Lambent Kuvasz

Lambent Kuvasz
Home Our Dogs Health About the Kuvasz Breeding Breeding Ethics Puppies	The beginning In 1989 I acquired my first Kuvasz - Abby. Abby was purchased as a "pet" puppy - that is she was sold with no guarantee of show or breeding quality. As time went by I became interested in the possibility of showing Abby and met with her breeder to discern her qualities as a breeding specimen. I did show Abby for a while, and became interested in breeding her as well. As a first step to breeding, I took an X-ray of Abby's hips to hopefully clear her of Canine Hip Dysplasia (see our Health page for more information about this debilitating disease). Unfortunately, Abby did not clear - she was diagnosed at the age of 3 with severe CHD despite showing no clinical signs. Abby was subsequently spayed and instead pursued a career in obedience. As I was still interested in showing and breeding, I began looking for another bitch with which I could build a foundation upon. In 1991 Ripley arrived. Ripley had some lovely qualities about her, and one devastatingly horrid fault - her ears were entirely incorrect for the breed. With hopes of correcting the ear fault in the next generation, we pursued breeding and again sought out a hip clearance - and this time we were relieved to find that Ripley was clear of CHD. Ripley produced two puppies, one female and one male. The female was sold to a new hopeful show home of Robin and Tony Miller in Atlanta. The male, Kirby, was retained at Lambent for future showing and breeding - but he would never fulfill that destiny. The two puppies produced by Ripley fell far short of the ideal as far as I was concerned. She produced good type in the male but not normal testicles. She produced good size in both, but the female lacked bone and substance and shared the ear fault of her mother. Neither of the two had what we considered to be appropriate Kuvasz temperaments either. Both of these puppies were sterilized without having been bred. While searching for another suitable stud dog that could correct Ripley's faults, I began on what was to be a 9 year intense educational experience. The best advice I picked up from this education was that a breeder should enter a breeding program with THE BEST BITCH POSSIBLE. Clearly - with her obvious type fault, and her less than stellar performance in the whelping box - Ripley was not the best possible bitch to base a foundation on and she was subsequently spayed. The Next Chapter - a re-education During my 9 year hiatus from breeding I spent countless hours studying the breed and all aspects of breeding. I read books, viewed video's, and attended seminars on type, structure and gait analysis, health, training, and general animal husbandry. In these studies I delved into the world of genetics and learned how to completely research a pedigree. I learned about the dogs of the past - the qualities and faults they possessed and what they passed on to their progeny. I attended Breed Seminars and National Specialties - spent countless hours learning from our veteran breeders to discern the meaning of "type" in our breed. During this time I was also searching for that BEST POSSIBLE BITCH that I could build a foundation on. The more I learned about health issues, the more I became determined to do everything possible to produce healthy puppies. The more I learned about temperament in some of our dogs, the more I became concerned about what exact qualities were necessary to make a Kuvasz what it was. With every lesson learned I became more critical and more determined to produce quality. A new beginning While I was pursuing my education, I was at the same time looking for a litter that would produce that BEST POSSIBLE BITCH. While at the 1997 National Specialty I met a 4 month old puppy named Holly - bred and owned by Bobbie Kelley of August Kuvasz in Evergreen Colorado. I saw in that puppy a foundation on which I would be proud to begin a new breeding program and I asked Bobbie if I could obtain another puppy when she repeated the same breeding in a year or so. Unfortunately that was not to happen as Holly's dam had an accidental and untimely death. The following year I again saw Holly at the next Specialty and again the year after that where she won an Award of Merit in 1999. When Bobbie told me of her planned breeding of Holly to Dante, I knew this breeding would produce a puppy that would become a foundation to my own breeding program. In September of 2000, I flew to Colorado to pick out and take home my new puppy - Hayley. Hayley was chosen carefully after watching the litter for several days, and examining each puppy utilizing the "Hastings Method" of evaluating structure. At 8 weeks of age she was an outstanding puppy with very few faults, and today she is a beautiful adult. Her temperament is outstanding, her type is almost flawless, and now she needed the health record to match before I would consider breeding her. At 2 years old Hayley underwent a battery of health tests for: hips, elbows, patella, eyes, von Wilebrands disease, and thyroid - and cleared them all. Furthermore - I wanted to test her hips using two methods - the standard OFA method which has been the benchmark for many years, and a new PennHip method. I could not stop here though as I needed additional health information on her siblings, her parents, and their siblings. I thoroughly explored the breadth of her pedigree as well as the depth (for more information on this - visit the "Health" page). Satisfied with Hayley's type, temperament, health, and health background - I fixed my attention on finding the right stud dog that possessed the same qualities - and found him in Battle Creek Michigan. Shiraz was a young dog when I first talked with his breeder/owner Sue Thomas to use him at stud. Shiraz had a gorgeous litter on the floor out of a bitch who happened to be a 1/2 sister to Hayley. This was a nice opportunity for me to see what Shiraz produced against a similar bloodline. In December of 2003 Hayley was bred to Shiraz and in February 2004 she delivered 8 puppies - 4 males and 4 females. From this litter I kept one female - Fattima, and kept co-ownership on two other females in Michigan and Ohio. Diana is in Michigan with veteran Kuvasz breeder Karen Barnes who hopes that she will someday compliment her own breeding program. Maggie is in Ohio with a first-time show dog owner and we hope she will someday make as fine a foundation bitch as her dam did. This litter was everything I expected it to be. My homework and exhaustive hours of research has produced no surprises in what Hayley and Shiraz have produced. Hayley was recently bred to Major, the grandsire of Shiraz. We hope this litter will produce similar results. See our Puppy page for more information. Some day soon, when all of her health clearances have been completed, Fattima and Diana too will contribute to the Lambent line of quality Kuvasz. Please continue to the Breeding Ethics page to learn more about different types of breeders, and my breeding credo. Outside of raising, showing, breeding and being owned by our Kuvasz, my husband and I own a small manufacturing business in the horticulture industry. Below is a shameless link to our business to provide nothing more than yet another link to our site that the web bots will hopefully find. www.seederman.com
	Copyright 2004 Susan Gilmore and Lambent Kuvasz Susan@Lambentkuvasz.com This page last updated - April, 2005

