Welcome to the American Whippet Club

2002 American Whippet Club Whippet Annual

Pages 51 through 75

Marial’s Reata Saltwater,
TRP, ARX, DPC, SRA

(Ch. Marial’s Whitewater, CD, ARX, ORC x Elizabeth of Wyndsor)

December 19, 1989 – November 11, 2002

Salty

Bred by Jack & Mary Lewis from Utah, “Salty” was the first Whippet to earn the Continental Whippet Alliance (CWA) Award of Racing Excellence (ARX) title in 1991 and the first Whippet to earn the CWA Superior Racing Award (SRA) title in 1993. Salty dominated CWA racing in the 90’s, winning 42 consecutive race meets. Unofficially clocked at 11.19 seconds at 200 yards, he won a record 48 CWA Race Meets, but also earned his Dual Purpose Championship (DPC), winning nine CWA Conformation matches. He was good at both ends of the track, breaking quickly with excellent closing ability. On July 4, 1998, he won his last CWA race meet at the age of 81/2.

Salty was a very special dog and will be dearly missed here at Marial.

Doug & Mary Beth Arthur
Milwaukee, Wisconsin

Sowagla Whippets . . . . 2002 News . . .

Maya

Ch. Sowagla Masquerade

(Ch. Surrey Hill Rogue of Chelsea x
Lyon’s Surrey Hill’s Scarlet)

Our classic beauty finished in February and then produced a beautiful litter of two, bred to veteran dog Ch. Festiva’s Knickerbocker, ROM.

Witchie

Ch. Sowagla
Dynia Mtn Folklore

(Ch. Sowagla Renegade Rebel x
Sportingfld Wish U Were Here)

MAWA Specialty 5-pt major 2001, MAWA Specialty 4-pt major 2002,
and finished with another 5-pt
major. All handled by co-owner
Paige Zalnoski.

Sowagla Whippets

Yvonne Sovereign
228 Key Road, Sanford, NC 27332 • 919-718-1372 • canineart@wave-net.net

Also contact Yvonne for the finest in canine art;
commissioned portraits, limited edition prints, and watercolor dog paintings.

. . . Sowagla Whippets . . . upcoming Stars

Toya

TaEjaan
Fieldso
Emotion

(Aust. Gr. Ch. Taejaan Read My Lips x
Aust. Gr. Ch. Arjai Fields O Passion)

Australian import bred by Molly Rule-Steele, Toya is over half way to her American championship, including a major and BOS over specials, a breed win over specials, and a Group 2.

Bonnie

Sowagla Sportingfld Sunbonnet

(Ch. Sporting Field’s Rock On x
Ludah’s Wyn N Sportingfields)

Co-bred with Debbie Butt, Bonnie was shown only a few times as a puppy. She won her 6-9 class at the MAWA supported entry and later, from the 9-12 class, went RWB to a 4-pt major at an AWC supported entry. Watch for her and brother Xander, Sportingfld The Beat Goes On, in the future.

Sowagla Whippets

Yvonne Sovereign
228 Key Road, Sanford, NC 27332 • 919-718-1372 • canineart@wave-net.net

Also contact Yvonne for the finest in canine art;
commissioned portraits, limited edition prints, and watercolor dog paintings.

Ch. Paris Fergal of Tiber

(Ch. Starlines Reign On, JC x Ch. Paris Princess, 7/13/96)

Fergal was lightly specialed through 2002. He is shown here taking the Breed at the Moore County Kennel Club, under Anne Rogers Clark. In addition to his Breed wins, he has several Group placements.

Owner/Handler
Ellen Lambiris
Raleigh, NC

r Breeders
Sharon Saxon
Peter San Paolo
Lawrenceville, NJ

Willow
5/23/94 – 1/29/03

By Patience Renzulli

ters on record in Baltimore, the Whippet World saw the passing of one of its finest little ambassadors. Willow was officially FC Warburton Song Sung Blue, CD, FCh, TRP, AV, TT, CGC, Delta Therapy Dog. She is the only Whippet in history to be the recipient of an American Kennel Club Award for Canine Excellence.

