Celhaus BB Litter
(Chaos – Joyful), whelped November 28th, 2008: 4 males and 3 females
I kept Miss Red, who is now Celhaus Berakah (call name Berakah, which is Hebrew for “blessing). See her page. Miss Yellow (now Celhaus Bonnie Ann, call name “Annie”) went to Colorado for Search & Rescue. Miss Gold (now Celhaus Bounding Grace, call name “Grace”) went to South Dakota for Search & Rescue, agility & obedience. Mr. Lime (now Celhaus Baerchen, call name “Ike”) stayed in Wyoming and is doing Search & Rescue. Mr. Turquoise (now called “Cutler”, registered name still undecided) stayed in Sheridan as a pet. Mr. Silver (now Celhaus Best Pal, call name “Pal”) and Mr. Sparkle (Celhaus Beowulf, call name “Gus) went to Montana as pets.
Sire: Jagerstadt Chaos von Celhaus
whelped 3/23/06
NADAC Agility titles: Novice Weavers Outstanding, Novice Regular, Novice Tunnelers, Novice Chances, 2 legs towards his Novice TouchNGo title, 2 legs towards his Novice Jumpers title and 2 legs towards his Novice Hoopers title
OFA hip prelims “good”, OFA Elbows, OFA Cardiac, OFA Thyroid, CERF, von Willebrand’s and hemophilia free
Chaos’ hips were beautiful at 1 year and received a “good” rating on his prelims from OFA. Unfortunately, he began leaping my 5′ perimeter fence in August 2007, to go play with the neighbor’s dog. Then he began leaping the cross fences breaking my two acres into four large areas. Chaos’ hips at 24 months were borderline according to OFA so they said to redo in 6 months. It took me until May 2008 to get the fence raised two feet on both the perimeter AND cross fences, so I could keep him where I put him. After he realized he had to stay in the area where I left him when I went to work, he began leaping into the air and catching birds in flight. He figured out that robins are slow on takeoff and targeted them. He is just too athletic for his own good! We redid his hips in September and they looked pretty good the the vets and me, but OFA flunked them. I sincerely believe the changes in his hips are caused by the impacts from all that jumping over the past year, so I had a Penn Hip evaluation done in Billings. In PennHip they first take the standard view, then they place the anesthetized dog with his hips in some kind of a fulcrum brace that allows them to pull the hip and put pressure on it in a certain way that reveals joint laxity. The x-rays go to the creator of the method and he does a bunch of measurements. If a hip rates less than .3 it’s nearly 100% sure that it won’t get arthritis. If it measures .7 or over, there’s too much laxity and the dog will probably develop crippling arthritis (hip dysplasia). Chaos’ left hip received a .33 reading and his right hip received a .36 reading. They rate both hips separately, then give a percentile rating. The higher the percentile the better the hips. They rated Chaos in the 70th percentile. That means that Chaos has hips better than 70% of the GSD’s they’ve evaluated. Quinta’s older sister in Sioux Falls, Rogue, is the only dog I know personally that has been PenHipped and she got 90%. It was fascinating talking a little bit to the PennHip vet and seeing the x-rays. Just having her say that she sees on the standard view why OFA flunked him (mild dysplasia was their rating), but on the PennHip x-rays it was more defined and actually is not a reforming of the joint, made me quite happy. The people at the clinic were absolutely in love with him. Said he was so calm, not bothered when I left, very cooperative, beautiful, etc. I gave them my card and mentioned I do agility and one of the receptionists got all excited. She loves agility. They got right on the website and oohed and aahed on Chaos’ photos and how beautiful all my dogs are.
Chaos has a rock-solid temperament and steady nerves. He’s very social with all ages of people and is an excellent Therapy Dog. Chaos comes from herding lines. Both his parents are working stock dogs on farms in North Carolina. I like to incorporate dogs from herding lines in my breeding programs because of their high bidability. They truly want to work with the handler, and Chaos is no exception. He is extremely fun to train because he checks constantly to be sure he’s doing what I want.
Dam: Joyful (Celhaus Ode to Joy)
whelped 11/14/03
NADAC Agility titles: Novice Jumpers Outstanding, Novice Regular Outstanding, Novice Tunnelers, Novice TouchNGo, 1 leg towards her Novice Weavers title and 2 legs towards her Novice Hoopers title
AKC agility titles: one leg in Novice Standard, 2 legs in Novice Jumpers with Weaves
OFA good hips, OFA Elbows, OFA Thyroid, OFA Cardiac, CERF, von Willebrand’s & hemophilia free
Therapy Dog (Therapy Dogs Incorporated)
Joyful is an Ashi and Caz daughter, and a Glory granddaughter. She is much like her mother and grandmother: high drive, fanatic retriever, super nose, athletic and balanced, and mentally intense. She is like both parents in that she is very focused and intelligent. She doesn’t show much of Glory’s teasing nature, but rather is serious like both parents. She’s very easy to train. She has super high nose drive; in fact, she is fascinating to watch at our daily play sessions: she races after the ball, but on the way back she has to “track” every where it rolled and every thing, no matter what height, it touched. She’s also crazy about the big hard Indestructible ball and speedily searches for and finds it when our retrieve session finishes each morning. She’s the only dog I’ve ever seen who figured out how to put a canine tooth into the small plastic hole; she rolls the ball until she can find the plastic, inserts a tooth, and carries that huge thing all over the place. I can’t get it away from her to throw it.