The beginning

In 1989 I acquired my first Kuvasz - Abby. Abby was purchased as a "pet" puppy - that is she was sold with no guarantee of show or breeding quality. As time went by I became interested in the possibility of showing Abby and met with her breeder to discern her qualities as a breeding specimen. I did show Abby for a while, and became interested in breeding her as well. As a first step to breeding, I took an X-ray of Abby's hips to hopefully clear her of Canine Hip Dysplasia (see our Health page for more information about this debilitating disease). Unfortunately, Abby did not clear - she was diagnosed at the age of 3 with severe CHD despite showing no clinical signs. Abby was subsequently spayed and instead pursued a career in obedience.

As I was still interested in showing and breeding, I began looking for another bitch with which I could build a foundation upon. In 1991 Ripley arrived. Ripley had some lovely qualities about her, and one devastatingly horrid fault - her ears were entirely incorrect for the breed. With hopes of correcting the ear fault in the next generation, we pursued breeding and again sought out a hip clearance - and this time we were relieved to find that Ripley was clear of CHD. Ripley produced two puppies, one female and one male. The female was sold to a new hopeful show home of Robin and Tony Miller in Atlanta. The male, Kirby, was retained at Lambent for future showing and breeding - but he would never fulfill that destiny.

The two puppies produced by Ripley fell far short of the ideal as far as I was concerned. She produced good type in the male but not normal testicles. She produced good size in both, but the female lacked bone and substance and shared the ear fault of her mother. Neither of the two had what we considered to be appropriate Kuvasz temperaments either. Both of these puppies were sterilized without having been bred. While searching for another suitable stud dog that could correct Ripley's faults, I began on what was to be a 9 year intense educational experience. The best advice I picked up from this education was that a breeder should enter a breeding program with THE BEST BITCH POSSIBLE. Clearly - with her obvious type fault, and her less than stellar performance in the whelping box - Ripley was not the best possible bitch to base a foundation on and she was subsequently spayed.

