I hope you enjoy this new blog as much as I am enjoying working with it. I will be updating with relevant information on a fairly ongoing basis. If there are any subjects you would like to see on the blog, please email me with suggestions.
Also, check out our website at www.valamarakitas.com
Thanks for visiting!
Marianne
Valamar Akitas
We have been having the most wonderful weather so far this winter. It is hard to believe we actually live in Canada. The dogs have been loving it, cool enough for them but also good enough weather that they can spend a lot of time outside.
We have also had a very exciting addition, on January 15th we had nine beautiful pups. Finlay (Ch Buckridge’s Fine Lady at Marqway) was bred to Clooney (Ch Valamar’s Leading Man) and produced 6 boys and 3 girls. Finaly lives with Marissa Prokopchuk (Marqway Akitas) and was bred by Dave Osborne (Buckridge Akitas). She is a very pretty and happy girl, she wags her tail so hard her whole body moves. Finlay has an excellent pedigree combining some of the best kennels from the US and the UK.
Ch Buckridge's Fine Lady at Marqway.
Ch Valamar's Leading Man
We are very excited about the outcross to Clooney. He has a very strong pedigree on our lines and is consistantly producing beautiful heads, good bone and substance and very strong type. So far these puppies seem to fit exactly into that mold. It will be very exciting to watch them grow.
Puppies at 2 days of age.
So, you know how on TV people can completely renovate their house in 48 hours…well real life isn’t like that! Real life is measured in weeks not days. My new goal is to have the kennel finished by winter. It doesn’t help that I went away with my sister for a week and that I keep getting distracted by gardening. This is a picture of my Akita Garden. Not much right now but it is full of hostas and by the summer it should be beautiful.
With that being said we have made some progress. All the plumbing and electric is now done. We had to wait to have the propane hot water heater installed and that held us up a bit. I really wanted a washer and dryer in the kennel. So, we have a bath tub, large sinks and a washer and dryer in the grooming room. We haven’t done any of the cosmetic work in there yet, but it is functional. 
Outside we are working on putting the outdoor kennels up. In planning the kennel we thought about putting in indoor/outdoor kennel but decided against it. We think it is really important that our dogs get lots of hands on everyday. The few minutes it takes to walk them out to a kennel lets us pat, play and interact with them. It lets us know right away if something is wrong and keeps them happy. We also wanted runs that would blend well with the natural feel to the property. Chain link is harsh and ugly. We decided to go with wood 4×4′s and welded farm fence. We put in 10 ft 4×4′s so that we can use them to add a roof over the runs.
We are cross bracing all the runs with 2×4′s for added strength. Around the outer edge we are putting in cement stones to discourage digging at the fence line.
We put some thought in how to put the posts in the ground. If we augured a hole and then put the post in with cement they would always be a bit loose. Also, that would be a huge job. Sean knew that in Alberta they would pound posts into the ground, so we searched for a post pounder. We found a couple of options to rent but they do restrict the height of the post you can put in. Our neighbor, Stephen, to the rescue. He has a large excavator that he lent us. We use the bucket to push the posts in…works like a charm! 
Although everything seems to be taking a long time to do, we are really happy with how things are going. A lot of thought is going into making it just how we want it. Here is one last picture. This is the view from the back kennels. 
We have been in our new house for a few weeks now. We love it! It is just perfect, I feel like we live in a park. Unfortunately, with this beautiful house and property has come a lot of work. It is still too wet to put fence posts in, so we have no fences…none! That means a lot of dog walking!
Now that we are fairly settled into the house we are really getting started on the kennels. I thought it would be nice to chronicle the progress of the kennel on the blog. I will update with pictures and progress reports of our kennel construction.
We started with a great building. It is 30X 60 steel building that is completely insulated. It has hydro, water, propane and septic. Also, tall ceilings and ceiling fans. So, what we need to do is set up the indoor kennels, put up walls for the grooming room, do all the indoor plumbing, grade and stone outside and put up the fencing. Doesn’t sound bad if you say it all really fast 
Our indoor runs are modular, so they where fairly easy to set up. Sean just welded some brackets on them so that they could be attached to the floor and walls. We also put up sheets of white plastic behind the kennels. These make the walls easy to clean and also prevent the Akitas from eating the walls (which is something they quite like to do).