One of the main reasons I bought Caz was because his pedigree should click with Ashi daughters, and it did. That combo produced some superb search & rescue, tracking and obedience dogs. Joyful is small and compact like her sire, a nice black & red like him. She’s doing well in agility. I started her tracking as a pup and plan to track with her this fall and winter since we won’t be doing agility until she recovers from her litter..
Grandsire: Cassis vom Haus Valkenplatz IWR-IPO3
“a” normal whelped 6/4/1997
Caz was still extremely healthy and vigorous, eyes clear, at age 14, until arthritis in his spine defeated him.
OFA good hips, OFA elbows, OFA Cardiac, OFA thyroid, CERF (his eyes just recertified at nearly 11 years old!), EPI free (exocrine pancreatic insufficiency), DM carrier (spinal myelopathy), free of Von Willebrand’s and Hemophilia free (these are bleeding disorders)
Caz produced very nicely. Caz is a beautiful, medium sized male with gorgeous dark black and red pigment. His temperament is outstanding–he is confident and relaxed in all situations and his tail wags constantly as he enjoys whatever is going on. People fall, in love with him wherever he goes. He is quite social, thoroughly enjoying people of all ages, especially children. He has done well on visits to the nursing homes and is now a registered Therapy Dog. He is willing and eager to please, a happy dog who loves to play and to retrieve. His temperament is superb–confident, serene, not needing to push or prove anything.
Caz came from excellent Dutch & Belgian working lines. His mother line (Tiekerhook) is a female line noted for being very worthy, working all day long, having great drive and sound health and hips. Carmen (Caz’s grandmother) is one of the best producing Tiekerhook females of all times. His sire was a noted working dog, from respected working lines, and was known for producing excellent working dogs.
Caz had very nice working drives. He showed stress in tracking, probably from being force-trained to track in Europe, but responded amazingly quickly to some remedial work and is now tracking beautifully. He got to go to a Search & Rescue tracking seminar in April, 2003, and the SAR people loved his drives and personality. They said he would be great at SAR work. They also raved about his gorgeous pigment, nice size and sound, balanced structure. He produced pups that are doing extremely well in SAR.
Caz also thoroughly enjoyed agility training and competition. However, when he turned 9 his feet began bothering him, probably some arthritis, so I retired him.
Granddam: Celhaus Ashi TD CGC
OFA good hips, OFA elbows, OFA Cardiac, OFA thyroid, CERF, von Willebrand’s and hemophilia free
Therapy Dog
Tracking Dog title
Ashi produced very well for me: three litters sired by Droll, my former stud dog (D, G, & H Litters), one litter sired by a dog in Missoula (Bavo, K Litter), and the O, P & S Litters sired by Caz. Two pups from the “H” litter have proven to be exceptionally nice Search & Rescue dogs. One excels in tracking; the other is an outstanding avalanche dog. One of the females from that same litter went for competition obedience and is also training in Schutzhund. She also participates on a drill team and relay race demonstration team. I kept a female from that litter, Bunny, who is crazy about tracking and agility. Several of Ashi’s pups are doing exceptionally well in their tracking training. Joyful is from her O Litter.
One of the main reasons I bought Caz was because his pedigree and conformation should blend exceptionally well with Ashi, and it did. I had plans to get titles in three areas with her this year–going for her advanced tracking title (TDX), her first agility title, and her first obedience title (CD, or Companion Dog). On Christmas Eve of 2002 she began showing a constricted stride in her right rear leg. We tried everything here in Sheridan, including intensive physical therapy, and I finally took her to CSU for surgery in early June. They removed the gracilis muscle, which had grown a big clump of scar tissue from being repeatedly torn as my super-athlete bounced and jumped and enjoyed life. The CSU vets told me the surgery at best had a 50% success rate and that most dogs re-grow a shortening band than once again impedes the stride, so I was extremely careful and conservative as I began getting her back into shape. Initially we thought the surgery was successful, but in late August she began limping again. She, unfortunately, was going the same route so many extremely athletic dogs had. All the vets swore that this is a non-painful condition, somewhat similar to us having a sore knee. The dogs supposedly adjust to the shortened ability and enjoy life as before, which Ashi seemed to do. It sure didn’t stopped her bouncing around–it just made me hate to watch her move. She was still extremely active and playful when she suddenly had a heart attack during our morning retrieve session and died in my arms on October 16, 2006. I still miss her terribly.