Afghans By Rodin

Well time for another long awaited update. Life around here has been quite busy this year so I don't get to update as often as I had hoped. In the future I will make a greater effort to keep this updated regularly.
Now onto the updates...
We are sad to announce we have lost two of our precious hounds later summer. Our sweet Hilary succumbed to cancer and not a month later we lost her kennelmate Spencer. He had been ill for some time and when Hilary left him it was more than he could handle. He passed quietly at home with us one summer afternoon. This house is not the same any longer. Their absence is still felt daily. It's as if a part of our lives has changed with their passing.
On the happy side, we have added a new little one to the pack. Caravan kennels has allowed us to own one of their Coastwind babies. A little brindle domino boy. I will have pictures, info and pedigree up soon.
Our Italian girl Talara continues to mature into a wonderful young lady. As soon as we get her groomed better I will put up more up-to-date pictures of her and finally get her pedigree working.
Our little human puppy Isabella continues to grow and charm us with ways. She is almost 16 months old now, bright, intelligent, extremely precocious and just a treasure to have aorund the house. We haven't done alot of dog shows this year as we had Hilary and Spencer to deal with and waiting for Belly to grow up a little. The last few times we traveled with her she was not accepting of the overnight hotel stays. Hopefully as she nears 2 years of age things will get easier for all of us.
We hope to present our current clan at the Nutmeg Specialty in Connecticut 2009. After that we hope to begin in earnest showing our two girls Lara and Camille.

posted by Cheryl @ 5:52 AM

Sorry for the VERY long absence in posts. Life has gotten so incredibly busy this is the last thing I can manage to get to.
Not a whole lot to post about. Since last year we've only done a couple of shows and haven't done a whole lot in them to brag about. Camille got her first two points about 2 months ago which we are of course, very pleased about. It's a start.
We have our Italian girl now. She's been here since last October and growing up to be quite stunning if you can get past ALL the coat. I have finally gotten her up on the site., No pedigree yet. I'm having trouble trying to get the link connected. Hopefully that will be resolved soon.
Adonis has been home growing up and maturing this past year. We don't have alot of plans for showing him until likely next spring or summer. He still needs a little more coat and will wait for his sister to finish. Same with Talara. She is going to be quite slow to mature so we're giving her time. At a year, she still hasn't gone into season so no real saddle or adult coat as of yet.
We have no immediate plans for a litter. We'll be spending the rest of this year into next year completing the renovations on our current house so as to put it on the market, hopefuylly, next year so we can get construction started on our new place. This all depends on the market next year. The new place with be complete with indoor/outdoors kennels, the works!! We're pretty excited aboiut this endeavor. We've purchased 4 acres of land about an hour from us way out in the country. We love it there and the dogs will too. Lots of room, peace and quiet, no more summer residents and noise and other dogs hanging around. The perfect place to raise these guys in peace and contentment. I'll be putting up pictures as the place takes shape. For this year our only goal is to get the well and the septic in. Maybe the kennels up. We have yet to purchase a tractor so we can at least clear the land.
The new baby (well not quite new, she's a year old now) keeps us plenty busy so all things in good time.
I'm hoping to get a new pciture of Adonis up in a week or so.
The sad new for this post is that last Decmeber 2007 we lost our beloved India to a sudden cancer. Before we knew what she had she was gone from our lives. We still mourn her to this day. She was very special to us and we're lucky to have a couple of her kids around. We hope they do her proud in the future. We're hoping to have a little India when Camille is finally bred. That likely won't be until at the earliest summer of 2009. All that will be posted in good time.
Well that's about it for now. Hopefully more news as the months progress.
Till then, cya at the shows.

posted by Cheryl @ 11:34 AM

Lot of News
Well we have alot of news to catch up on here since my last post. First off I'd like to introduce our newest addition. No, not a new puppy this time. At least not a new canine puppy. But a human puppy. Our daughter/co-owner and handler has given us the gift of a brand new granddaughter. Isabella Marie O'Bryan-Pitcher was born Thursday July 12, 2007 at 3:53 p.m. After 32 hours of long labor she came into this world.  She is a joy to behold and the prettiest little thing.  Hopefully she will want to follow in her mother's footsteps in the future. Her first show will be the end of September. The Fingerlakes Specialty weekend.
Now onto dog news. As I mentioned above we are scheduled for our first show since this past February.   Two days at the Wine Country shows.  Should be fun. Should be even more fun with a new baby around. We will be presenting Camille to the world in earnest now. She has goen through her first season finally and really matured out. Her brother Adonis is staying home for a while longer.
We also will be welcoming a new affie baby to our home. Well by the time she arrives she won't be such a baby any longer. We'd like to send a HUGE thanks to Roberto of Xenos Kennels for allowing us to own one of his gorgeous little girls. She will be aproximately 5 months old when she arrives and pictures will follow, along with her addition and all specifics on our girls page at our site.
This summer has been spent home working on the old homestead and looking for some significant land for our new place. We'll be selling this place hopefully, next year and beginning to construction on our new place. It will incorporate Kristen and her small family along with new kennels (indoor and out) and acres of fenced in runs for the pooches. We're pretty excited about the prospects to come with that endeavor. We'll be building it ourselves.  We'll provide pictures as it goes up.
That's it for now. Nothing else to really report. Stay tuned and here is a pic of the new little human princess.

