The beginning.

I suppose that if we could foresee the future, we’d just skip most of our new projects.  Ambition would be tempered too much by the knowledge of what lay ahead.  Think about what you’ve endured for your love of Mastiffs.  If you are like me, you began with precious little knowledge and lots of the hope that comes from having no idea what you are doing.  We give no thought of the heartbreaks which are in our path to balance out the thrills, pride and comfort of sharing our lives with these dogs.  Really, Mastiffs aren’t dogs like other dogs.  They are different… more than merely dogs… and somehow we know that going in, and step into this world for better or worse.

At the end of 1992, I answered an ad for a litter of Mastiff puppies.  I made arrangements for my husband to stay home with our two small daughters so that I could drive from Massachusetts to Maryland to bring our bitch puppy home.  I thought that I was prepared for the ups and downs of dog breeding from our years in horses, and I was on a mission for what I hoped would become our foundation bitch.

Dawn didn’t care what plans I had for her.  She just wanted lots of everything puppies want; love, attention, food, and more love.  She was fantastic with the children from the start.  Sarah was just learning to walk at the time and it was inevitable that the puppy would be just another speed bump in her toddling or crawling path.  I was amazed at the patience this puppy showed with my children.  She never once got cross.  It seemed to never cross her mind take issue with a pile of Little Golden Books or Dr. Seusses falling on her domed head, misaimed feet stepping on her puppy toes or any of the other myriad things that happen in households with small children no matter how hard grownups try to avoid them.

As she grew at a fantastic rate, she learned things so easily that somehow she was seven months old before I realized that we had not done a lot of formal obedience training with her.  She almost anticipated what was expected of her and always behaved so well that it was not as glaring a need as it had been with every other dog I had owned previously.  Since an obedience title was one of our goals, I got right on it at that point.

First lesson learned:  A Mastiff is not a German Shepherd.

I treated her training just as I had most other dogs I had taught: teach, repeat, correct, proof.  How stupid of me.  Of course she knew that sit meant sit, and she was getting around to doing just that.  Why had I taken it upon myself to give her a mild collar correction?  Fine, then, she’d just melt right down into the driveway like a cat on a collar and lead and wait for me to get over myself.  From that day to this, she makes me remember that day by making an unhappy face whenever she sees the collar.  She will do an entire novice routine with wagging tail and a spring in her step but the sourest of expressions on her face, just in case I have forgotten.

Thank goodness she caught me while I was still young and trainable!  I learned enough from her that she was able to help me earn our CD in four shows.  I will never forget the very first obedience entry.  It was my very first obedience entry ever, having trained at home by ourselves and having read the AKC rule book.  We did hit one obedience class the Tuesday before the show weekend.  During the recall Dawn tried to leave the building instead of coming to me.

We showed up for the entry anyway, and we qualified.  No stellar scores, but we did finish it with a placement in Novice A at the 1995 National in Nashville, Tennessee.  In the two years it took us to get to that point, she also taught us a thing or two about the conformation ring.  We’d never had a ‘show dog’ before.  We had a lot to learn.  Some of it, we learned. Some of it still escapes us, which is undoubtedly why we are still doing the dog shows.

First Shows.

Dawn entered her first conformation show on Father’s Day of 1993.  She was seven months old.  We made so many mistakes that day which she quietly tolerated that I am sure I can’t even remember all of them.  Here are a few: taking our small children to the show, having the wrong collar and lead, not filling up the car with gas first… oh, that was a doozie!  We ran out of gas at the top of a hill on the highway.  The kids and Dawn and I got out of the car and stood on the side of the highway in the drizzle while my husband and friend pushed the car backward down the road in the breakdown lane to the gas station that miraculously existed there.  Again miraculously, the state trooper who happened by just minutes later to ask why we were standing on the side of the highway missed the whole thing.  The guys showed up with the car, we piled back in wet and soggy and off to the show.  Did I mention the five of us plus Dawn went to that show in a Ford Escort?  Dawn had the hatchback and I think the most elbow room of us all.

When we got to the show, we met my friend who had agreed to show Dawn for us. I handed Dawn off to her, sight unseen, ten minutes before going into the ring.  Chantel used that time to get to know Dawn as best she could while scanning vendors for a suitable collar and lead.  Though they didn’t win anything, Chantel was impressed that Dawn was completely unflustered by going into the ring for the first time, with a complete stranger, not to mention the rest of the morning’s activities!

Over time, we learned a little here and a little there and Dawn forgave us every foible.  The only health concern she endured was an on-and-off bout of panosteitis.  The pano was off for weeks at a time and then on the morning of a two-day show when she was entered in breed and obedience both days (of course).

Brood Bitch.

At about that point in time, I had met some folks on the Mastiff email list who seemed to have some pretty strong convictions regarding health testing.  I had heard the usual stuff about testing being expensive, results inconsistent and the stigma that dogs which could pass the testing were not good examples of the breed.  Some of the things these testing advocates said made more sense, though; mainly, why not make breeding decisions with as much information as possible?  So, one by one, I began taking our dogs in to be tested.  Baloo, our male, passed his hips and failed one elbow with Grade I DJD.  His eyes CERFed but I was disheartened and almost fell off the testing wagon.  Friends encouraged us to test Dawn, and we did.  One by one, Dawn passed every test: hips good, eyes normal/normal, elbows normal, heart, thyroid, vWD, patellas normal!  Shortly after we got that testing done on her, Baloo had his episode of cystine stones and UPenn agreed to study Mastiffs to find the genetic basis for this potentially fatal disease.  Dawn passed that health screen as well.  Though we don’t have full offspring results since we did not require testing of puppy buyers at that time, her two daughters who stayed with us also passed all eight health screens.

