ShowSight Interviews: Joan Luna Liebes, Azteca Samoyeds BY ALLAN REZNIK continued
health issues; doing the grooming, the handling lessons and the kennel visits. Good times! Your Samoyeds are widely known, highly successful and well respected. What breeding philoso- phies do you adhere to? Both in dog and horse breeding we look for the best possible boys with the correct proportions, size, type (which includes correct movement) and pedi- gree. We emphasize health clearances for our bitches and mares as well as the studs. We have a litter every four to five years with the intention of keeping the best bitch for us. Stables are built on mares and kennels are built on bitch- es. Our girls have won several Best in Shows, 30-plus Groups, 20-plus Region- al Specialty Bests, Specialty BIS at the Samoyed Club of America National Spe- cialty, BOS at SCA, Best Brood Bitch at SCA and nine Awards of Merit at SCA. On the equestrian side, my sisters and I began riding at age five, starting with dressage and graduating to jump- ers. We still ride today, although our jumping days are long over. Off The Track Thoroughbreds (OTTTs) were cheap and often free when we were growing up and that is what we rode and owned. We learned that a straight- shouldered horse makes for a hard ride. Sloppy pastern set was a danger- ous ride over fences. I have taken many falls over the years resulting in sprains, broken bones, black eyes and bruised ego. We learned that function and per- formance go hand in hand. Our OTTTs did not excel at sorting cattle nor were they nimble enough for steep mountain climbing. A borrowed Quarter horse was a much better choice for gathering cattle and at reining events. Arabs were much more nimble climbing mountains than our Thoroughbreds were. For the last 20 years we have bred warmbloods, producing several premium foals and a Best Filly in Show. Two years ago, both Eric and I rode our own horses in a Brittany field trial. Our fellow equestrians rode Tennessee Walkers and Missouri Foxtrotters. Eric had to trot to keep up with the Walk- ers in the field. At the first gully we all went down. My 17-hand warmblood gelding lost his footing and I came off and landed in a pile of dirt with a bruised ego. A kind man lent me his Walker and I rode the entire afternoon. Here was form and function right in my face. My hunter was not going to make it as a successful ride in the field. Such is life!
Breeding is not for the faint of heart. We lost a premium three-year-old filly to Wobblers disease and a three-week- old filly to ovarian strangulation. I was at the Samoyed National Specialty in Topeka when my breeding partner, Marti Johnson, called with news that my pregnant mare, who was in foal, had shattered her leg and could not be saved. Stuff happens. I bought a new Thoroughbred mare, a Secretariat descendant and started again. Our last homebred hunter is cur- rently being shown and is for sale. Reggie is 17 hands, talented and, sadly, just too big for me. I need a mounting block just to put on his tack. We judged in Ireland a few years ago and spent a morning at a Connemara farm near Galway. Connemaras are smart, handy, sturdy ponies and just the right size. We are hoping to have a few Connie mares soon. How many Samoyeds do you typically house? Tell us about your current facilities and how the dogs are maintained. Today we have four Samoyeds (three adults and a four-month-old puppy girl), an almost four-year-old Komondor girl, Fred our Ibizan (active in lure cours- ing and a GCH) and two hunters. All the dogs live in the house. We have a separate dog room adjoining our master bedroom. The room has a tile floor with a drain, a sink and opens into a paddock that is hotwired. The dogs and bitches each have their own separate two-plus- acre paddocks. We are on 35 acres, have an eight-stall barn, dressage court and 60-foot-round pen. The lower level of the house has two bedrooms with walk- in closets, a game room and a ginor- mous grooming room with crates, dry- ers, tables, Flying Pig stainless steel tub and Prima bath system. Most Tuesday afternoons, I can be found downstairs grooming and bathing dogs, doing their toenails and watching Court TV. I love to watch “Judge Judy.” Who were/are some of your most significant dogs, both in the whelp- ing box and in the show ring? Our most successful show dog was MBIS, MSBIS, SCA National Specialty BOS and Brood Bitch winner, Ch. Sit- kin’s Simply Scrumptious, with 150-plus Breeds and 75 Group placements in the late 1980s. “Scarlett” had only one litter of seven, with six kids finishing. Every- thing we have today goes back to Scar- lett. Scarlett was bred by Dick and Chris Higley. Our current 10-year-old owned by Kim and Susan Fewlass, MBIS,
MSBIS, SCA National Specialty BIS, GCHS Azteca’s Triple Seven (“Jett”), has six champion kids. Both these girls won their last BIS from the Veterans class. We have a litter every four to five years. Our girls have produced 50-plus champions. A couple of years ago we had a litter containing two exceptional girls. Mike Stone handled one girl and Bill McFadden handled the litter sister. I stopped judging during the two years Cami and Jett were campaigned. I felt
86 • S HOW S IGHT M AGAZINE , A UGUST 2018
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