Cotton's Pregnant, Brogue has a Wheaten Girlfriend and Some People are Idiots

Puppies coming
Finally! I'm sure Ms Cotton is pregnant. Just a few days ago I was still on the fence about it, but she has blossomed. I'm thinking about trying to get a picture of her little pooch.

The reservation list will open on May 1st. I'm already screening inquirers, so I think all 4 spots may be spoken for quickly. Since she's most likely going to have more than 4 pups, not getting on the list doesn't mean there won't be pups available... but one of the great things about being on the list is it guarantees the price even if all the pups are something exotic like purple!

The gigolo
Brogue is getting to strut his stuff for a purebred SCWT girl who lives near us. She's a real cutie... light wheaten colored like he is but really small. She's still a little shy and he was kinda ho-hum this afternoon, but we'll see how long those two things last as her season progresses!

What you think you know...
So, a friend of mine told me about another breeder he's been talking to who had some misinformation about her breed. I won't say WHICH breed because it really doesn't matter. Her closed mindedness does. He's been breeding the whatevers for more than 2 dozen years and has a reputation both in the US and South America for the excellent quality of what he produces. This lady (and I use the term loosely since I read her emails to him) claims to have a lot of experience and knowledge. The bone of contention: a black dog having a black mask. Now, I'm not an expert on the whatevers but to me it would seem virtually impossible to know if a dog had a mask if the mask was the same color as the the rest of the dog. Not only that, but why would you care? This "lady" claims her dogs have masks because they don't have any white on their muzzles... apparently the white stops between the eyes on any of her dogs with white on its face and from the cheekbones down, the muzzle is all black. Well, gee willikers! My black lab must have a black mask since she doesn't have any white on her lower face... or her UPPER face either, for that matter (we'll ignore the gray, every hair of which she's come by honestly!) Perhaps I shouldn't have spayed her... maybe with a good advertising program and a little misinformation, I could have cornered the market on the rare and uniquely patterned black masked black Labs. Curses! Foiled again! This is a big issue to the other breeder because somewhere in the whatevers' breed standard is something about masks. I didn't bother pulling out the AKC book and reading the standard... Juan's word is good enough for me. As is his impeccable English... however the "lady" had some not very nice things to say about foreigners coming up here, not understanding the language and therefore, not knowing nuthing about nada (which is Spanish for nothing.) I wonder how many languages SHE speaks.