Zoey at 12 weeks of age

Zoey is Black Diamond Front Runner - my pick of the litter. She looks and acts SOOO much like her mom Jazz, I couldn't resist keeping her! She has more spots than I like, but I LOVE everything else about her.

Terrible day for Waverley

Waverley is doing great. We started puppy kindergarten on Wednesday and she was a pro. She is a saucy girl and doesn't like sitting still, but is catching on to commands and the house training thing. She already sleeps through the night and is fitting in with the pack here. Her favorite friend is my Sphynx cat Peach. They wrestle on the floor and chase each other around the living room. We had a couple of bumps earlier in the week. While out for a walk she was ran over by my other dog and started limping. I crated her for the night, but when it wasn't better by the next morning I brought her into my work to see if they'd want to do an xray. The vet moved her leg through it's full range of motion and said it's most likely she just brusied her shoulder. Thank goodness, I felt sick to my stomach bringing her in but didn't want to do the whole "wait and see" thing I would normally do with my other dogs. Since we were there anyways, and got the go ahead, I had her vaccinated. Unfortunately she ended up having a vaccine reaction and her left hip ended up swelling with a bump the size of a large egg and was very sore. Poor girl had a terrible day. Luckily puppies bounce back and she is 99% back to normal already. We will split up her last set of vaccines, pre-treat with benedryl and hopefully avoid another reaction. Never a dull moment around here!

JR and his girls

Here are some pictures of JR with our youngest, Lucy and my niece, Emily. ~ Tina

JR Update

JR is continuing to do very well! We started a dog training class last night and he did quite well. We are working with him daily. Today he got to go to the dog park and meet one of his new girl friends, a 10 month old Rhodesian Ridgeback. They ran around and got pretty worn out. We are working hard on socializing him with other dogs. He is doing quite well when they are off leash. It is a bit more of a challenge on leash. The dog class should help.  I will send a picture of him soon. ~Tina

Well balanced Mickey

Thank you so much for being such an awesome breeder! Because of the wobble board (I assume) he doesn't even flinch about unstable surfaces.

~ Lisa
P.S. He got up there, himself.

Run For The Roses = Nora

Sorry I haven't been in touch, Nora and I have been very busy! She loves her new home and all her new friends and is already a huge Portland Timbers fan as you can see! She's been surprisingly very good with all her trainings and she can now come, sit, lay down, (stay)off, understands no and ouch, likes her kennel and is getting very good at being on a leash. potty training is finally making sense to her and has gone 3 days now without any accidents in doors! She also met her Vet yesterday and got her latest round of shots. Shes very healthy and weighs 11 pounds. Hope all is well! ~ Jeremiah

Dog Power

Here is our “Little Lexie Doo-Bug”

This is what she does every single time Pat take her for a ride around the neighborhood. He takes her all over town: trails, old town and to the dog park. There isn’t a square mile he hasn’t covered around town. She sounds like those sled dogs when he is getting ready to take off. Funny thing is he wouldn’t even have to peddle the first 1-2 miles b/c she runs so damn fast, but of course he does. Enjoy ~ Lori

Cinder goes Farwest

Hey Deb just wanted to share a picture of Cinder and my husband taking a break at the farwest morgan regional horse show in redmond. We are here for five full days and cinder is doing great as you can see. She has been the best puppy. We have been staying at a hotel and not a peep out of her. If you tell her to go to bed off she goes. She really likes our horses especially my palomino. They like to walk side be side together. Talk to you later ~ Karen

Brotherly Love

Out of all the dogs in our house, Romeo and Ranger have become the best of friends. They play together all day long, then share a bed to take a nap! Romeo and Ranger are both from our very first litter; their mom is Jazz and father was Radar. Ranger moved away at 8 weeks of age and lived in Reno with their other brother Tonto.  Recently Ranger moved back in with us so we could find him a better suited home for him to live out the rest of his life with. Meanwhile, Romeo is pretty happy about having his brother living with us again.