The Girls
We have room for more kennels in the future. Right now we have all the girls on one side of the kennel and the boys on the other side. This wasn’t really the initial plan, but all the girls decided to come into season as soon as we moved. The kennel area is very spacious and has kept cool on warm days. There is a large floor drain right in the middle which makes it really easy to hose down.
Boy's runs
We are putting a grooming room down at one end of the building. Although there was water to the building there wasn’t any indoor plumbing. For some reason the previous owners had removed all the pipes, not that there were that many. So we have a set of large stainless sinks we are putting in, a propane hot water heater is coming to be installed and we found a used bath tub on Kijiji for $10! So, Sean has had a quick plumbing lesson and is now in charge of plumbing the whole room…he is such a good sport! I can’t wait for all the construction work to be done so I can start of the asethetic part.
Grooming Room
Outside the water has been a problem. The ground is clay and really holds water, so there is standing water in places we want to put runs. The previous owners had put a trench down the middle of the property to help with drainage to one of the large ditches. Unfortunately, they left the dirt from the trench alongside the trench which created a berm and was stopping some of the water from reaching the trench. We have to remove the berm and then grade down to the trench (which is becoming a ditch, or a little creek as I like to refer to it). This was all going well till our tractor died! However our wonderful new neighbors (who happen to own two Akitas themselves!) came to our rescue. They lent us their larger tractor! It is the one in the picture with Sean on it. Well, then one of the tires blew on the new tractor! So it is Sunday afternoon and we are two tractors down! It was an expensive Monday at the Kubota dealership!
West side of buildingIn this picture which is the west side of the building, you can see the ditch (creek) and the fresh dirt where we have removed the berm and graded. We also moved those cedar trees from beside the building and put down the stone. The dirt we removed from the west side of the building we are using to build up on the east side. It is really low and wet there. On the east side you can also see a make shift run I have put up our of expens for the puppies. East side
We have officially bought a new house. We knew we needed more room for people and dogs, so that is what we were looking for. Also, it was important for us to stay in the same area. We found a beautiful 3800 sq ft house on 11 beautiful acres. The house is perfect for us. The property is has woods, meadows and a gorgeous pond. Also, it includes a 30 by 60 foot building for a kennel. 
The building is great. It is fully insulated, has heat, water and hydro. I can’t wait to get started on setting up the kennel. The dogs are going to love it!
The house is gorgeous. Tons of windows and lots of natural light. It even has an apartment for Jenny. Not to mention a great building with a hot tub! The only thing this property doesn’t have is a barn and fencing for horses….but if Nicholas has his way that will come.
This is the plans for the outdoor kennel. kennel
This is kind of a bittersweet blog. I have been in my new house for just over a year and I love my new house. It is in the cutest little town, Fenwick. Fenwick is generally a farming community and part of Pelham, which is in the Niagara Region of Ontario. The area in general is just beautiful, rolling hills, lots of wooded areas, the escarpment and many vineyards and wineries. I have lived out of the Niagara Region twice in my life (if you don’t count school), once for about a year and a half in St. John’s, Newfoundland and once again for about a year and a half in Richmond Hill, just outside Toronto. Both times I couldn’t wait to move back to the Niagara Region and each time I came back to this area I just new I was home.
Fenwick is wonderful in that it is very rural and has a great country feel but I can still walk to two restaurants. The little village (which is actually just one corner) has two restaurants, an automobile repair garage, a great bakery that makes the worlds best pies, a cheese shop, a hardware store, a bank, a library and a convenience store. I could never leave town!
