Blyss Kennels

Home to Beautiful Borzois in the Watchung Mountains in Mountainside, New Jersey

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Home to Beautiful Borzoi in the Mountains

(Based on an article for Borzoi Connection…)

One day several years ago, an opportunity presented itself to us to purchase a borzoi. We knew someone who owned a lovely one, and the breeder had the litter-mate of this borzoi for sale. Our friend’s borzoi was among the most delightful dogs we had ever known. Our friend recommended us to the breeder, agreeing that we would be a good home for him. We immediately agreed to buy him, sight unseen. By then, the dogs were young adults. We thought, how wonderful it would be to have a borzoi! He would be reunited with his litter-mate, and they could play together in the park! So it began our life with borzoi.

When this exquisite creature joined our household, we realized things would not be so easy. He had lived most of his life as a kennel dog, not as a house dog. He had limited socialization and was not housebroken. To compound problems, our little home, so perfect for us, was all wrong for him. Not having a fenced yard only complicated the situation, since that was what he was accustomed to. A month of confusion reigned. We got through it, and it lead to the decision of finding a more suitable home for us to live in with him, and for the other borzoi that would soon join him. We could not have only one. Although he was always sweet and loving, he seemed nervous and easily frightened with new experiences for some time to come. We strove to teach him that the world was a good place to be and that it could be fun, too. It took a lot of hard work, consistency, and the passage of time. Eventually, he rewarded us with his unconditional trust and came to understand that the world with us was a safe place. Today, he is a happy dog with his place in the world.

When we began to show another dog, a breeder told us to pick a kennel name. “But, we are not breeders!”, I said. “No matter”, she said! After much thought and consideration, I knew I wanted a word that connoted a mental state, then, one that was very positive, and then, the best word I could think of was “Bliss” because that was the emotion I experienced with my dogs. I made the word special, my own, and named the kennel, “Blyss Kennels”. It is more than a name, it is a goal and a purpose, first and foremost, for our dogs.

Bob and I both have demanding careers that keep us busy during the week. However, when we come home after a long day, as we drive through Mountainside, up the first ridge of the Watchung Mountains and turn into the long hill that is our driveway, the outside world disappears behind us. There, our focus is on our dogs that are our passion. There is nothing more compelling to us than our dogs during this time in our lives. Perhaps we represent a more modern kind of kennel, as the world is changing, and costs of living are so high, sadly. Today, more breeders and kennel owners work full time and make do with less land, with costs so prohibitive in most parts of the country. We know that we are not unique. Perhaps down the road of life for us, we will breed a litter or two if we are living in a different place, or if one of our bitches is whelped elsewhere. It is not ideal, but somehow we may find a way to make that dream litter happen, as others do. People have a way of finding their blyss…

In 2003, when we looked for a house to buy that would support our growing interests in dogs, we chose this particular property atop the first ridge of the Watchung Mountains in Mountainside, NJ. Looking east from our ridge, the first, one sees the distant harbors of NY, Newark and Elizabeth on display with dramatic vistas. Looking west, one sees the series of ridges going into the distance toward Morristown.

Down the road from our home, is the entrance to the nearest park, The Watchung Reservation. The Watchung Mountains were carved from the sliding of glaciers over many millennia. They left behind a series of three tall ridges in the landscape parallel with the coast line, with sloping hills and sheltering valleys interspersed among them. Together, these ridges hide a network of valleys, streams and lakes which hold the secrets to the communities that dwelled there in the past. Fortunately, along the top of many of these ridges, much of it has been preserved forest and county park lands.

The Watchung Reservation is a preserved wooded forest atop the first ridge of the Watchung Mountains. It is a county park consisting of over 2000 acres of heavily wooded natural forest. We may not call it our own, but the proximity of it beckon to our dogs daily. There, we walk them at dawn. What a way that is for borzoi to begin a day, with so many different trails from which to choose! Certain ones of the borzoi are allowed to run off-leash to “hunt” on trails, deep in the forest, far from any road. Walking north-west into the park, Bob often turns left down Cataract Hollow Road. This road leads to an old abandoned town, formerly known as “Feltsville”, so named after its founder, David Felt, and now called “The Deserted Village”. Established in 1845, it was once a grand, industrious, Utopian community. However, today it consists of a dozen abandoned but still handsome cottages. Upon entering the town, the appearance is such that one thinks its inhabitants are simply gone for the day.

