In early 2000, when I was starting Blyss Kennels and buying our borzoi, I came across a lot of information on the internet by dog breeders about their kennels and breeding programs. They were full of beautiful photographs, articles from dog publications, pedigrees, and stories about foundation bitches, stud dog, and breed history. Some of the best websites I ever saw were done for dog kennels. I recall seeing one on Irish Wolfhound that surpassed anything I have ever seen. There were others, and then there was one that was utterly fantastic, by the Alaskan Malamute breeder, D. Harobed. One of the most beautiful pieces of writing I have ever read anywhere by anyone was written by D. Harobed and posted for a while on the website. I saved it among my saved documents. Sometime later, I looked for it again online and could not find it; it had been taken down. I was glad I had saved it in a file and still had it readily available to peruse. I Googled D Harobed and she/he (although I believe it was a woman) could not be found. Any sign of the kennel has disappeared, and I am very sad and sorry about that. I had and still do have complete respect for this person and the amazing website they created with pictures of the magnificent Mals. My family owned one in the distant past, so the website interested me for nostalgic reasons as well, but the pictures and the loving words were unforgettable. I am going to reproduce the beautiful poem that moved me so long ago, insisting I am not anywhere near as good a writer as this person, D. Harobed, and could never have written it, and I bow in total respect to this writer and hope they do not mind if I reproduce their poem here in Blyss Blog that touched my heart so deeply. If anyone reading this Blog knows anything about D. Harobed and the Alaskan Malamutes, please let me know how I may reach them or what befell them to make them take down their website. The poem follows:

I search for him anew…..

I search for him anew in each new litter of pups. He is present in my greatest joys and deepest sorrows, always a memory in my mind. And sometimes when the wind rises on an autumn day or when the air is full of promises of snow, sometimes then, I feel him near. In this moment, memory and senses in accord, reminiscences blend and time has no meaning. The wind lingers in my presence, inviting me to share a secret, somewhere out of time. This young precocious breeze, just a whisper when we met before, has grown into a sturdy winter wind. He is with me, as real as the winter snow that blends with the tears upon my face. And it is only when I try to touch him, to make him linger yet awhile, that He dies all over again – a snowflake in my hand. He is like a fragment of melody that I find myself humming unawares. Evasive and elusive, a song without words, a song with no end. While somewhere else, as I say goodbye again, as shadows of my shadow pass before me, somewhere else a Mal leaps to the top of her kennel to greet the morning sun. Another stretches beyond him length and howls, harmonic with the world. My memory of him lives on forever in those she left behind.

D.Harobed

http://dharobed.com/aleharobed/aboutus.htm

Harobed Alaskan Malamutes

Tears……………………………………………………………………………………………………,,…………………………………..

I came from a very strong and strict Catholic upbringing in a troubled home, the facts of which I worked very hard to hide.  I do not believe there was any love there, for anyone.  I lived in my imagination, and I had a very wide range of secret interests. 

I loved to read, I took piano lessons, and I was extremely interested in the world outside the walls of my home.  By high school, I knew I wanted to go to college.  I wanted to break free of the crippling and destructive messages I heard from my parents, messages my brother and sister heard as well.  I decided the answer for me would lie in becoming educated so I could support myself and leave home.  I finished high school and my parents made it clear I would not be able to go away to college but had to live at home.  I made that work, and four years later I graduated and got a job almost immediately.  I worked in the medical school library in the College of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, in Newark, now, the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey.  After working for a few years, and finding I loved the work and the people in it, I applied to the master’s degree program of Library Science at Rutgers University and completed in 1977.  I had a very fulfilling and long career which ended in 2008.

I loved my career with a passion and took it very seriously.  I was well supported by my management where I worked and went to many professional meetings and continuing education classes.  I networked with librarians from other organizations and enjoyed knowing and respecting them.    Life went on.  But I was very young in 1972 when my career began and I was a different person in 2008.  Over time, I saw the profession decimated by vendors who developed “end user products” with an internet search interface, so people could do their own research, as if they were on Google.  I was told to dismantle three libraries over the later years of my career.  Slowly, I became demoralized, depressed, and very sick.  I retired early and went on Disability.

Once I was home, and I was free to let my mind wander and rest, it went to where my heart had been dormant for a long time.   I had a passion I could not live previously due to the demands of my responsibilities at home and at work.  Slowly, with my husband’s love and support, my whole world changed when my keen interest in breeding dogs and showing them in conformation  came to fruition.  We considered many breeds from Labrador Retrievers, Chinese Crested, and various terriers, but the best opportunities for purchasing dogs and being mentored came from the borzoi community. 