I loved my little house the moment I saw it. It is a century home with tons of character, but with tons of upgrades. It has the most perfect covered front porch. The porch is huge and we have a table and chairs out there. We have spent evenings on the porch sipping wine, eaten many amazing meals and even had the occasional afternoon game of Scrabble. My favorite time to be on the porch is during a rainstorm. The porch is so well covered that you can sit out there through a great storm and not get the least bit wet. There is also a two tiered deck and patio out back. The perennial gardens and landscaping are amazing. The house also came with a new, detached two car garage with hydro, cable and phone. This building is perfect for my dogs. We put up some indoor runs and then fenced off four large outdoor areas.
The 1800 sq ft house has some great features inside also. It is a two-story home with 3 large bedrooms upstairs and 2 full bathrooms, one being an ensuite. Downstairs has a huge kitchen/dinning area, a powder room, large living room and an office. The basement is partially finished with a family room, laundry room, a great room that I use for whelping and lots of storage.
I have done a fair bit of redecorating since moving in. We totally changed the kitchen, taking out a peninsula and replacing it with a huge butcher block island, we also replace the flooring with a great faux stone laminate. The decor in the room is old world Tuscan and very comfortable. The rest of the house has aged hardwood and ceramic. Pam and Tom McClintock have done so much work in helping us redecorate. I can’t thank them enough.
However, despite how much I love my house we have come to the realization that there is just not enough room. The number of dogs we have just keeps expanding (and it always seems to do) and they need more room. Also, Sean is retiring from the Army and moving back and we are ready to start our lives together. Jenny has been living with me since June of last year, which is wonderful, she is great company and so much help. So, as our
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family both human and dogs expands we need more room. We have found a beautiful property, still in Pelham which will give us all the room we need. It even has an in-law apartment for Jenny! So, fingers crossed that everything will fall into place, that my house will sell and the deal on the new house will go through.
Yes, the National was in September and I am finally getting around to blogging about it!
The 2010 National was held in Gettysburg, PA. This is not a place I would have ever thought to go to but went because the Akita National was there. I was so glad I did, we had a great time. Gettysburg is so full of history and such an interesting place. Sean and I would really like to go back.
Bev Wilkinson (Kawakami Akitas) flew in to Toronto from BC the day before we left for Gettysburg. It was wonderful to see her and travel with her to the National. My favorite Nationals have been the ones I have spent with Bev. Sometimes it is hard because we live on opposite sides of Canada, but we try to get together. Bev didn’t bring any dogs, just came to watch. We brought Cooper (Ch Marqway’s Hall of Famer) and Clooney (Ch Valamar’s Leading Man).
We stayed at the Eisenhower Hotel, which was the host hotel. I was a bit concerned about the quality of this hotel because of the negative reviews on Tripadvisor. I was pleased that the hotel wasn’t as bad as I was expecting. The room was large and fairly clean. There wasn’t anything especially great about the hotel but wasn’t too bad either. However, I had read that the customer service was awful and that was right on the money! They were kinda rude when we checked in and when we checked out they tried to charge us for 3 nights that we were not there. It was awful trying to get those charges reversed and only happened days after we got back and I threatened to dispute the whole bill with my credit card company. The only other thing that was a bit of a hassle was that the dog show was not in the same building as the hotel and you had to dry to the show. This became difficult when you had multiple dogs and not enough crates.
Gettysburg was great. We spent a lot of time just being tourists. We went thought the museums and shops. Also did the auto tour of the National park (which we haven’t finished therefore need to go back ). We ate at some excellent restaurants. The Dobbins House was fantastic, historic with excellent food! We also ate at a place called The Pike a couple of times, they had a great patio which we really enjoyed. It was wonderful to go to a National and still have it feel like a vacation.
Showing at the National went well. The grooming space was great. Lots of power and room. The building was so spacious that it looked empty. Not as glamorous as some National venues but completely serviceable. At the prenational Clooney won his class and Cooper came second in his class. I was fairly happy with this outcome. I thought the dogs that went winners and reserve were lovely and deserving. 