Willow received this honor in 2000 in recognition of her outstanding talents working with very ill patients. Holly Parker, a recreational therapist at the National Institutes of Health, nominated her. In an October 2000 article in the Baltimore Sun, Parker was quoted as saying Willow “has a keen sense of when someone needs her. She doesn’t cozy up to everyone, but to really sick people… And I have been able to count on her when, for instance, someone is in ICU with a lot of machinery and tubes. She will just lie still. I have seen that over and over again.”

Willow was featured on the cover of a Delta Society pamphlet, in the Whippet News, The Whippet Watch, the Baltimore Sun, the AKC Gazette, and in the famous Dr. Marty Becker’s book, Pets That Heal. She is permanently featured on the AKC’s website, and her photograph and story are on display in the AKC’s New York Office. But the A.C.E. award, while certainly prestigious, only recognized one aspect of this amazing therapy dog. Her owner and therapy partner, Linda Solano, allowed Willow to share her true gifts, gifts of knowing, understanding, and loving, of taking on another’s pain and transforming it into joy, with hundreds of patients of all ages. Willow had a great sense of humor, and if she needed to be a clown she could ham it up with the best of them. She would sing for patients (loudly when there were treats involved) and bow and chase balls and kiss on command. She had a typical Whippet’s finely honed love of mischief.

And that’s exactly what made her willingness to lie still among intravenous tubing and ventilator equipment and cardiogram wires all the more remarkable. Such was her trust in her Linda, and such was her amazing intuition into the needs of the human Linda was asking her to help, that time after time Willow would find just the right position to comfort. Just the right kiss to sooth. Just the right tear to lick. Just the right wag to coax a smile.

And though her life was much too short, Willow continues to do great therapy work. Linda received hundreds of cards and e-mails after Willow’s death from renal failure, from people across the country, many of whom said that they had started to do therapy volunteering with their Whippets because of hearing of Willow’s work. Linda had no idea that Willow had inspired so many others. Imagine how many more dogs of all breeds have gotten the opportunity to help people because someone read Willow’s story in the Baltimore Sun, or the Gazette, or in Dr. Becker’s book.

She was a most outstanding little Whippet.

The following are just two examples of Willow’s extraordinary capabilities.

A couple of years ago, Linda had just been facing the fact that Willow might need a break. Maybe the almost seven-year-old Whippet was burned out. She’d been doing therapy work for four years. Lately she’d been a little distracted, not really “on”. Linda and her two Whippets had gone racing over the weekend, and she hoped that was the pick me up that Willow needed as they headed out to do their visits.

The first visit of the day was at Johns Hopkins Hospital. Linda checked in to find their assignment. The physical therapist had requested another visit for James. The young man in his thirties had a brain tumor, and had just become a hospice patient, and as such would be discharged soon. The tumor made James forget that he had a left arm. The physical therapy was geared toward helping James use his left arm, as each use would retrain his cancer challenged brain, and James would benefit.
Willow padded down the hall on the way to James’ room. A doctor and nurse stopped to greet the little therapy dog. Willow was a total snob. She would have nothing to do with them. No kisses, no tricks, not even a haphazard acknowledgement of their existence. “Yah, yah, blah, blah, get out of my face, you blithering humans.” Yikes, maybe she needed a whole month off, thought Linda. She’s pushing the “aloof sighthound” bit to the extreme.

They entered James’ room, with Linda concerned that this would be a waste of everyone’s time and energy. The physical therapist explained that despite several dog visits, no one had been able to find a position to place the dog where James was comfortable, and where he would remember his left arm. Linda lifted Willow onto the bed. Willow sighed. Linda placed Willow next to James’ left side. Willow looked uncomfortable and started to move. “Stay!” Willow rolled her eyes and got up anyway. “That’s it,” thought Linda. “She’s heading to the foot of the bed. She’s done.”

Willow is a curl-up kind of Whippet. Not a sprawler. Even in her own bed, under the covers, she’s in a tight little ball. She stood up and looked around. She glanced at James, who didn’t know she was there because she was on his forgotten left side. She looked about the bed. Then Willow did something absolutely remarkable. She crawled over him and draped herself across James’ belly. Head on his left side, tail end on his right. All sprawled out, right over him. Linda blinked in total disbelief. She couldn’t have placed Willow in that position without a huge struggle. James became aware of Willow, because her rear end was by his right hand. He followed her body with his right hand up over his abdomen. When his right hand traveled past his midline he said “Oh!” His left hand found Willow’s head.

