Leo and Littermates!

One of the things I wanted to do for Leo's first birthday was collect pictures (past and present) of all of his littermates. Fortunately we are blessed with a fantastic circle of puppy parents, and almost all of us have kept in touch and traded pictures and information over the months! My profound thanks must go out to Anne, Liz, Karen, and most definitely Michelle for getting new pics of Kai, who we have not seen pictures of since she was quite small!

First let's look at the girls! Below we have Ginger and Kai at around three weeks, eight weeks, and one year! Sadly I couldn't find the original LER pic of Ginger so I settled for a different one.











Here we have Sunny and Nana, again at three weeks, seven or eight weeks, and one year (technically Nana is ten and a half months in the oldest pic, but it's the most recent I have). Sunny is the dark-faced girl on the left and Nana is on the right. Nana was the only smooth pup in our litter.









And, finally, here are Leo and MC! MC, of course, is the dark pup in the pic, and Leo the light one on the left. :)










I hope you enjoyed seeing the pictures of all of Leo's littermates as much as I have collecting them!!

Leo's First IABCA Show!

This past weekend, October 4th and 5th, Zak, Leo, Kyrie and I attended our first IABCA dog show in Oklahoma City, the 2008 Sooner Sieger. But what is an IABCA show?


The International All-Breed Canine Association was founded in order to provide American and Canadian dogs with the chance to earn an International Championship title without having to travel overseas. IABCA partnered with an organization in Germany (UCI) to make this possible, and the shows are run in the format of a German Sieger show. What this means is that every dog that shows gets a personal critique and rating from the judge after they show--so you actually know *why* your dog placed the way he did!


Leo did incredibly well--you can see him in his flying trot, above--and obtained an SG-1 rating in every one of four shows (from four different judges). SG-1 is the highest rating possible for a puppy to get! Because Leo got four, he has earned both his National and International Puppy Championships with the IABCA in only four shows!

Because Shilohs are a giant breed and take a long time to mature, Leo will be in the Puppy class (9 months to 14 months) until December, and then in the Youth class (14 months to 18 months) until next year April. After that, he gets to compete against the big dogs at the IABCA shows! Kyrie, unfortunately, could not compete as her ear is in a brace and that is not legal at dog shows. I will put more about that when I catch up in her blog!


Here is a picture of Leo and Zak and Christi and Brandy just after they've come out of the ring! Christi and her whole family came up just for the second show on Saturday. She did very well her first time in the show ring, earning an SG-1 rating as well! Congratulations, Brandy!

Little Bruno came along too! Unfortunately he could not compete, as he turned three months the day AFTER the show! We just know he will be knocking judges' socks off in no time, though--what a lover boy! Below are pics of Bruno, one being ultra-cute and one with Leo--he crawled up to touch noses with Leo through his X-Pen!




We hope you are enjoying Leo's blog, and you can expect a lot more dog show pictures in the future! Leo's next IABCA show is in November in Houston. Wish us luck!!

Let's Play TUG!

Lately I have been exercising my camera skills taking pictures of Leo and Kyrie playing. :) I know there will be days when I will want to look back at photos of them when they were younger and still growing up! So here are some pictures of our latest playtime session. :)

Leo: "Oh, Kyyyyyrie...look what IIIIIIII have...you want it, you know you do!"


Kyrie: "Yeah, right. I'm not falling for that again...really...awww, heck, I want that tug!"


Kyrie: "I know I can do it! I'm bigger now! Look out Leo, I'm gonna get that tug!"


Leo gives a tug and WHOOPS! Kyrie's paws have left the ground! What a moose that Leo is! Maybe next time, Kyr...


Hope you enjoyed them as much as the pups did producing them!!

Shilohs at the UKC Show!

The North Texas American Pit Bull Terrier Club hosts a twice-annual UKC show here in Denton. We are always impressed with how nice and friendly the people are and it is great to introduce a couple of new people to the Shiloh Shepherd every time we show up! This time Zak was out of town and I could only take one dog, so Leo and I hopped in the car and zoomed out to the fairgrounds. I was glad I took Leo because all while we were there people were stopping over who remembered when Leo visited back in the spring! I have taught Leo to look at the camera when I say "Movie Star!" so here he is with his movie-star face:



We also had other Shiloh friends come for a visit! Christi and her family with Brandy, who was only ten weeks old at the last show, and their brand-new puppy Bruno came to the show as well! Brandy is such a sweetie, she is in training to be a Therapy Dog and she got lots of great practice meeting people! Bruno is an amazing pup, what a personality! Here is my favorite picture, with Leo looking back at the camera as if to say "Awww, aren't they cute?"



Usually when I'm the one taking pictures I never get any of my own dog, but Christi's dad was nice enough to take this one of me, Leo, Christi, and Brandy. Thanks for a great time, guys!

Fall Playtime!

Leo and Kyrie got some serious playtime in on and around the first day of autumn! I decided that it would be nice to get some new pics, so here we go!

We love our pillow...wait, did Mom just say "Outside"??


Can I have that?


Time to play!!


We used to do this when you were a lot littler, remember Kyrie?


Oh, did you want this??


Shilohs in Motion!


We are a BLUR!


Oh now we are tired...where's that pillow?


I hope you enjoyed our pictures!

HOMECOMING!

Isn't he gorgeous?? Here is Leo in a show stack. We managed to get him to stand in it for all of five seconds...LOL! Famous dog guy Fred Lanting (remember Fred from the dog show in Denton back in the spring?) was a judge at Homecoming in New York state and helped us stack him. But I'm getting ahead of myself...

