hayakawa, which I referred to in one of my previous posts, 6-month old of terriers is equivalent to 9 years old of human beings. It corresponds to third or fourth grade of elementary school, but Piacere's behavior still smacks of kindergarden kids. She has had been more
disciplined, though.
Shown here are some photos taken today.



While her whiskers are yet to be recognized, her eyebrow has become fairly Scottie-like.



Her face viewed from front is still infant and looks dumb!



The opposite side of her face to the first photo. This photo shows her eyebrow better.



Piacere lays herself to be petted by her mom, Pieta, while Gramma Leeds and Gramma Pizzicato watch from the background. Pieta, although she would not play with Piacere proactively yet, has become less repellent to her daughter.
Chilwell also has become less irritated by Piacere, and a kind of family mood among all the five terriers has been developed.

Early stage of rainy season -- roses, roses, roses --

The temperature of Nagasaka Highland, where my second house is located, is low in the early time of the rainy season. Even so, trimming of our terriers can be carried out in the garden being blown by the comfortable highland breeze during the short sunny moments between the rains.

Not too hot, nor too cold, this time of the year may be a suitful season for outdoor trimming along with the seasons of tender green and colored leaves, except for rather high humidity.
In the garden of my second house, roses entertain us with successive flowers of the season. I have 8 rose trees, and when I visited there this weekend, all the roses were blooming.
　　
"Princess of Wales"
In 1997 just before the passing of Princess Diana, Queen Elizabeth II a rose grower to name a new white rose "Princess of Wales", admiring Princess Diana's activities on British Lung Foundation over ten years, under the condition that a portion of the revenue from the new rose be donated to the Foundation. As this episode happened close to the tragedic death of the Princess Diana, many people would misunderstand that the rose was created after her death as a commemoration.
Although there must have been many flowers blooming before our arrival to the second house, only one greeted us showing faded flowers and fallen petals on the ground.
　　Pink rose, the name of which is not known to me. Until last year, the rose would show more whitish flowers, but this year as it was better fertilized the color of the flowers got much better.
　　I do not know the name of this rose either, or I should say that I do not know the names of all the roses in my garden except for "Princess of Wales", which I bought myself. This rose is one of the oldest in my garden blooming since I built the second house ten years ago. Every year I feel scared if this rose has die down, but it revives like this.
　　This rose also has existed since the building of the second house. As Annabelle has expanded to the original location of this rose and has spoiled the sun shine, I replanted it to the current location, where the rose can enjoy plenty of the touch of the sun.
There are two trailing roses in the garden. This photo shows one of them, which is located in the middle of the garden. The first wooden frame has decayed down and I placed a frame of a rack for flower pots to entwine the rose shoots.
Another trailing rose in front of the wood deck of the house. It blows lovely tiny flowers.
There are two more mini roses in the garden, of which the photos are skipped.
As we visit the second house on the every other week basis, the roses shown above should look ill-treated, but even the neglected roses try hard on their own ability to bloom beautifully.

Jinx

On Sunday, June 14th, I brought Pieta to JKC-certified Gumma Central Community Dog Club Show held
in Takasaki City. As Pieta has already obtained three Challenge Certificates including a major
certificate, it was a challenge for the fourth card.

The show was held in a sketing rink, and it was Pieta's first experience of indoor show.
It was a fairly big show as a one in non-Metropolitan areas with the total entry of 629 dogs. The
bleed and group judge for Group 3 (Terrier Group) was Mr. Gerald Penta from US.
The entries to female Scottish Terrier to the Championship Show were Pieta and another in the
junior class only, and Challenge Certificate would be given only by being selected as one of
Excellents in the group.
The examination by Mr. Penta was very careful spending much time for each dog, just like Mr. Green,
who judeged a couple of shows in Yokohama in May. This may be a difference to JKC judges.
Despite her first experience of indoor show, Pieta walked cheerfully. When the show is held indoor,
many dogs feel scared and put their tails down between rear legs as the barks and other noise
resonate in the hall. Pieta is most impervious among my terriers, and this very character of her
was helpful in the situation.
After obtaining BOB (Best of Breed) in female Scottie, Pieta proceeded to the group match, in which
she competeted against different breeds of terriers.
The group match started after all the breed matches were over, and it started at 2:00pm. The group
matches were held in two rings, and the Terrier Group was the first group in one of the rings.

The result of the group match was; 1st: West Highland White Terrier, 2nd: Wire Fox Terrier, 3rd:
Bedlington Terrier. Pieta, again, lost her group match. She made four consecutive defeats following
Tokyo North Terrier Group Club Show on April 25, two shows in Yokohama on May 1st and 3rd.
The participating dogs and handlers have to wait for considerably long time between the stage of
the breed match and the beginning of the group match, and Pieta looked tired during the long
waiting time. Pieta walked less cheerfully in the group match, and lost calmness during the
examination as she no longer stayed stand and looked up at me. In fact, we arrived at the site at
6:30am, the show started at 9:00am, the breed match of Scotties started at 11:30am, and the group
match of the terrier group started at 2:30pm.
It seems that Challenge Certificate for Pieta should be won in the breed matches.

Too much caper

While I have been lazy in updating my blog, Piacere is growing day by day.
Piacere is now left free out of cage while somebody is in the home. Although someone is in the home, it does not necessarily mean that he or she is always watching Piacere. When Piacere was still younger, she was too gay to attack Leeds and Chilwell and adult terriers occasionally got too high to bite Piacere severely, so we were not able to leave Piacere out of the cage unless she is always being watched.
As the time for Piacere playing outside of the cage without being watched becomes longer, her caper escalates.
These are the results.
　　
The left photo shows bundled cables between set top box and LCD TV. Since we move and rotate the TV to watch it from our dining room and from the sofa in the living room, fairly long cables are laid on the floor. When we bought a new LCD TV, I added two HDMI cables which were placed outside of a spiral tube, which had protected existing cables, and the new cables were the victims of Piacere.
The right photo shows a LAN cable for my wife's PC. When she uses her mobile PC, she connect it to the net using a long cable from a corner of the room, and it was destroyed during a short absence.
I, then, had to buy new HDMI cables again, and set a new spiral tube to enclose all the cables.
This photo shows the wiring work in process.
Piacere, the perpetrator of the happenings, looks unhappy as she was scolded.