Immediately upon entering the vicinity of the town, the air feels pristine and cool. There, towering old forest trees surround the houses. The borzoi always want to stop and rest there for a while when they arrive to breathe in the especially refreshing, restorative atmosphere for a time. As they linger, one wonders, are they visiting old friends, perhaps?

Behind the row of remaining houses, the land drops in a sudden precipice and creates a sheltering valley, with another high cliff rising up on the other side. This dramatic enclave is known as Blue Brook Valley through which the creek, Blue Brook, flows. During the time of Feltville, two great paper mills stood on the banks of the brook, and a profitable factory once operated, situated on the high land above, providing the essential manufacturing jobs for the community while it was there

Blue Brook is also the water source for Surprise Lake down stream, a tranquil, picturesque lake with an abundance of water-lilies. What a beautiful backdrop Surprise Lake makes for an autumn photograph.

Blue Brook supports the diverse biosphere of the forest, without which it would be arid. Blue Brook would later play a role in other ventures that followed after Feltville was sold due to its steady water source and the pristine beauty of the valley and the pure forest air. A businessman purchased the site and turned Feltville into an elegant summer resort called Glenside Park, using the lovely cottages remaining from Feltville for guest houses through the early twentieth century. He then purchased the water rights for the largest nearby city of Plainfield. Nothing worked for long, however. Over time, none of the subsequent entrepreneurs were successful.

In the 1920s, the County purchased the site. By then, the mills and factory were long gone, and most of the structures had been torn down, leaving only several cottages and the great barn remaining. No one had the will to tear them all down, it seemed. The remaining structures were shuttered closed as they were, and so they remained until recently, until a state college acquired funding to make it an archeological site. However, at that time, in 1920, the town was renamed its official moniker, “The Deserted Village”, and it became a rich source of local myth and lore. Subsequently, it became a popular hiking destination, due to its proximity to the Sierra Trail that also runs through the Watchung Reservation at the South West point, and it appears on many tourist maps in the region for that purpose. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1980, thereby securing its status, study and preservation. Like our borzoi, it seems that modern people like old places. We cannot help but wonder what it is that the borzoi see when they stop to visit for a while.

Leaving the The Deserted Village by Cataract Hollow Road, walking in the other direction and back into the forests, one comes upon a cemetery dating from Revolutionary War times, a Four Century Designated Site. They mark the graves of two farming families who lived in the areas called Peter’s Hill. The grave markers bear their names and those of their family members: Peter Willcocks (d. 1776), and his cousin, Joseph Badgley. Both men were soldiers in the American Revolutionary War, who fought on the American side. War was then, as it is today, an ever present part of peoples’ lives.

 One year, General George Washington’s men marched nearby after encamping for a winter at Morristown. They traveled south over the Watchung Mountains’ ridges from Morristown and into Greenbrook, a few miles west of Watchung Reservation on their way to the Battle of Trenton. Today, where those soldiers lived and farmed, are schools, multi-national corporations, towns, and homes. So many people to visit, so many places to see, and all in a borzoi’s morning walk in the woods. We can only wonder what it is that the borzoi know and see.

This is where we find ourselves today passing many hours of our free time with our dogs. For we have no field or farm or woods to call our own, or any prospects of acquiring one anytime in the near future. Yet, we look to the future with a dream of owning them, with an expanse of land, land that is flat and fenced, and measured in multiple acres and not fractions of one. We look forward to welcoming the new borzoi that will grace our lives, perhaps a descendent of our own beautiful Mikhailya. Yet, we shall always look back on these years when we lived with our borzoi in the Watchung Mountains as an enchanting time, a time of firsts and beginnings for us. Quite by accident, we bought our first borzoi, then others, all special and each with their own story, followed. Our beloved Opal lived with us here, from 2004 – 2006, too, too briefly. And although she has been gone a while now, I still see four borzoi walking ahead of me on the trails in the Watchung Reservation, and not the three that are really there. And I look upon the special walks she and I took together as among my most cherished memories. Perhaps that is because of other dimensions for which the Watchung Reservation is known that I have failed to mention with all that I have described. Those opaque dimensions that endure, hanging over the mountains like a shroud as they do in all ancient places:

The dimensions where light is refracted through ancient prisms
The dimensions of dimmed and dearest memories
The dimensions of romance most dear in reverie
The dimensions weave a golden-threaded tapestry in the sky.