Waverley made it to Candada!

It was a long trip but definately worth it. Waverley did great and was a trooper on the 12 hour drive home. Only needed to stop a few times and whining was minimal. Once we were home we went on a long walk, she had a bath, and is now sleeping at my feet. I'm already in love! We promise to keep in touch. Thank you so much for this amazing little girl!  Talk soon, Amy

Potty training Mickey

ACTUALLY we had a major breakthrough, today! The backdoor is open which leads into the garage and an open man door into the backyard. MICKEY TOOK HIMSELF OUTSIDE! Did you get that? Let me repeat, myself; MICKEY TOOK HIMSELF OUTSIDE! Later, I had company and the door was closed. He cried to go out! Oh I am so happy I could just piddle on the floor.
Aside from the housebreaking our only troubles have come from that mouth of his.  No back talk, just his desire to use it to “feel” me with it!  He likes pulling at the blanket over the sofa, as well.  I keep replacing my body or the blanket with the bully stick or his rope but it doesn’t seem nearly as interesting.  I’m looking forward to him outgrowing this little phase.  Of course he has performed the obligatory toilet paper train, once.  ~ Lisa

Last day together

Today is the final day for these four to play together. In the morning Trifecta (pink collar) will be moving to Canada and Sure Thing (navy blue collar) will be moving to Spokane. Looks like they decided to make the most of the day they have together!

Black Diamond Trifecta - 8 Weeks old

Black Diamond Mint Julep - 8 Weeks old

Black Diamond Front Runner - 8 Weeks old

Black Diamond Sure Thing - 8 Weeks old

Jasper entertains himself

For those of you who are not aware, Jasper (the big black spotted boy on the right) is from our 2010 litter and is now 8 months old. He has come to hang out at 'his grandparent's' house for a couple of weeks before we will attempt to show him in Canby on the 24th. Jasper lives with his mom in Tillamook normally. She received so many complements on this handsome boy that she contacted us to see if we thought he could make it as a show dog. We agree that he's very good looking, now we just need to trim him down and add on some muscle so he'll blend in with the other show dogs. Meanwhile, he's having a ton of fun with the other 5 dogs in our home - it's his own personal playground! He's keeping us entertained anyhow!! :)

Superspot hits the road

Black Diamond Fast Track gets the award of being this litter's closest living puppy; he's only moving about 1hr and 15 minutes from our home. Hopefully we'll get to see him now and then when we are in the Tri-Cities.

Triple Crown heads to Vancouver

"Purple" found herself a loving home today. She is one of many Dals this family has owned over the years, so hopefully she will be one of the best!

Perfect pair

As it turned out, Black Diamond Run For The Roses was the perfect name for this little girl who is on her way to Portland with her new daddy! It sounds like she will have a wonderful home, with tons of socialization - which is key to raising a happy, well adjusted Dalmatian.

Mickey's new home

We’ve made it home. Only about 10 minutes of intermittent whining and when we stopped for a burger in the drive-through I put him down to eat and I lost him… found him under my seat.


We stopped at Shilo (he slept the whole way) and didn’t go potty. Back to sleep and didn’t need to go until we got home (already living the rock star lifestyle trying to create stones). At the Shilo he, initially, did not care for the leash but by the time we left he had no problem with it at all.

He’s met some neighbors and one dog.

Whining when left alone until he realized that he could explore and he does whine to ask to get up on the sofa. He only gets up when he stops. No picking him up if he stands up and scratches at our legs, either.

He does enjoy the bully stick and gorged himself on dinner and water before passing out again. So far, so good, on going outside and not in the house. He’s also coming when called with some encouragement.

So many things to remember to do and not to do to have a good dog. It’s not easy being a doggy momma!

Thank you so much for the wonderful little boy! ~ Lisa

P.S. I’ve already yelled, “NO!” once… he was chewing on his paperwork.