We purchased several dogs over the next few years.  Although they did not all win in the ring, they were all winners in our hearts.  Our kennel name was Blyss, and we successfully bred one litter in December 2008.  However, my husband’s unexpected, early death in 2011 put an end to my kennel.  I kept all of my borzoi when he died, but I never bred another litter.    I have remained active in the borzoi organizations, some of which are international, national and local, and have made many friends.  The Blyss borzoi are well known and remembered.  They are all gone, and I can never bring them back.  One can find them at my website where I have a Blog:  www.blysskennels.us

“A million words won’t bring you back, I know because I tried.

Neither would a million tears, I know, because I cried.”

My life continues to go along a predictable trajectory, and those closest to me, who truly love and care for me, find it as baffling as I find it painful. Together, we can only imagine what it means, or what mystery fuels it. But what do the events of anyone’s life mean? Perhaps mine have been more public and on display. I am more communicative than the average person and am more likely to join groups like clubs and churches. I have many affiliations, but none more so than with membership of dog breed clubs, since dogs, the sport of purebred dogs and dog breeding, and dog ownership, are my passions.

What has motivated me to write in my Blog tonight is the need to affirm that on this date, I am still alive and well, even though I am on the threshold of another holiday season and winter, as a solitary woman, now a rather aged one as well. Every minute, my chances of meeting a man who will love me diminishes exponentially, and the chances of meeting a man who will inflict harm and pain on me will increase. I am frozen in a zone of pain, afraid to move one way or another. But if I look for a hero, there is my Catholic faith, and after that, the love of my beloved Silken Windhound, Kensie (GCH Wind’nSatin It’s My Party) given to me by her breeder, Mary Childs. Words cannot describe her devotion to me. She is always near and is never more than a room away. She reminds me throughout the day of her devotion to me by becoming a lap dog, even though she is much too big to be one, she finds a way to figure it out, nonetheless. I feel thoroughly loved and protected by her, and I think that is saying a lot.

Somehow, we will face the holidays together. There will be little contact with family. There are few family members left and most have their own schedules to keep. I will be sure to keep Kensey on her favorite walking schedule, a dog cannot be walked enough. She is so lucky to be able to be walked in a beautiful, preserved forest park near our house, with many walking paths and hiking trails. I am afraid our hiking days are over, but we enjoy our walks along the paved paths and in the many open fields one has to walk through to get to the hiking trails. It is such a serene and beautiful place, I am so grateful for it, and for the hundreds of beautiful memories I have of being there with my husband, Bob, and our borzoi, all taken too soon, gone, leaving me alone. Everyone is gone and leaves me alone. It is a persistent pattern in my life. I am always left alone, with the exception of the dog I keep with me always, and then I realize how blessed I am to have this creature, for without expecting anything of it, it gifts me with the deepest gratitude and love, beyond anything any human in my life could provide.

I want to look back a month or two, if I may. On September 10 was the Borzoi Club of Central New Jersey’s Specialty show in North Branch Park, Bridgewater, NJ, with the Somerset Hills KC dog show. It was a splendid day for a dog show, and it had a fairly large attendance for a post COVID event. However, only twelve borzoi were entered. I always reported on the specialty shows in the past. In the beginning, in the early 2000s, I would see the top-rated borzoi in the country at the local specialty shows, shows that drew over 60 borzoi covering a five day weekend cluster of shows! Then, a few years later, I would report on seeing the get of those borzois, their offspring, in the ring, and that thrilled me so much! Included were the offspring of my own home bred borzoi that I co-bred with Karen Staudt-Cartabona, “Magnus”. She bred him before he went to Japan, and for several years, he had offspring in the ring at shows in the country, including the Borzoi National Specialty Show. By then, there were about 50 borzoi. Over time, the numbers were diminishing. Then one year, our Specialty had to be cancelled because the park where our specialty show was being held flooded. We continued to have our Specialty. In 2020, COVID caused the dog shows to be canceled for two years. This spring, the dog shows opened again, and it was very exciting. However, it was very different from the 2000-2009 shows. No longer were the offspring of the original borzoi I knew in the ring, but borzoi of completely different lineages, including borzoi from different kennels and different countries, had replaced them.

Moreover, some very important breeders had passed away, one being my mentor who had bred my beloved Opal in 2004. Death is never far, and her demise was a chilling reminder how it stalks its victims and strikes unaware. All the best treatment and medical care, and the devoted love of her daughter, could not save her. I considered her my best and closest friend in the breed, my real mentor, and I am still inconsolable.

Today, I make an effort to attend the Borzoi National Specialty show. I have attended the last two which I enjoyed immensely. Next year, it will be in Virginia Beach, VA on April 25 – 29, 2023 and I am already registered and have my airline tickets. I am looking forward with incredible enthusiasm to this event, to see the beautiful borzoi, in their various forms and styles, to talk with the breeders, and the handlers as well. I enjoy the entire event, even the receptions and banquets, even if I do not eat very much. I am veryhappy when I am there, and I am even inclined to have a better appetite and eat more normally during those conditions.