THE HAVANESE
ALICE & STEVE LAWRENCE We live in north central Connecticut, on the Massachu- setts border. Now that Steve has retired from his practice as a clinical Psychologist and I am now a retired Financial Planner, we spend a lot of time and energy in political activ- ism, seeing movies with our Senior discount and generally having a great time. FREDITH HOLT I live in Rancho Palos Verdes, in Southern California. I have a very active life outside my interest in dogs. I love to write poetry and articles especially about dog related activities. I enjoy tending to my garden that has an exten- sive array of succulents. My husband and I attend all of our grandson’s tennis matches at the University of South- ern California and also travel when he plays out of town. KATHY AMBLER My name is Kathy Ambler and my Breed is Havanese. I have been breeding and showing dogs as a breeder/owner/ handler for almost 20 years. I have been somewhat successful and I am quite proud not only of my finished champions, but the wonderful family pets and service dogs I have produced. I love showing dogs and hope to be able to continue until I die! I live in Michigan in the Thumb, just three miles off Lake Huron. I call it the boonies because every dog show is at least 90 minutes away (and that one is only once a year, the rest are at least two and a half hours each way) and the nearest Wal Mart is 30! Outside of dogs I am a Registered Nurse, but have not actually had a paying position in about five years. My husband has some health issues and is on Dialysis three times a week. So between him and dog shows and spending time with my family, I don’t have a lot of down time! KATHY PATRICK I live in Northern California, work part-time and enjoy being with my family.
1. Your opinion of the current quality of purebred dogs in general, and your breed in particular. A&SL: Dogs are probably getting healthier, in general, due to better nutrition, veterinary skills and more refined health testing. With that said, the dogs shown are not necessarily better than in the past. A lot of the elite breeders don’t even bother showing their dogs any more. Why pay money (and devote so much time and energy) to get an opinion from some- one who barely knows the essentials of the breed? There are many great dogs who are not shown, so what you see in the ring is often far from the best. Havanese have improved dramatically since they first entered the show ring 19 years ago, but there is still a long way to go before we consistently see a ring full of quality Havanese of consistent type. FH: I think the quality of the current purebred dogs is impressive. For the most part, they follow the breed standards, are well conditioned and are presented in a manner appreciated by judges and the pubic as well. Although our breed has made great strides in improv- ing the quality of our dogs, I think we still have a long way to go in gaining the confidence of the dog fancy in general. Grooming is an area that we continue to work on as a breed. I think we still have too much diversity in our dogs both in the whelping box and in the ring. We have significant size differences as well as differ- ences in coat and structure. There are differing per- ceptions of what a typey Havanese should look like in the relationship of length to height, topline, springy gait, head type and expression. I think as a breed, we have not yet established a broad impression of that “perfect” Havanese! KA: I think the dog fancy is making incredible leaps and bounds in breeding healthier dogs. Of course, there are some that seem to be moving away from their original standards and grooming has started to be used to hide structural faults, but overall, thanks to health testing and careful breeding, I think we are getting better. When I first got involved in Havanese, it was known that juvenile cataracts were an issue. Through careful screening, they show up few and far between. Another issue was Chondrodysplasia. With an increase in the amount of dogs across the world, we have been able to move away from using those dogs in breeding programs and IMHO, we are breed- ing much more structurally sound dogs with much
S HOW S IGHT M AGAZINE , F EBRUARY 2018 • 237
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