8 November 2019
The fun continues or so they say. Somebody, shoot me. ;>)
We whelped Billie’s last litter of puppies on 6 June 2019 and all have grown up very nicely. Two of the three puppies will be leaving us on 10 August. The third is Campari, a sable female, who will be staying with me for further observation and possible inclusion in the future of my breeding program.
We are expecting to breed Koko, Piccolo and Ziva within the next four to six weeks. All of the puppies in these next three litters are reserved by applications with deposits. Puppies will next be available in 2020, should you wish to submit an application. We also accept applications for future dates, should you be looking forward to a change in lifestyle or retirement.
Sable Tibetan Terriers are becoming more popular and that coat color is a recessive genetic combination – so, they are much less frequently available than Black & White coats. And since I do ask for applications with deposits in advance? I already have three forever families who are patiently waiting for their future brindle puppies. The pressure is on!
Annabel was bred to Yogi for her last litter in March 2019 and has since retired and been rehomed. Annabel is Billie’s littermate. They are auntie and mother to our Questa, GRCHB Kensington’s Questa o Quella? Questa is out on the conformation circuit with his professional handler, Rebecca Bradley. We await the July 31 Canine Chronicle standings eagerly, as this young male is doing very well in both Breed and Group placings.
We will be outcrossing to Beckham (Shadeacrre Fast Love at Kensington) with at least one of our next breedings and possibly two, as I am very interested in a Shalimar/Polygor outcross to Alilah and Waterley bloodlines. Ziva is a Brady girl, my mentor Nina Wagner’s favorite stud dog. And Nina thought that my Ziva was my best TT bred to date, as of 2015. Ziva is very ‘typey’ and has gorgeous carriage & movement, sweet expression and is very nicely balanced front and rear. And she has the wonderful temperament for which Kensington Tibetan Terriers are known. Ziva is a playful delight to have in our home pack of five girls and LOVES to roll over on her back for a belly rub from anyone.
We have three whelping rooms, here at Maple Street. I like to use my kitchen office the most, as I spend so much time in the kitchen that I can keep a very close eye on what’s happening in that whelping room. This way, I can give the brood bitch the best care and help her with her puppies, if that situation presents itself. The brood bitch’s psychological comfort with her private space is of high importance to me. With the first timers? I always try to be extra sensitive to their mindsets. I also use baby monitors to keep an ear on things and lots of thermometers. For our March 2019 litters, I purchased a PuppyWarmer incubator with companion oxygen concentrating unit. It is the best setup to maximize the transition from in utero to the real world and also, the same setup that my Vermont repro vets use. Ironically? We bought them at the same time.
Our outdoor runs are configured, so that each mummy dog has a private run on 3/4″ pea stone — and the older puppies are separately X-penned inside the large pens, so that they are introduced to the big world, a small piece at a time.
The puppies from our February 2018 litter turned eleven months old on January 8th. You can see them with their mum in the photo above. They are now living in Pennsylvania, Connecticut and one little guy is out on the circuit with his handler Rebecca Bradley. He is our Questa. Questa has finished his AKC CH, GRCH and has five points to go to earn his Bronze title. The boy was awarded the Award of Merit at 2019 Westminster and also at our TTCA National Specialty in Boxborough, Massachusetts in late May 2019. He has now surpassed his mother Billie’s achievements with these two Awards of Merit. Billie has retired her breeding career as a GRCHB and having been awarded the First Award of Excellence at the AKC Nationals in 2016, where she beat the #1 ranked Tibetan Terrier in the US for 2016.
At about ten months, I switch the puppies from Royal Canin puppy kibble to Royal Canin small breed adult kibble. We feed Royal Canin’s 42D kibble to all girls in season who will be bred, beginning on the first day of heat and for their first two trimesters. Then, we switch to a ‘lactating’ Royal Canin kibble for the final trimester and throughout lactation. I have used a wide variety of kibbles and like Royal Canin the best, for a number of reasons. If you’d like to know why, please email me. ;>)
I think about my future breedings every day – that is, when we’re not caring for a new litter. I think about the attributes I’ve come to take for granted – like beautiful chests, coats, great shoulders, balanced movement, mouths and bites. I think about the most important things besides good genetics, great temperament and an athletic body? Great head, profuse coat, lovely gait, beautiful tail set, nice neck. I think about the Coefficient of Inbreeding A LOT. I use worldpedigrees.com and create Trial Breedings, so as to study the past and the potential COIs in various breedings. I study the pedigrees of TTs who have caught my eye or my intellectual attention. There is so much to learn! It goes on and on, and I love that. In fact, I have a list of animals whose pedigrees and heritage I want to study and also, the reverse breedings of Luneville Prince Khan, Kiara’s Fascinating Rhythm and Prin-Su’s Rebel with a Cause, to see who these animals have produced and to which Kensington Tibetans they are related.
We’ve lived with Tibetan Terriers, since 1992. My husband and I brought our first two TT puppy littermates into our lives in 1992. I actually found an ad from Nina Wagner of Shalimar Kennel in the Classified section of the Sunday Boston Globe, back then. During the next ten years, I became impassioned with the breed and decided that I wanted to develop a breeding program of my own. In 2006, I acquired my foundation pair of TTs from Shalimar and Mark & Pam Desrosiers finished James and Izzie in 2007. Nina Wagner continued as my primary mentor, until October 2016, when she passed away on the 23rd. Her wisdom, guidance and humor were inspirational. We talked regularly and laughed often. Now? I am developing friendships with Claire Coppola of RinChen, Margie Wikerd of Bluvali and Markus Gisslen of Shadeacre in Sweden.