At the Nationals we really didn’t expect to do much. I know that my type of dog is not the type of dog that Jean Fournier appreciates but Nationals are less about winning then they are about showcasing your dog. Clooney showed great and won his class again. Cooper was off from the moment we got in the ring. I had him stacked up for examination and then as Ms. Fournier approached Cooper was leaving. This is very unlike Cooper, he has been shown since he was a puppy and is a Canadian Champion, a multiple Best Puppy in Show winner in Canada and a group placer in the US. He had never moved for a judge. It left me thinking wtf? We got through the exam and he seemed to move fine. However, he was very fidgety for stacking. We somehow managed to go 3rd in the open dog class. Then I had Sean take him outside as I had to go back in the ring with Clooney. Well it turns out Cooper went to the bathroom right away and had some loose stool. Poor guy, that is completely my fault. I should have exed him better before going in the ring.
Cooper ready for exam.
Cooper Leaving!
I have been awful about updating the blog. It is something I think of all the time but never seem to get to. So my new years resolution is to try to keep my blog updated. Being January 19th I finally got around to it!
We have had a very busy few months. Since I last updated we have had three litters, been to the US Akita National, had a wonderful Christmas, a great vacation and now have decided to sell the house and buy a bigger place. I will put in some blogs to update each of these individual occurences. I figure that this might keep me busy for most of the day.
Very sadly we lost two out our most dear dogs this summer. First at 14 years of age we lost Ch Kawakami’s Madd About U (Maddie). Maddie was our housedog. My son had grown up with Maddie and losing her has broken his heart. We cannot mention her name without tears in his eyes. I wish I could make it better for him, but only time will do this. Then a couple of months later we lost BISS Can/Am Ch Kawakami’s Bearpaw Legend (Legend) at 13 1/2. Having these two older dogs, we knew it was coming at some point, but it was still very difficult. Legend was such true Akita type and such a sweet gentleman. He always produced beautiful typey puppies and still continues to do so through frozen semen. Very close to his ROM title it is only a matter of time and we will be proud for him to achieve this goal. We would like to thank our very good friends Beverly and Michael Wilkinson of Kawakami Akitas for the opportunity to own and love both of these beautiful dogs.
We have also had two new additions to our kennel. First we had a beautiful puppy out of Legend (Am/Can Ch Kawakami’s Bearpaw Legend) and Stevie (Ch Alder’s Leather N Lace) named Viva (Valamar’s Viva Va Voom). Stevie is a Nick (BIS/BISS Can/Am Ch Kawakami’s Czar Nicholas AOM) daughter. So, this gave Viva an incredible pedigree on some of our best dogs. Viva went to live with Willem and Egitte VanLoon in Holland. This past year they have decided to concentrate on Japanese Akitas and gave us the opportunity to buy back Viva. It was an opportunity we couldn’t give up. So Viva has made the long journey back to Canada and we are thrilled to have her. This is a young picture of Viva before she left for Holland.
Our next opportunity came from our very good friend (and Nicholas’ father) Ed Wilson of Beardusk Akitas. Paris (Ch Beardusk’s Fashion File) was available and would we like to co-own her….damn right we would! Paris is a litter brother to Porter and with Porter being Isaak and Slater’s sire, we liked very much what that line was producing. Paris is out of a Stalker (BIS/BISS Can/Am Ch Beardusk’s Fatal Attraction) and Brooklyn (Ch Alder’s United at Beardusk), again an amazing pedigree that goes back to some out our favorite dogs. Paris is now with us and a happier, sweeter dog you would never meet.
This past weekend we were in Simcoe at the Forest City shows. A nice venue and an easy hour drive from home. I really enjoy these shows that are not too far from home. I would much rather drive back and forth, it allows me to sleep in my own bed and be home with my dogs at night. I was a fairly nice weekend, however I spent most of the weekend being cold. If the show had gone on any more days, I would of ended up in a parka.
The first day we had a local judge Ole Neilsen. Clooney showed well, we had no competition at breed level. There was no cut in the group and we did not place. Puppy group was only two dogs, Clooney and a PWD puppy. Clooney won the puppy group. Mr. Neilsen also judged puppy in show and he chose a Peke puppy. 