The dimensions where dappled light deludes the wanderer
The dimensions where truth melds with legend for eternity
The dimensions of the sought after, sheltering valley
The dimensions of silence for listeners to comprehend
The dimensions of loving that what was lost forever in time
The dimensions of ancient places joins the old to the new.

The dimensions of never failing friends never seen in rendezvous
The dimensions of footsteps seeking eternal streams
The dimension invisible within the sphere of time
The dimension camouflaged beneath the canopy above
The dimension of an ever-changing colored kalidescope world
The dimension that tugs me ever onward to the quest
The dimension that pulls me, beckons to me, calling me home.

When the walk is finished, and the dogs’ care is complete back at home, only then do we turn our attention to the day ahead that demands so much of us, that binds us here, that wrench us from our dogs, our very hearts. However, as everything ends, someday they too will end. We look toward a long awaited retirement with a new full-time job, Blyss Kennels.

We would like to say Thank You to the following breeders who made Blyss Kennels happen for us by entrusting us with their beautiful dogs:

Joseph Lara. Lara’s River of Dreams. Casanova

An Curtis. Blyss Paris Lights of Lido. Paris

Karen Staudt-Cartabona. CH. Majenkir My Ksar Mikhailovna. Mikhailya

Roni & Jennifer Zucker. Raynbo Opalesque at Blyss. Opal.(2004 – 2006). Never forgotten…Always loved.

Lorene Connolly
Blyss Kennels
March 24, 2008

A Sad Day for Mikhailya

Mikhailya is our lovely Majenkir bitch, our proud, beautiful, happy borzoi. She is an athletic sight-hound, first and foremost, although not necessarily a thinking dog. That she is a Champion show dog, an adored, beloved pet, and a creature of indescribable beauty and sweetness who blesses our lives simply by being a part of it, are all secondary. She is a physical being first and foremost, and in that we fail her. It would be so much better if she could have a field where she could be out all day, running and playing with the other borzoi. Instead she has a back yard. We try to make it up to her in other ways, although nothing could ever substitute for what we lack. We are genuinely sorry for that but how we try.

Bob is very devoted to the borzoi, and in return, Mikhailya loves him fiercely. Every morning, she leaps and jumps wildly in the air and demands to be taken out for a ride in the van. She knows he will take her for a walk in the woods. Bob takes Mikhailya and the other borzoi for a vigorous walk every morning in the Watchung Reservations, a 2,000 acre park near our home. It is part of a large expanse of preserved natural forest that runs along the first ridge of the Watchung Mountains. This miracle, a preserved forest in one of the most densely populated places in the world on some its most expensive real estate, runs for several thousand acres and transverses the counties of northern New Jersey. We mortgaged ourselves deeply for this house we had to have, as much for its proximity to the park as its beautiful, contemporary design. Situated on high ground, its many large windows fill the rooms with light. Viewed from inside, one can only see the tops of the nearby trees. In the distance, there are more mountains, rising and falling into the distance. Its two-level design was well suited to the dogs, with a room downstairs that opens out onto a spacious, fenced backyard, all surrounded by a heavily wooded lot on the side of a mountain. It provided everything we wanted our home to have, if we could not have a field. Bob takes the borzoi out every morning for a vigorous walk in the nearby Park. Actually, it is more like a hike. Together, they go up hills and down ravines, cross bridges over water, and sometimes ford streams.

