Blyss Kennels

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

Dogs

After a long pause

It is almost frightening to sit down at my computer after all I have been through since this new calendar year, now almost half over. However, I force myself to type the URL and begin entering text tonight. Let me start by saying that I know a lot of people do not like me and they have no shame about reminding me of that. They find me disturbing, to the point of feeling compelled to elaborate and act out their thoughts and feelings of hatred. These people include in particular my closest family members and those whom I had held closest to my heart. It is nothing new, but it has become a pattern that has followed me through the decades. Today, I have lost my last human best friend forever. He said words implemented with actions that cannot be taken back. So here I have died, alone and friendless during the coldest, darkest days of the year, ripping me apart and rendering me mute. I have only just found my voice, thanks again to my one salvation, borzoi, the breed of dog, and the breeders who make them possible whom I regard as friends. Credit also goes to Mary Childs for sending me her lovely Silken Windhound (GCh Wind’nSatin It’s My Party) “Kensie” 2 1/2 years ago when I lost my last borzoi, Jelly, it’s never easy.

It was wise of me to have signed up for a hotel room for the host hotel and register to attend the Borzoi Club of America’s (BCOA) National Specialty Show in Mesquite TX from April 25 -May 1, 2022. I even found two different room-mates, for different nights, to help with the expense of the room. It was well attended by beautiful borzoi of all ages. The Futurity judge was my friend, and former Specialty judge, Barbara Bender, and it was great spending time with her again. The Sweepstakes judge was Barbara Lord. I, in the name of Blyss Kennels, support the Sweepstakes trophies in Opal’s name (Raynbo Opalesque at Blyss) for the Puppy Bitch classes. The judge for the Best in Specialty Show was someone I greatly admire and respect, and she did a wonderful job, Prudence Hlatky. Prudence and her husband Greg own the borzoi who won the BCOA Specialty Show last year in Ohio with her lovely bitch, Delilah, and who happens to be the number 1 borzoi in the country.

I was pleased by the borzoi I saw. Certain dogs of a certain style have their appeal to some judges, or some judges will put borzoi up for a win with a different style than I am accustomed to seeing. I try hard to see the quality in these borzoi, and not be a “fault” judge, overlooking the borzoi’s quality. Surely, it is there. I try to broaden my parameters. Still, I cannot overlook two things: Short legs with no tuck up, and tails held up and wagging when the borzoi moves. A new fault is developing at a disturbing rate, including Russia from pictures of litters I have seen from my Facebook friends. It is folded down ears, like a Labrador Retriever or a Golden Retriever. They ruin the head. Each breed has a silhouette that is a component of breed type. It is hard to get past these faults because they are so destructive to the borzoi silhouette, requisite for the borzoi to perform the tasks the breed was created to do.

I will soon be reserving my hotel room for the BCOA National Specialty Show next year, in Virginia Beach, VA. It means so much for me to have it to look forward to. It allows my dark mood to lift. And why not? I was immersed in perfect bliss!

If I Did Not Have Dogs

What would be the point? What would it be about – only me? My house, my car, my money, my children, my job? Don’t they all get spent or go away? A dog does not, and may never choose to leave your side. A dog does not fall out of love, a dog always remembers you as you first were, and his love for you does not change, even long after it should, a dog is eternally forgiving. Always loyal, always true, people are not really like that, are they? They are all too human, though we love them, too. Life would be so much harder, so much sadder, and so much darker, and so much more lonely if I did not have dogs:

The Dogs of Blyss Kennels:

Lara’s River of Dreams
Blyss Paris Lights of Lido
Blyss Ebony
Raynbo Opalesque at Blyss
Majenkir My Ksar Mikhailovna

Over the Bridge:

Brideshead of Mountainside
Suzie
Piccollo

Lorene Connolly
Blyss Kennels
Mountainside, NJ

Blyss Human Condition

Basically, I am happy here.  I could be “happier”, I suppose, but that is the human condition.   We can all always be happier.  But I know I am lucky to be as well off as I am, given that I am not a particularly beautiful or wealthy or married older woman, just sort of out there somewhere between this and that.  Please know that I appreciate life’s gifts so much.  And this opportunity to have a normal relationship with my mother even if at the end of her life means so much to me in bringing me comfort and joy.  It is somewhat akin to the memory of the love I have felt for the Blyss borzoi in my life, now gone.  And soon my mother will be gone, too, after this all too  brief passing by in the hallways of our lives where we briefly intersected after a long absence.  It was sad to have been and although not by my choosing I nevertheless had to accept it with grace.  And no sooner had we met, we had to say good-bye again.