Pleasant news came today when we received the results of Zeppe’s Optigen testing for CEA. She has tested “Normal”, or Clear. This means she carries two normal genes and will never develop Collie Eye Anomaly (aka Choroidal Hypoplasia). She will also never be able to produce a puppy afflicted with this disease because her offspring will always receive at least one good copy of the gene from her.

As a bonus, Zeppe’s CEA clear status now means that all of the A Litter pups are also CEA “Clear by Parentage” as daddy Marcello is also CEA clear.

It’s not as rare as say, Mississippi, but when we get a good heavy snow fall it is always a treat for the dogs. We got just such a treat last Thursday. I wish I had some nice pictures of my Tollers to share, but unfortunately the camera wasn’t working and I got nothing. Lucky for me, Kyle took a few great ones of Marlin enjoying the snow.

Comox had a blast along with 40 or so other Tollers, including his Grandma Mia and Grand-uncle Pike, at the annual BC Toller Walk. Not daunted by the cold, icy water in Barnet Marine Park, he and pappa Marcello were found taking a swim on more than one occasion. More pictures are available on Patrick and Sara’s Webshots.

Happy Birthday to the A Litter!! One year ago today Zeppe gave birth to 4 beautiful puppies and Caliber Tollers was presented with their first litter. It is hard to believe they are a year old already!

Happy Birthday to:
Red, now known as Caliber’s Alpine to Ocean Livin aka Comox
Miss Orange, now known as Caliber’s Apple of my Eye aka Apple
Charlie, now known as Caliber’s Atlantic Blue aka Marlin
Miss Green, now known as Caliber’s Angioletto aka Angel

A big thanks to the Patrick and Sara, Frank and Jennifer, and Kyle for giving these puppies wonderful homes to grow up in.

This dynamic duo took home top honors on December 2nd when they won the 16″ division at the AKC Agility Invitational. Congratulations to Kim Simons & Slyder and also to all the other Tollers holding the breed banner high in agility and conformation at the 2007 AKC Invitationals.

I managed a few minor site updates this evening. Zeppe’s new titles have been updated. The “Our Tollers” page has been updated and Apple has her own page now. There are no pictures for Apple in the Gallery yet, but that is forthcoming.

The past three weekends have been a lot of fun. Zeppe came home from training at Gamekeepers Retrievers. I am very happy to have her back. Mitch White came down on October 14th to run the Golden Retriever Club of Greater Saint Louis WC tests with some of his dogs, including Zeppe. He successfully handled Zeppe to a pass in the WC. Because the club & the judges were gracious enough to setup under Toller rules for us, this qualifies her for her first field title!

Since she was running so well, I decided to take her out to the Southern IL HRC hunt tests the next weekend and run her in Started. I am pleased to say that she passed both days earning her first two legs.

And since we were on a roll, I opted to go down to Arkansas this past weekend and see if we could finish off her title at the L’Anguille River HRC tests. Zeppe did a great job and also passed both days. So, now she has her SHR title as well.

I am pleased as punch and Miss Zeppe did a fine job all three weekends. There were many people in Arkansas that had never even heard of the breed. Both Zeppe and Harley were great ambassadors. The judges this past weekend got a big kick out of watching Zeppe come back on the marks with her head high, and her Toller tail flowing, and just as happy as she could be that she got her bird. Harley had fun too as test dog and pick-up dog. His line manners are a bit rusty from retirement, but he was in heaven the whole time. I think his favorite part was the “tolling demonstration” by the judge’s young daughter.

That rounds out our field stuff for the year, and now I am eager to get Zeppe into obedience and working towards that CD.

Angel, aka Caliber’s Angioletto, flew into Toronto, Canada today to live with her new family, Frank Patten and Jennifer Brown. Frank and Jennifer are no strangers to Tollers. In fact, they own Angel’s Aunt Willow, a littersister to Zeppe. They have done well in agility with Willow and hope to do the same with Angel when she is old enough.

Frank has setup a special Flickr set where you can see photos of Angel in her new home.

If things looked a bit odd lately, I apologize. It seems the software I use to host the gallery had a bug in it that allowed a hacker to break in and take over my site. Those people were up to no good and I am appalled that my web site was temporarily hijacked in order to scam unsuspecting visitors. Thankfully, things seem back to normal now. I am sorry for any inconvenience.

Lesson learned: Always make sure your programs are up to date and have the latest security patches applied. This includes being up to date on anti-virus software. The number of people out there willing to do malicious things to your computer or web site is frighteningly alarming!!!

Left: Comox meets Auntie Willow
Right: Comox the Snuggle-bug