The tranquility of Watchung Reservations at dawn belies their robust history. Many old stories are hidden beneath the canopy of trees and along the trails that wind besides its streams and lakes throughout the ridge, if one had the time to search for them. It lies among many sites of Revolutionary War activities in neighboring towns. A main hiking trail passes a small cemetery from that period. Nearby along the main trail runs the Blue Brook, the main source of water for this particular ridge. Due to this readily available water supply, subsequent historic events were able to take place: settlements, business enterprises, and resorts, vestiges of which can still be seen today. A dam in one place near its source creates the lovely Surprise Lake, famous for its water-lilies, and whose splendid backdrop of trees creates the most lush fall foliage where we have posed for so many wonderful photographs with our borzoi. Blue Brook then flows onward deep into the forest. The Sierra Trail transverses the park, along with trails of its own, providing many walking and bridle trails from which to choose on any given day. You can either walk along the bank of Blue Brook itself in the ravine or take another trail and find yourself on the higher ground rising steeply on both sides above it.

Historically, Blue Brook played a key role in many past events, but none more so than in the farthest North-West corner of the park, in a site now known as The Deserted Village. In 1845, the land in this area was purchased by a wealthy business man named Daniel Felt. He created it to be a private Utopian community where like-minded people could live and work. Here, he built two dams on Blue Brook to supply water power for his mills. He manufactured paper for his successful stationery company that sustained the livelihood of the people who lived there. However, after several years the community was abandoned and sold at a great loss. In 1882, a wealthy New Jersey business man, Warren Ackerman, purchased it, again for Blue Brook. He planned to use the water for Plainfield, a large city nearby, and to create a summer resort of it because of its pristine beauty and tranquility, traits is has not lost to this day. He renaming it Glenside Park, after the name of the main road along which it can be found. In 1916, unfashionable and unsalvageable, it closed, never to be used again. In 1920, the County purchased the village and renamed it what had sadly become its official moniker, The Deserted Village. Ironically, it is today enjoying a renaissance as a “Four Centuries” designation, a listing in the State and National Registers of Historic Sites, an archaeological site, and a destination for borzoi.

Bob’s walk with the borzoi frequently follows a wide winding trail through the mountainside. Eventually, it intersects with Cataract Hollow Road, a small street that turns off Glenside Avenue, a main, county road that transverses the park. It is a brief walk down this narrow road, as absent of inhabitants now as it has been for nearly one century, that leads to that place known as The Deserted Village. Upon arriving there, one is always taken by it, by the spectacle of it suddenly appearing there, and what it is today, the vestiges of a vital community left behind in the forest.You can hear the sound of Blue Brook as you get closer to the village if you listen closely. In summer, the neighborhood around the houses is cooler than others usually are, for it is generously shaded with old forest trees. The borzoi enjoy going there very much. Walking throughout the village, you see how lovely it must have been at one time. Today, it consists of spacious houses and a large barn-like structure that served many purposes in the community. The village, even deserted, has the ambiance of old gentility.

Even today, when we walk through The Deserted Village with our borzoi, it feels like a contemporary neighborhood, one the inhabitants left suddenly that morning as if they were going to work and to which they would be returning that evening. The borzoi trot up gravel driveways, weave their way around the long abandoned flower beds, and enter the empty back-yards from where they look down the precipice at Blue Brook below, where the mill once stood. All the houses were built on higher ground. I wonder, what do they see? Do they know what was there? One by one, they turn away and trot back to the road. There, they rest along side a low stone wall, the remnants of an old foundation of a house long gone, recently identified as the one belonging to the Daniel Felt himself. They are visiting old friends.

It is on the Reservation’s winding hiking trails where the dogs come most alive. They think they are free or on a hunt. The two males, Paris and Casanova, trot ahead off leash but they do not let Bob out of sight for long. They always come running back together, nothing but happy to see him and Mikhailya. Mikhailya is never off leash, for she is not allowed to run free. Although once, Mikhailya became loose and she was gone for some time without Bob knowing where she was. The old Lab, Ebony, was on that walk, a walk that was to be her last. She was off lead when a deer sprang up and darted across their trail. Such adventure. The borzoi all bolted and tried to escape from Bob’s grip on their leashes. At the end, he had them all, except for Mikhailya’s. This was a dreaded disaster. Ebony chased after her – what ever was she thinking? Bob called and called, but it was in vain. The ever obedient Ebony ignored him, and Mikhailya was in hot pursuit of the deer. On and on she ran, deep into the forest, off all trails. Bob was running until he could not run any more. There was no sight of the big white dog with the smaller black dog at her feet. One would think they could be easily seen, that they would have stood out regardless of how far ahead they were. Surely, they would run, turn around and return. An hour of running and calling passed, but no dogs returned.