As the therapist and Linda dropped their lower jaws on their knees, Willow closed her eyes, and James stroked the dog with both hands. The hospital business bustled on for half an hour outside of that room. Inside the room a little miracle was happening. Willow didn’t move a whisker. She stayed in a vulnerable, uncomfortable, detested position for a full thirty minutes. James talked to the two women and stroked the Whippet with both hands. The physical therapist and several pet therapy owners had been trying unsuccessfully for weeks to find a position that worked.

Willow found it.

Trying, out loud, to tell Willow how very proud she was of her, Linda and Willow drove to their next assignment of the day, the autistic school. The patient was a twelve-year-old girl, Lucy, who had developed a dangerous phobia of dogs. She had run into traffic to avoid dogs on the sidewalk, and would climb up onto her mother’s head if she were prevented from running. She was a big girl, and her mother feared that one or both of them would soon be hurt if this continued. The therapists at the autistic school had developed and instituted a protocol. It began with the girl having to stand in a lobby for ten seconds while a pet therapist stood on the other side of the large lobby with a dog on lead.

Linda’s two Whippets and another handler with two labs had been rotating visits, so that Lucy wouldn’t just think that one certain dog was safe, but all the rest were scary. The protocol had progressed over the weeks to the point where Lucy was now to stand at arm’s length from the dog, who was at the end of a six-foot lead, while the owner was seated, facing to the side, holding the other end of the lead. Lucy would place some cheese on her own foot, and the dog would take it.

When Linda received the day’s instructions and heard about the cheese, she looked at Willow and thought, “Oh, no, I have brought the wrong Whippet.” Back in the days when Willow was showing, she bloodied many a finger over bait. Willow discovered one day quite by accident that, in the ring, if you thought your handler was being a tad too miserly with the liver, and you tried to get a bit more, and you got a good chunk of thumb as well, that handler might just gasp and let go of a great big hunk of liver and a little Whippet would hit the jackpot!

Now, dear readers, your writer had been that handler on one too many occasions. If you were at the National last year, you might have heard a Whippet shriek outside the in gate of the Triathlon class? Linda thought Willow had been trod upon. When she turned she saw that was not the case. Willow had your writer’s bleeding thumb in her teeth, and your writer had Willow’s nose in a tight pinch, and neither of us was willing to say “Uncle”! That said, you would understand why Linda avoided therapy situations that involved fingers and food and Willow.

But Willow told Linda she could handle it, and she certainly deserved a piece of cheese after the last visit, so Linda reluctantly continued.

Linda put Willow in an obedience stand-stay, and went behind her to sit in the chair, facing to the side, with the lead draped on the floor. Lucy approached. She stopped within her arm’s reach. She had cheese in her hand. Linda prayed. Willow stood. Lucy slowly reached down and put the cheese on her foot in front of Willow. “OK, Willow,” said Linda. Willow slowly and deliberately reached down and gently took the cheese in her lips. (Willow? Is that YOU?) Lucy had her little timer in her hand. It looked like it could be edible. Willow didn’t budge. Linda needed to slap herself to make sure she wasn’t dreaming. Willow stood rock still. Lucy’s time was up, but instead of bolting back to her mother, she stayed. Her therapist told Lucy how happy she was with her. Lucy said, “I’m happy too.” Linda felt tears forming in her eyes. The therapist, noting that Lucy had yet to turn away from the little Whippet, asked her if she would like to touch Willow. Linda was transfixed. “Yes.”

The hand that had just held cheese, and still held a little plastic cheesy timer, reached slowly out over Willow’s head. Now I know from painful, personal experience that is a dangerous move. Willow’s eyes followed that cheese covered hand, but her nose didn’t move. She was a Whippet statue. Lucy gave a short, nervous pat on the back of Willow’s head.

Willow, the food shark, somehow knew that an autistic child’s needs were more important than Willow’s stomach, and that was amazing, because nothing in Willow’s life had proven remotely more important than getting good things into her stomach right up to that very moment.