The Next Chapter - a re-education

During my 9 year hiatus from breeding I spent countless hours studying the breed and all aspects of breeding. I read books, viewed video's, and attended seminars on type, structure and gait analysis, health, training, and general animal husbandry. In these studies I delved into the world of genetics and learned how to completely research a pedigree. I learned about the dogs of the past - the qualities and faults they possessed and what they passed on to their progeny. I attended Breed Seminars and National Specialties - spent countless hours learning from our veteran breeders to discern the meaning of "type" in our breed. During this time I was also searching for that BEST POSSIBLE BITCH that I could build a foundation on. The more I learned about health issues, the more I became determined to do everything possible to produce healthy puppies. The more I learned about temperament in some of our dogs, the more I became concerned about what exact qualities were necessary to make a Kuvasz what it was. With every lesson learned I became more critical and more determined to produce quality.

A new beginning

While I was pursuing my education, I was at the same time looking for a litter that would produce that BEST POSSIBLE BITCH. While at the 1997 National Specialty I met a 4 month old puppy named Holly - bred and owned by Bobbie Kelley of August Kuvasz in Evergreen Colorado. I saw in that puppy a foundation on which I would be proud to begin a new breeding program and I asked Bobbie if I could obtain another puppy when she repeated the same breeding in a year or so. Unfortunately that was not to happen as Holly's dam had an accidental and untimely death. The following year I again saw Holly at the next Specialty and again the year after that where she won an Award of Merit in 1999. When Bobbie told me of her planned breeding of Holly to Dante, I knew this breeding would produce a puppy that would become a foundation to my own breeding program. In September of 2000, I flew to Colorado to pick out and take home my new puppy - Hayley.

Hayley was chosen carefully after watching the litter for several days, and examining each puppy utilizing the "Hastings Method" of evaluating structure. At 8 weeks of age she was an outstanding puppy with very few faults, and today she is a beautiful adult. Her temperament is outstanding, her type is almost flawless, and now she needed the health record to match before I would consider breeding her.

At 2 years old Hayley underwent a battery of health tests for: hips, elbows, patella, eyes, von Wilebrands disease, and thyroid - and cleared them all. Furthermore - I wanted to test her hips using two methods - the standard OFA method which has been the benchmark for many years, and a new PennHip method. I could not stop here though as I needed additional health information on her siblings, her parents, and their siblings. I thoroughly explored the breadth of her pedigree as well as the depth (for more information on this - visit the "Health" page). Satisfied with Hayley's type, temperament, health, and health background - I fixed my attention on finding the right stud dog that possessed the same qualities - and found him in Battle Creek Michigan. Shiraz was a young dog when I first talked with his breeder/owner Sue Thomas to use him at stud. Shiraz had a gorgeous litter on the floor out of a bitch who happened to be a 1/2 sister to Hayley. This was a nice opportunity for me to see what Shiraz produced against a similar bloodline. In December of 2003 Hayley was bred to Shiraz and in February 2004 she delivered 8 puppies - 4 males and 4 females.

From this litter I kept one female - Fattima, and kept co-ownership on two other females in Michigan and Ohio. Diana is in Michigan with veteran Kuvasz breeder Karen Barnes who hopes that she will someday compliment her own breeding program. Maggie is in Ohio with a first-time show dog owner and we hope she will someday make as fine a foundation bitch as her dam did.

This litter was everything I expected it to be. My homework and exhaustive hours of research has produced no surprises in what Hayley and Shiraz have produced. Hayley was recently bred to Major, the grandsire of Shiraz. We hope this litter will produce similar results. See our Puppy page for more information. Some day soon, when all of her health clearances have been completed, Fattima and Diana too will contribute to the Lambent line of quality Kuvasz.

Please continue to the Breeding Ethics page to learn more about different types of breeders, and my breeding credo.

Outside of raising, showing, breeding and being owned by our Kuvasz, my husband and I own a small manufacturing business in the horticulture industry. Below is a shameless link to our business to provide nothing more than yet another link to our site that the web bots will hopefully find.