In August, Zak and I decided that the craziest thing we could do would be to take our vacation time, load a ton of clothing, food, toys, dog utensils, and both dogs into the new car (my new Honda Element!) and take off for New York state!! Our breeder and breed founder, Tina Barber, holds an annual extravaganza appropriately called Homecoming. All of the Shilohs who can manage it try to return to New York for this awesome event! It's held at a campground in the beautiful hills of western New York state. Camping, food, Rally exhibitions, show handling lessons, a structure and gait seminar, dog evaluations by experts on the breed...it's all there! Not to mention there are so many FANTASTIC dogs and people to meet and get to know better!



Some of those people we got to know better are above--some of Leo's littermates returned for Homecoming!! There is MC on the left, being silly and not looking at the camera. He is Leo's only brother. :) His owner Anne is standing. Then there is Fred, who thought our litter was so awesome he wanted a picture of himself with them! Isn't that fantastic??? Next up are Michelle and Ginger, Leo's lookalike sister! Ginger and Leo got to play a lot over those four days! Their pavilion was set up next to ours. :) Then there is my handsome Zak and handsome Leo, hamming for the camera as usual. And finally there is Karen with her beautiful Nana, the only smooth coat pup from the litter! Nana is truly a gorgeous dog and won Puppy Best in Show on Saturday. Below is her stacked picture:



We have an amazing litter, I only wish we could have gotten stacked pictures of ALL Leo's siblings!

Finally, our big news...at the Specialty show on Sunday, LEO took Puppy Best in Show! In the Saturday show he took Winner's Dog Plush Puppy, and also Best of Opposites Plush. :)

Hope you enjoyed the pics!

--Anne :)

Leo at Nine Months!

Yay! Leo turned nine months old on July 12th. Here he is in all his glory! You can really see the red hues in his coat in this picture. We were trying for a show stack but he moved that hind leg forward just as I snapped the pic! He is around 25.5-26 inches at the shoulder and 82 to 85 pounds depending on the scale. Though this is a little light for his age category we are not worried...we know how thin we're keeping him! We are hoping that by keeping him very slim we will manage to avoid stress on his growing skeleton and muscles, very important for giant breeds like the Shiloh. If we are lucky we can avoid a bout with pano...we are crossing our fingers!



Here is another current pic of Leo. I love this one even though it is a little out of focus. It reminds me of my favorite picture of one of New Zion's most famous sires, Grizz. Leo has that same handsome, smiling face, though darker than Grizz's! You can really see his cream-colored "bib" on his upper chest in this picture. We only have one picture of his dam, Holly, but it looked like she had the same kind of bib pattern.

Summer Playtime!

It's summer and that means the dogs are feisty as all get out because they don't get to spend as much time outside...100 degrees = way too hot for long walks or extended periods out in the sun! When they DO get out it's explosive energy time...and time to play keep-away, as you see above! This pic was taken in mid-June. Once Leo gets the toy poor Kyrie doesn't really have a chance, though she sure does harry him! Unfortunately sometimes she gets a little too mouthy. We found a bite wound on Leo under his ear where she hit him harder than we knew! By the time we found it, it was scabbed over and healing already. We are very lucky it was not infected, and playtimes have been curtailed 'till it is fully-healed. The problem is that Leo is such the stoic dog, he's a very quiet one...even when Kyrie hurts him he doesn't let out a squeak. So we had no idea that had happened 'till we found the scab while grooming!

May Showers? Not in Texas!

Here's Leo looking up at the sky wishing for rain. You can tell we haven't had a lot from the parched look of our yard!! Okay, okay, maybe he's watching a bird. Or a plane. Or the ball in my hand! ;)

Later on in May, we went to an awesome event here in our town called the Dog Days of Denton! They have shops, food, booths for the dog rescues here, and tons of activity demos for things like disc dogs, flyball, obedience, and my favorite--agility! We took both dogs, but it was very hot and we only stayed for a few hours. We hooked up with a group that teaches obedience classes here in Denton that we really liked. They don't teach during the summer--way too hot for outside classes--but both dogs will most likely start formal classes in the fall. Here is a picture of Leo and Kyrie at Dog Days!

April 25th - Leo's New Puppy!

Meet Kyrie, Leo's new puppy! Kyrie came to us from New Zion, the same kennel Leo came from, but she was from a co-owned litter. Her daddy was Scout, a smooth white Shiloh, and her mom was Maya, a plush golden sable. Soon Kyrie will have her own Blog, and I will post that update here on Leo's! As you can see, she is absolutely beautiful. Leo was in love right away! He followed her around the yard and when she jumped on him to lick him he fell over! He did have time to pose for an awesome pic, though:



Doesn't he look like a wolf out hunting? I love that photo! :)

So Back in April...

Nothing like a new puppy to distract a woman from blogging, but we'll get to that in a moment...

The weekend of April 18th we went to a local UKC (United Kennel Club) dog show right here in Denton, TX! It was sponsored by the local American Pit Bull Terrier Club and the show organizer, Patricia, was awesome enough to offer us the chance to do a small exhibition of our Shilohs even though we aren't a recognized breed yet! We jumped at the chance!

I think it was back around the New Year when Zak found out about the show. He also found out that Mr. Fred Lanting, "Mr. GSD" was actually going to be judging there!! We were very excited because Fred was a longtime friend of our breeder and the Shiloh shepherd Breed Founder, Tina Barber, and probably ranks as one of the most knowledgeable people on earth about dogs in general and German shepherds in particular! Even though Shilohs aren't GSD's, they are similar, and we were looking forward to getting Fred's opinion of our pup!

We got all we bargained for and more. We got an awesome introduction to the UKC, met a ton of fantastic people--breeders, exhibitors, and organizers--and Fred gave a structure and movement seminar and actually trotted our Leo around the ring!! Here is Fred elegantly moving our Leo:



And here is me, not-so-elegantly moving our Leo:



So it was tremendously exciting, we had a great time and learned a LOT!!