On Saturday our judge for breed and group was Kim Meredith- Cavanna. I was very much looking forward to Ms. Cavanna. She has owned Akitas and is well respected as a judge in Akitas. She gave Clooney the Puppy group and had some very nice comments about him. I very much enjoyed showing to her. Mr. Allan Pepper was our judge for puppy in show. I was very pleased to win Puppy in Show number 5 under Mr. Pepper, he also had some very nice comments about Clooney. Clooney moved his best he has ever done during puppy in show. Hopefully, he is getting the hang of it and will keep show better. 
Our final day was under Pamela Douglas from New Zealand. Ms. Douglas cut Clooney in the adult working group and easily gave him the puppy group. For Best Puppy in Show she chose a very nice Nova Scotia Duck Toller.
Clooney has a great weekend at Guelph.
Friday Clooney’s litter brother Bono (Beardusk’s With or Without U) won the breed over Clooney. Bono showed beautifully in the group and from where I was sitting I could her very nice comments in the gallery. Unfortunately, Bono didn’t get placed in the group and the puppy group went to a Samoyed puppy.
On Saturday under Mr. Muza from Chili, Clooney had his day! After winning the breed he went on to group. Clooney showed beautifully in group and Mr. Muza pulled him out for group 1st!! This gave Clooney more than the final point he needed to finish his championship. The 108 dogs he defeated elevated him to top Akita in the country.
I was thrilled with how Clooney showed in Best in Show. He has only been shown a handlful of times and never this many times in a row. He handled it great, holding his stacks and gaiting fairly well. They had opened up a few rings and he wasn’t sure were to go, but he started to figure it out. He even did a very nice finish in front of the judge after his down and back, which isn’t his strong suit! Best in Show judge was Mr. Lewington from Australia. Mr. Lewington was a gentleman and a pleasure to show to. He awarded Clooney Best Puppy In Show.
Sunday was also a very nice, if not long day. Our judge all the way through was Dr. Rangel from Mexico. He was also very pleasant to show to. Clooney won the breed and made the cut in the working group. Dr. Rangel gave Clooney the puppy group. By puppy in show Clooney was tired. He was still holding his stacks but wasn’t baiting as well and wasn’t moving as well as he could. His finish at the end of the down and back did not go well, even throwing bait I couldn’t get any animation out of him. However, Dr. Rangel had seen him preform all day and his mind was made up….Clooney would be Puppy in Show! Dr. Rangel had some very lovely comments about Clooney while we had pictures taken.
It was a great weekend for Clooney. Not only did he finish him championship, he also became Canada’s top Akita and number 2 working dog puppy. We couldn’t be more proud of Clooney.
It wasn’t easy but somewhere between the fog, the Juno crowds and the volcanic plume, Ed was able to sneak off the island. His flight finally managed to get from St. John’s to Ottawa …only 5 hours late. Then he had to stay overnight in Ottawa and finally on to Toronto in the morning. This put his schedule way behind and he was only able to come visit for a few hours.
The puppies are now 5 weeks old and this is an excellent age to start looking at them. They are very steady on their feet and are starting to develop their personalities. We were blessed with beautiful sunny weather and it was a great day to go over the puppies and get some new pictures.
Ed and I are both pretty sure we know which puppies we are interested in keeping. I am keeping a female and Ed is keeping a male. Ed has liked his pick puppy from day 1 and seems to like him more every time he seems him. I have not been so sure. I narrowed it down to three girls (I really need a girl), but there are definite things I like about girl and some things I don’t. That being sad I think I know which one. The next couple of weeks will show.
We are pretty sure that one of the boys is a longcoat. 
However, there is another boy that we aren’t sure of. At times I think he is a longcoat and then other times I have my doubts. At this point it is usually obvious, so it is odd that we can’t tell yet. His face doesn’t look like a longcoat but he has longer wavy hair on his ears. His body coat isn’t terribly long but has that softer, wavy texture.
I love watching puppies grow and develop. This is a lovely litter, sweet temperaments and excellent type. I am very thrilled and very thankful to Ed for letting me be part of it.