posted by Cheryl @ 7:01 AM

Well I know it's been quite some time since I've posted anything. We have done a few shows this winter. Look left :) for a pic of two of our girls at the Buffalo, NY shows in January. We went mostly for practice as this crew really has an attitude about showing. Meaning they'd rather NOT be doing it. So out they go until they decide differently.

We also entered some local shows in Queensbury, NY. Again mostly for practice as Adonis is a real handful. So I will be showing him for the time being. Probably forever. He is a very tall boy with long legs and poor Kristen has quite the time hoofin it around the ring with him. I, being taller, can keep up with him better. We shall see how this works out.
We've also been busy planning for our newest arrival. No not a puppy this time. But rather our very first grandchild. Kristen and hubby are blessing us with a new little granddaughter in July!!! Excitement is an understatement. I've alreay had more than a few shopping sprees getting ready for the little one. Stay tuned for added news regarding her. I'm going to try and scan the latest ultrasound of her. Her name is officially Isabella Marie O'Bryan-Pitcher. Yes a hyphonated one. LOL
The affie kids are all doing wonderful. Enjoying good health and this winter. We recently had a heck of a snow storm and I'll see if I can post a picture of that here. Dogs aren't to fond of THAT much snow but with spring just around the corner melting and mud isn't far behind.
We have some shows the beginning of April and will try and do pics and/or videos then. Till then stay tuned. Sorry for the lack of communication via my Blog lately. Been a busy busy winter!!! Enjoy.

Labels: Long Time No Postings

posted by Cheryl @ 6:37 AM

Well as I promised some pictures from the nationals. Unfortunately not nearly what I wanted to take but this was to great to pass up. You see halfway through the week a few of our clan came down with a stomach ailment. One of them was Finnigan. The pic here is of our poor daughter in a VERY large ring cleaning up after Finny's extensive "mess" in the ring. Poor boy. Kristen tried to get him out of the ring before he did anything but all she accomplished was to spread it out. Such is the life og show dogs. Especially afghan hounds. Notice how he is resting while mom cleans HIS mess up!!! 

posted by Cheryl @ 6:21 AM

Well we're back from the Afghan Hound Nationals. A day early unfortunately as most of the clan came down with some stomach ailment. I guess it's to be expected sometimes when you have so many from different areas all in the same place. We had a great time and saw so many afghans from all over the world. We do have some exciting news. Our little girl Camille took a 4th in a VERY large 9-12 month puppy bitch class. We were so excited the judge found our little girl out of such a big class. Makes the whole trip and all the work worth it. All the kids we showed did a wonderful job. It was a long week and I do admit to being glad to be home. We enjoy the trips and the shows but are always glad to be home to the rest of the family and given the reaction from our return last night, they were equally glad to have us back. SO many wiggly butts and happy grunts and squeals. So life gets back to normal again until the next shows which will be some time in October and local. I do have some pics of the nationals but not as many as I had hoped to have as one gets so busy and preoccupied chatting and what not picture taking was neglected. But I do have a few. Mainly of the Best of Breed class which was enormous and took some time to get everyone in the ring for the photographers group picture. So I will try and get some pictures posted today as soon as we unpack and get the house back in order again. Stay tuned. 

posted by Cheryl @ 6:51 AM

We'll be taking LOTS of pictures to post so check back when we come back for all of those along with any happy news we might bring home with us. 

posted by Cheryl @ 8:56 AM

Well the time for the nationals is coming near and we're beyond excited to be able to attend another one. We're also happy and excited to be able to pass our little Georgia off to her new family and home at the nationals. Zari will also be coming along for his first Nationals along with their papa and our two Camille and Adonis. So much to get ready and plan. 

posted by Cheryl @ 8:52 AM