Dawn’s first litter was by Baloo and consisted of 14 puppies total, of which one was stillborn and one malformed (open abdominal cavity), but 12 survived.  She produced an abundance of milk and after an initial bout of disbelief in what we expected her to do to keep the puppies clean, she evolved into a wonderful mother as well.  Her second litter, by Sagar, was of ten, one stillborn and the other nine hale and healthy.  Again she was a great mom.  At the time we had no idea how lucky we were yet again in her mothering willingness and abilities!  Her daughters were also good mothers.  Peaches even actually seemed to really love each of her puppies in an almost human way.

Special show wins.

In her show career, Dawn’s had some of those moments that make it all seem so easy and worthwhile that you forget the ones that aren’t that way.  At the 1995 National, her first litter of puppies was ten weeks old.  I had been showing her myself only a very short time, but figured I could do it.  (Why?  That beginner’s ignorance and optimism again, no doubt.)  Dawn not only earned the final leg of her obedience title, but also her CGC and TDI as well on the same day!  When I showed her in a very large open fawn bitch class she was placed second, even with me flopping around on the other end of the lead and her underline showing evidence of recent motherhood!

At the next National we attended, 1998 in Carlisle, Dawn showed extremely well in that pouring rain and mud and cheered two of her daughters on to placements in the other open classes, Elsa’s third in apricot and Zoë’s fourth in a huge brindle class.  Dawn’s son, Beau, won his open apricot dog class as well.  Not one was professionally handled.

I had been toying with giving up on showing her locally since she was now five and a half, gray in the muzzle and her underline quite matronly after her two dozen puppies in just two litters.  We showed because we both liked it, she and I, and I was proud of her board-level topline and how well she moved and her happy attitude even approaching her veteran years.  After some prompting from good friends, I took the plunge and entered her in one more major show weekend.  I handed her off to a handler to balance out the age factor and my complete lack of ability.  Just as the judge picked winners, my daughter asked me a question and I had turned to answer it.  A cheer went up and people were congratulating me, but of course I’d missed the moment!  She had finished, four point major at age five and a half!  My sweet girl was finally a champion.  Pano, two litters, obedience entries, car breakdowns and light budget notwithstanding, Dawn was now a champion!

After that had sunk in – which took a while - I began to research other Mastiffs who had accomplished what she had in terms of conformation, obedience and health screens.  To my knowledge, there have been none.  It is hard to combine data from those diverse fields, so if I have missed one please let me know.

At the 1999 National in St. Louis, Dawn again strutted her stuff in veterans and earned first in her class in both veteran and veteran sweeps.  Her grandson Morpheus also won his futurity and sweeps classes as well.

But wait, there’s more…

As far as I know Dawn is the ONLY Mastiff to have passed all eight health screens, have her Championship title and CD.  That alone sets her apart in the breed.  In addition, she has her TT, CGC, TDI and is a Canine Ambassador.  She’s launched more than one handler on the road to showing dogs, including my two children with whom she was so tolerant and loving when she was a puppy herself.  Dawn is a great one for fixing a foot a new handler puts wrong or straightening out a crooked down-and-back.  She will stack herself perfectly if you just put your hand in your pocket (behold the power of cheese!).  She has spent years working classrooms full of admiring children for the Canine Ambassador Program from long before it was a program with a name promoted by AKC.  She’s brought happiness to the elderly at the local senior center on many occasions.  A couple of times she told us that new acquaintances were not all they wanted us to think, and she was always right. She’s shown more than her share of vets why a dignified vintage Mastiff should be considered the perfect patient.

Dawn will not be at the National this year as we’d planned.  I was so looking forward to just one more time out with my dear friend to strut her stuff in veterans, this time in the 8-10 class.  She is a wonderful traveling companion and even at her age helps us to feel safe on the road and in strange hotels.  An ultrasound scan revealed a large tumor on her bladder and urethra. There is also kidney involvement and her blood work is showing marked changes.  You’d never know it to watch her do her high-ho in the house or yard, to see her put the other Mastiffs back in their places, or put away her breakfast!  Her brown eyes are every bit as bright as they ever were, her topline is still perfectly level and each hard-earned gray hair on her head glistens when the light hits it, but she is protecting us to the last from seeing her pain.  I know that she will tell us when it’s time to let her go.  In the meantime I could not miss the chance to thank her in a merely human way for taking all those hopes and dreams from the beginning and making them come true.  Mastiffs have been loved as much, Mastiffs have shown more and better, Mastiffs have produced more and scored higher, but no Mastiff has been a more complete Mastiff than Champion Castlemist First Light Of Dawn, CD, TT, CGC, TDI.
 

Last words.

Dawn passed to the Rainbow Bridge on February 2, 2001, exactly five years after she whelped her second and final litter.  A good friend told me that the veil between this world and the next is thinnest on that day.  I hope that it made her journey easier.

Tissue samples were sent to Dr. Thornburg at the University of Missouri for the cancer study he is doing on eleven breeds, Mastiffs among them.  For more information, go to the www.mastiff.org site and look under health, or go to www.caninecancer.net.  The samples were sent on Monday, arrived the next day and by Wednesday afternoon my vet had a very detailed and complete report from Dr. Thornburg.

Dawn died of hemangiosarcoma.  This is not thought to be a genetic form of cancer.  The information I have read states that 6-8 weeks is the usual time remaining once this type of cancer is of sufficient progression to detect and diagnose.  We had about fourteen weeks.  Leave it to Dawn to double the average.

Dawn walked into the vet office that last day under her own power.   She wagged her tail for me one last time before she moved on.  Cancer did not take her life.  She fought it to the end, and then kicked it in the teeth and left it behind.  She won one last time as only she could.

November 12, 1992- February 2, 2001.  Rest happy my friend, you have earned it.