James and Izzie were my foundation pair of Tibetan Terriers and had their first Kensington litter on 19 March 2009. That first litter had eight black & white puppies – four boy pups and four little girl pups. That is the ONLY time that Mother Nature has given me an ‘even Steven’ ratio of girl and boy pups. Of the eight, seven of the pups went to forever homes from New Jersey to Maine and we kept our pick boy puppy, Oliver Twist. Oliver hit the show circuit in January 2010 and became an AKC Champion in eight days, at nine months of age. There were other potential show dogs in the 2009 litter but their forever families are all raising their Kensington TTs as happy pets. Beau is one of those puppies, an extraordinary athlete with spirit and personality. Here he is, showing off one of his tricks, jumping through the hula hoop. He was also very good at digging up perennials, as a puppy. We’ve also lost our first Kensington bred TT out of that first litter. It’s not all a bed of roses and no one has a crystal ball without cracks.
Our latest trickster is Aza, our second ‘hula girl’. She learned the trick in under fifteen minutes. All it took was a treat on the other side of the hoop. And her humans told me that she’d mastered the piano, too! They’ve taught her a trick, where she plays the lower keys, while her forever mom plays the higher keys. It is a lot of fun, when you get a food-driven TT, as they perform for reward and are easier to train than those who don’t care about food. Food drive is something I watch for, as the puppies develop.
In April 2010, Izzie whelped our second litter (Oskar x Izzie) and we had five red brindle puppies – four girl pups and one little boy. We kept Coppi, our pick bitch puppy, and she joined James, Izzie and Oliver in the pack. The other four puppies from our 2010 litter went to live with their forever families from Ohio to Massachusetts. We have lost one of them, too. Lyme disease is something to be taken very seriously, as it can be damaging to the kidneys and immune system.
Look at the two puppies on the gingham tablecloth to the right. You can really see the difference in the width of their chests. These are puppies out of our second litter, born 19 April 2010. The puppy on the right has noticeably broader shoulders and a bigger chest – different head, too. That is Coppi at eight weeks, now retired and living on the beach in Marblehead. Coppi is mother of Annabel, Billie Jean, Whittaker and Ziva. When I’m trying to determine my ‘pick’, I look for strong bone, good proportions, pretty movement, brains and personality. I like to breed smart dogs and I’ve been told on several occasions that they are smarter than their humans. For me, it is fascinating to structurally evaluate the puppies in pairs. It helps make things jump out at you. Easier to compare than to study in isolation.
Izzie had her third and final litter in 2011. I bred her to James a second time and she produced some really wonderful black & white puppies. Out of this litter came Rocket, our first Puppy Group 1 winner! Rocket lives with Izzie, Henry and their forever family up here in Vermont. And Emmett James came out of Izzie’s last litter, too, and he also lives in Vermont. He has a Kensington little sister in Sophie, out of Whit x Gigi, August 2015.
It’s great having kids around who love to play with the puppies and dogs, as it helps to socialize the young pups, in preparation for life in their forever homes with children. Henry, Lily and Daisy helped me in the early days. Lily graduated from Dana Hall in June 2018 and has since shifted her interests toward equestrian competition. Fortunately, we now have eleven year old Levi and six year old Claire who help to socialize and handle the puppies. In fact, they’ve visited us several times, with our most recent litters. Levi is wonderfully sensitive with animals. And Claire likes the variety of coat colors and patterns.
2012 was the last year we had only one annual Kensington litter. Beginning in 2013, we started breeding two litters a year. In order to give each puppy in every litter and each adult in the pack the love, care and attention they deserve, we need to keep our pack size small. When you visit, you will probably meet three or four adults – and there’s always a good chance that we’ll have some younger Kensington Tibetans in residence, as we are also happy to board any of the animals we’ve bred. It gives me a chance to further evaluate the animals and I love seeing them again.
In 2015, we bred two of our girls in early June and the puppies arrived during the first week of August. We were in Vermont for the births and headed south to Princeton, Massachusetts, once the puppies began weaning off of their mothers. The puppies from both of these litters were beautiful with great heads and strong chests. Yogi James is out of one of these litters. He is a terrific sire for several reasons and has sired six Kensington litters to date, including CH Kensington’s Questa o Quella?.
Our 2016 litters left for their forever homes, except for the lovely Miss Lily Rose. I held her back for study, as she struck me as a beautiful animal with a sweet submissive temperament with humans but a spitfire with her peers. She has since been released and moved in with a wonderful human mom in Maryland and is splitting her time between the mainland and the beach. All of the other Gigi and Billie puppies live in CT, MA, PA and VT. Our 2017 puppies were available in August and October 2017.
If you’re interested in bringing a Tibetan Terrier into your life, I urge you to visit as many breeders as you can. Remember, that breeder will be an invaluable resource and guide to you, as the years go by. Trust me, you’ll have lots of questions! And I think you should want to see firsthand how your puppy has been raised. And you might also like to speak with other families who’ve brought a puppy from that breeder into their homes.
Tibetan Terriers are smart and sensitive. They traditionally live long lives. We sell our puppies with spay/neuter contracts, pay for the first 8/9 week vet exam & first round of puppy shots. We also require the right of first refusal, should you ever need to re-home your Kensington Tibetan Terrier. It is that important to us to know that all of the TTs we breed will have an opportunity for a wonderful forever life with the best forever families we can find and we are HAPPY to be the back up plan, if one is needed. Should your circumstances change, know that we remain happy to help with the longterm care and home life of your Kensington Tibetan Terrier and that we will love each of them madly and forever.
If you are seriously interested in a Kensington Tibetan Terrier and have experience in the breed? Know that you are welcome to reach out, come and visit us, should you like to be considered as a future Kensington forever family.