Jasper hits the road

Jasper is from our last litter, which was born October 5, 2010. This 8 month old boy lives with his mommy in Tillamook, OR but has returned to his 'grandparent's' so we can work on getting him in shape (mentally and physically) before he tries his paw in the show ring on June 24th at the Mt. Hood Dalmatian Specialty at the fairgrounds in Canby, OR. This photo is of Adrian and Jasper hitting the trail for the first time - so far, so good!

Hearing Results

Today the puppies and I made the long track to Clackamas where they had their BAER hearing tests done. I was very lucky to have Ann & Patty come help me wrangle puppies at the vet's office (Ann owns Jasper, a puppy from our last litter).  We also had a wonderful surprise visit from Lisa, who will be taking Mickey home in a couple more days.
The test went well, everyone is bi-lateral hearing (meaning that they can hear with both ears) except for "Orange" (Black Diamond Fast Track), who is a uni (he is deaf in his right ear but hears fine with his left ear). There's nothing wrong with a uni and most people don't even notice that their dog can't hear in one ear. Uni's can be shown and some people even use them in their breeding program (although we personally choose to not use uni's in our breeding program).
While at the vet's office we also had blood drawn from each of the puppies. I brought the blood vials home with me in a cooler and will be shipping them to the OFA where they will be housed. In the future, when researchers are working on health studies involving Dalmatians, they will be able to obtain the blood samples from the OFA to use in their research. So someday this litter might help come up with a cure for an ailment effecting all Dalmatians - such as hearing issues or urinary stone formation.

The view from my dinning room this morning:

3 Amigos

Here is a photo of Olive, Ringo & Mozart watching me from the deck. Poor neglected babies thinking I'd forget them! ~ Bernie

Article on stones

Mozart and Ringo's mom sent me the following link to an article by Purina, that I thought with the recent Ti issues might interest everyone.  http://www.akcchf.org/news-events/library/articles/dalmatianupdate0707.pdf

E-mail from Ti's dad

Hi Deb,
I was never able to get Ti's PH to stay consistently between 7 and 7.5. It was typically 5.75 in the morning and 6.75 in the evening so I wasn't expecting good news today. Ti surprised us though. The ultrasound did not reveal any stones and the urinalysis did not even show crystals. It's a Dalmatian miracle! He will have another ultrasound in six weeks.

I'm not sure if it was the switch to distilled water, increasing the amount of water or the diet change that cleared him up. The allopurinal and potassium citrate may have had an effect as well. I just don't know.

I'm happy with the diet I created for him so I'll continue with that as well as the distilled water. His allopurinal and potassium citrate will run out in two weeks.We'll see how the urinalysis and ultrasound look in six weeks and go from there.
Hooray!
~ John

Priceless

1998 motorhome = $40,000.00

2008 Honda moped = $1,500.00

Blanket to attept to keep dog hair & mudd off of everything = $22.50

Tired and peacefully sleeping Dalmatian = PRICELESS

Vacation has begun.

 We arrived at Cooperfield Campground at 1:00am last night. Our friends/family arrived this morning and we're in full camping mode now. Romeo, Sky and JR had a nice run, then enjoyed laying out on the grass behind our motorhome. We're here until Monday morning, rain or shine - so we've got our fingers crossed that the weather men are wrong and we'll actually get to enjoy some nice weather. It's going to be hard to be away from the puppies this many days, but they are in good hands. We'll be sure to get new pictures of the puppies posted as soon as we get home, but meanwhile you'll just get to look at the 3 we brought (and maybe some relatives if anyone else out there wants to send in updates). :)   Deb



Black Diamond Mint Julep (Green) - Possible Show Female

Black Diamond Trifecta (Pink) - Possible Show Female

Black Diamond Front Runner (Light Blue) - Possible Show Female

Black Diamond Triple Crown (Purple) - Pet Female

Black Diamond Run For The Roses (Red) - Pet Female

Black Diamond Sure Thing (Navy) - Possible Show Male