Ciao!
Let me tell
you a little about me and my two lagotti, Augi and Kodiak.
About four years ago
my brother's family got a Portuguese Water Dog. He is wonderful and I
really wanted one, but I didn't want such a big dog running around the
house. I was surfing the Internet looking at PWD sites and came across
the Starr's in Canada who had PWDs and also a smaller dog that looked a
lot like the PWDs. I'd never heard of a Lagotto Romagnolo, even having
lived in Italy for a year and a half.
I started surfing
lagotto websites and found very little information about lagotti in the
USA, but I found a number of breeders in Italy and other parts of
Europe. I started communicating with a few of them and finally decided
to make the plunge, having never seen a lagotto in real life. When Augi
arrived at LAX in June 2005, she and her sister were the first and only
lagotti I'd even seen. I was thrilled!! She was everything I'd thought
she'd be and more.
We live in
Pinetop, Arizona, a small resort town in the White Mountains in north
eastern Arizona. Pinetop is in the largest stand of ponderosa pine trees
in the world. We are lucky enough to live right next to the National
Forest where we have hundreds of acres with numerous hiking and mountain
biking trails begging to be explored
Augi, from Kan
Trace Kennels in Croatia, was born in March 2005. Her parents are Benito
and Happy Tail, both of which are various shades of brown. Augi is all
white except for a tiny patch of orange behind each ear. She has tight
curls and is on the tall side for a female. I think she looks just like
her grandmother, Holly at Kan Trace.
Valliano
Kodiak, our little brown bear, was born in September 2006 at Villa
Imperiale in Italy. His mother is Veronica and his father is Tartufo.
Veronica is brown and Tartufo is white. Kodiak is brown with a little
blaze of white on his chest and at the very tip of his tail. He was
darker brown when he was younger, but now that he's a year old his coat
is a milk chocolate color. He is thick and strong and loves to hang his
tongue out the side of his mouth.
Augi and Kodi
love to run. We go out in the forest for two miles in the morning before
work and another two miles after work and a short walk just before bed.
I ride my mountain bike along the forest trails and the dogs follow, get
ahead, or veer off the trail and run through the grass and trees. Once
in a while they chase up a little cottontail rabbit or flush out birds.
When we have a good rain storm, puddles form and there is nothing better
than splashing through the water, settling into the mud and turning into
a chocolate dipped lagotto. My dogs love to run, not just trot. We
rarely go out on a leash; too frustrating for me and them!
Augi could
chase sticks all day long. Fortunately the forest is full of them. Kodi
on the other hand prefers to dig at old stumps. He digs and digs, buries
his head in the dirt, sniffs for “truffles”, gets dirt all over his
tongue and then moves on to the next stump. My dogs love to be outdoors,
free to run where they want to when I'm with them. We have a fenced back
yard where they play during the day while I'm at work. They also spend a
good deal of time inside the house, sleeping on the cool floors or on my
bed.
We get snow during
the winter and they love the cold weather and chasing snowballs that I
throw for them. Their paws never seem to get too cold, as they are never
the ones who say it's time to go inside and get warm.
Good thing I have a
large bed, because both dogs like to sleep with me at night.
I can tell the days
we don't get out and run. The dogs are so restless and run hog wild
through the house, wreaking havoc. Needless to say, we don't miss many
runs. If you are thinking about getting a lagotto, be sure you have
plenty of time to give them lots of exercise! They have a lot of energy
that gets expended one way or another!
Augi came into her
second season and was bred in mid-July to Swiss Teodoro of Golden
Comfort, now living in Santa Fe, New Mexico. This is the first litter
for both parents! Teo is white with a tinge of orange behind his ears
and down his spine! Teo entered the World Championships in Mexico City,
Mexico in May 2007 and was awarded Junior Champion. He is a very
handsome lad. Augi gave birth to 11 puppies on Sunday, September 16th.
We have 5 males and 6 females. They are white, a very light cream and a
couple are orange!
If you are
interested in purchasing a lagotto puppy from us, please complete the
attached application form and email it back to us. The total cost of the
puppy will be $2000 plus any transportation costs. We want you to come
and pick up the puppy and meet the mother. We will take a $500 deposit
to hold a puppy for you and the balance is due a week before you pick up
your puppy.
Since this is
the first litter for both Augi and Teo, these puppies are being sold as
“pets” and not as show dogs or breeding stock. Therefore, I will most
likely require that you spay/neuter your pet when it reaches the
appropriate age, according to your vet. If you are only interested in a
show dog or breeding stock, please discuss this with me over the
telephone. At this point the puppies are too young to know which, if
any, would be fantastic representations of the breed. Perhaps at 7-8
weeks we can better determine which puppies may qualify and we can
further discuss the possibilities of showing and/or breeding.
You can stay
updated by checking the website periodically.
Grazie