Because Willow’s particular talents allowed her to visit the critically ill, in plain fact to visit adults and children who were dying, this writer is convinced that she had quite a warm welcome on “the other side”. And I am just as sure that she is there making the transition easier for her special patients who will soon be joining her.

But my favorite memory of Willow was on the trip home from the National in St. Louis. Linda and I had some Stupid Human Quarrel and Willow watched us in disdain. We stopped at a rest stop to exercise the dogs and Linda let Willow off lead for a moment. Willow immediately charged around, butt tucked and ears akimbo, doing wild and crazy little figure eights. She made ferocious growling noises as she bit great chunks of turf, shook the ever living daylights out of it, and sent dirt and grass flying like some intergalactic meteor shower.

As Linda and I convulsed in laughter, Willow came panting back to us, grinning widely, tail wagging, eyes shining. Silly humans. Life is too short.

3 month old “Dawn” and Jeanne

Ch. Watch Me True At First Light

“Dawn”

The United States Top Winning
American-Bred Bitch

Best Puppy 1999 AWC National Specialty
Best of Breed 2002 AWC National Specialty
Best Hound (Group 1) Eighty-Six Times
Best in Show Sixteen Times
Best Hound Bitch (All Systems) 2002

Thank You to the judges who found Dawn “Best”

I am grateful to have wonderful support
from sister Kathy Thomas and Mom & Dad.
Plus, such marvelous friends as Harriet & Ed Vincent.
Harriet & Ed let the potential in Dawn shine!

Breeders & Owners
Harriet Vincent
Jeanne Williams

Care & Presentation
Alvin “Beep” & Shari Lee
godlfish@aol.com

WatchMeWhippets.com
JeanneWilliams@hotmail.com

COTTONWOOD

BIS, SBIS,
Ch. Watch Me Ruby Red Slippers, ROM

(Ch. Watch Me Star Spangle Banner x Ch. Watch Me Belle Bathsheba)

America’s Number One Whippet 1996*

Our Beloved Ruby:
The household “songstress”, consummate showgirl,
mother extraordinaire, and Frisbee star. We adore her!

Owners: Harriet Vincent *
Jeanne Williams

All Systems

Handled to all her wins
by Mike Stone

COTTONWOOD

BIS, SBIS,
Ch. Watch Me True at First Light “Dawn”

(Ch. O’Run Gustav Nordic Wind x Ch. Watch Me Ruby Red Slippers, ROM)

America’s Number One Whippet 2002*

Like Mother, Like Daughter.
Our beautiful Dawn has exceeded our wildest dreams.
Her joyful enthusiasm is the frosting on the cake!

Owners: Harriet Vincent *
Jeanne Williams

All Systems

Dawn’s handler
and our dear friend:
Alvin “Beep” Lee, Jr.

(Ch. Saxon Shore Braveheart x Ch. Windigo Rusalka Moonraker)
pictured at 10 months of age

As puppies, Ch. Rusalka New Journey, Kent, and his littermates had a great start in 2002. Kent won an AWC supported entry 5-point major and BOW and Tiernan was awarded a Specialty RWB on the AWC North Central Specialty weekend. In three months of occasional showing, always owner-handled, Kent won 13 points, both majors, and Rusalka New Tapestry, co-owned with Lydia Pruett, and Rusalka New Fortune, Tiernan, were on the way to their titles. Kent finished his bench championship at 13 months of age.

Jennifer Beach-Buda ~ 3251 Ridge Drive, Waukee, IA 50263
515-987-4505 ~ http://rusalkahounds.com ~ email: skyridge@earthlink.net

A tribute to our grand old lady . . .

Raybar’s Duplicate Copy

“Ditto”

(Raybar’s Touch N Go x Ch. Carbeth Cherry Pie)

Due to recurrent foot problems, “Ditto” never obtained her AKC championship, however her proven worth has been in the whelping box, where she produced three litters: two by her grandsire, Ch. Broadstrider By George, ROMX, and a litter of only two by Ch. Raybar’s Mirage. Her litters by “Chip” gave us five champions, several of which will carry on our line. At the age of eight, her breeding days are over, but her influence will continue for years to come.