A long distance away, a cell phone rang. The veterinarian’s office phone number flashed across the caller ID screen. “Mikhailya and Ebony have been located”, a voice reported. I said, “Oh, that’s nice. Now, where is my husband?” So, I gave the person his cell phone number, and asked the dog’s rescuer to call my husband so he could come and get our dogs. So it came to be that Mikhailya and Ebony were found without any ill effects from their misadventure. However, Mikhailya’s next misadventure in the Watchung Reservation would not end so well.

Again, Mikhailya is a dog, but more so. She is a borzoi, a special, noble hound bred for hunting by sighting its game far in the distance not nearby at its feet or the ground. Upon seeing it, she will want to go there very quickly. Being so, she may not always think about her feet, where they are, and what is under them at any given moment. So it happened on one beautiful January morning during a hike, Bob and the dogs came upon a trail across which a large tree had fallen. One at a time, he carefully guided the dogs over it. Mikhailya was last, and without thinking, he turned his back as she was about to jump and walked on, expecting her to go over in the right place and follow him. However, she leaped over the trunk but not in the center where Bob had guided her and where the ground would be clear on the other side, but at the side of the trail, where there was debris, foliage and branches. When she landed, her legs became twisted among them and one leg snapped. With that she screamed a horrible sound from deep in her lungs that resounded through the Watchung Reservations like an animal’s death throes. Mikhailya’s leg had broken.

This was a terrible accident to have happened, deep in the woods. Bob was there with three large dogs, one of which could not walk. He fashioned a splint out of sticks and his scarf and began carrying Mikhailya, but he needed to take frequent rests because she is such a large dog. Casanova and Paris walked ahead off leash. The journey back to the van was interminable and exhausting. Finally, a man approached him walking on the trail in the opposite direction, and he kindly offered his assistance. With Bob’s help, they put Mikhailya over his shoulders, and he carried her all the way out of the woods to the main trail. The man waited with Mikhailya while Bob took the other dogs and returned with the van. Bob then raced her to the veterinary hospital where she was treated for her broken leg. Many long hours later, it was with tremendous gratitude to learn there was no underlying cancer in the bone. The break was caused by a careless misstep. Still, we understood a long, slow recovery lied ahead for Mikhailya, one of discomfort, limits and extreme confinement.

Mikhailya’s life in recovery will be very different from that to which she is accustomed. There will be no freedom of movement and the natural joyfulness she derives from that, only confinement and its associated depression. Mikhailya will find her injury with its subsequent helplessness and restrictions on her movement especially difficult to endure. Undoubtedly, the bone will heal, and it may even heal without any ill effects to her graceful movement ~ a movement so elegant she earned her Championship Dog title with five Majors. Yet it will come at a huge price for her in terms of her identity as a borzoi. The loss of mobility for anyone would be difficult under any circumstances. However, for Mikhailya, a borzoi, a breed of dog in which the breed standard explicitly states in its first paragraph that “special emphasis is placed on sound running gear”, the loss of mobility for six weeks will be emotionally devastating. To her it will feel like forever. She is not capable of understanding the concept of “temporary”. Moreover, this condition is completely contrary to her own identity as a borzoi: athletic, free, beautiful, and proud. The very sight of Mikhailya lying in her crate, her leg extended in its splint, a dull look in her eyes staring ahead but fixed on nothing, fills us with regret. It is a sad reminder that when doing your best for them, things can and do go wrong.

Lorene Connolly
Blyss Kennels
Mountainside, NJ
February 2008

Opal Magic

It is sad, but in 2005, the one full year of her life that we had Opal, we did not go to the inn at Goshen, New Jersey where we had vacationed regularly. Anne, the inn-keeper there, had become a dear friend over the years, and she kindly allowed us to bring all of our dogs. I say it is sad because we never got to take Opal there. We thought it was more important to take our dogs to dog shows instead. Actually, Anne met Opal once. It happened this way.

In February 2006, we entered all of our dogs in the Boardwalk Kennel Club dog show at the Convention Center in Wildwood, NJ, not far from Anne’s inn. Anne attended the show and it was there that she saw Opal. However, later that year, I found myself including Anne’s name in the list when I undertook the surreal task of informing our friends that Opal was dying. Looking back, I am so glad we had made the effort to attend that show because it afforded Anne her only chance to meet Opal. It also planted a seed that would become a magical memory of Opal.

One of the happiest memories I have of Opal occurred quite by accident and it is connected to that show. We had taken all of our dogs: Paris, Mikhailya and puppy Opal to the show. Although the dogs did not win any of their classes, I remember being very happy anyway. In February by the sea, the daylight can be weak, and so it was that weekend as it glowed through the fog with a pale light. Undaunted by the dampness, every day we took the dogs for long walks on the boardwalk where they are allowed only during the off-season.

The three borzoi generated lots of attention as we walked the great length of the old Wildwood boardwalk. To our surprise, some of the boardwalk stores were open, selling the usual items, tee-shirts and sea-shore memorabilia and fudge. I remember the cashiers calling out to us as we passed. They were young men with strong Russian accents asking us to come in and buy something. They were very excited to see borzoi.

We walked on and vanished into the wet air. Was it fog or water? I cannot remember now. I only remember there was walking, so much walking. It was very misty during all of those days we were there. We walked and walked, not wanting to miss any time to spend on the old boardwalk. We must have looked like apparitions passing through the mist in the old midway. Together, they created a dramatic sight: three big white dogs walking by the sea, their coats blowing wildly in the strong winds. I remember feeling very proud. I remember that it brought tears to my eyes at the time, thinking to myself over and over, “These are my dogs…”.

Today, looking back on those days in Wildwood, the memory passes through a prism in my mind and assumes a brilliant clarity, as the jewel tones one sees through the viewfinder of a kaleidoscope. In that instant, before the picture collapses into dust, I am there again on the boqardwalk with my dogs. It is a magical moment that has the power to carry me along in a limitless reverie. Or, in my mind’s eye, I see forms in outlines, and before the threads unravel I follow where they lead. The images are illuminated as if from within. They impart a light that shines on all that surround it in the darkness. Suddenly, I see a beautiful white hound. Is it Opal? What I would not give to live in that moment forever: I did not know that Opal was going to die.

Time is not kind to people like me. Today, I have wishes, regrets, and loss, the ultimate issue of magical memories. Still, I wish for magic for everything – the magic of walking on the boardwalk with my dogs; the magic that would have kept Opal well, and the magic that would bring Opal back…even for a short time.

We will remember to visit Goshen with the dogs before the year’s end. It will be the last vacation for us before winter settles in. Opal would have loved Anne’s inn. Crates are not there, and we all stay close together in the little cabin at night. During the day, we will take long walks together. I will walk along the deserted beaches of Delaware Bay with my dog. Then, we’ll make our way back through the trails to Lost Pond and Anne. I will try to see them through her eyes and wonder what she would have seen. Yes, I will take the time to show them to her. It is so sad we did not take Opal to Goshen. She missed all of this and more. I will take her just this once.

Coda.

There was a surprise for me at Anne’s Inn: a photograph taken at a dog show – people holding dogs ringside – my husband and me – two borzoi – Mikhailya and Opal! Imagine my surprise. I quickly averted my eyes so I would not cry. Yes, Anne said, she took that photo of us earlier that year at the Boardwalk Kennel Club dog show, and she had a duplicate to give me. Later, I studied the photograph very closely. How happy we appeared. It looked as if it were taken a lifetime ago. Could it have been this very year? Was I the woman in the photo? I continued to examine the photograph closely, transfixed. Opal would have been fifteen months old, three months before we would learn that she was ill. How clearly her illness suddenly appeared to me – she looked so tiny standing next to Mikhailya!