written by Rhoda Lerman,
owner of Blue Heaven Kennels
Puppy
News!
Where did
Celeste, Elsa and Bumper's puppies go?
Have no fear, they've just
moved over
here...
Packard at
10½
Family
resemblance? LaaLaa & Theo's daughter, Maggie, at 4 yrs.
Great Grandmother Katie at
13½
More family resemblance. Katie's Great
Granddaughter, Rosie at 8 months.
Four Generations, April 2008 Left to Right:
Ch. Blue Heaven's Catherine the Great (Katie; 13 1/2; Great Grandmother), Ch.
Blue Heaven's Secret Dance (Laa Laa; Grandmother),
Ch. Blue Heaven's Katie's Bumper (Bumper; Mother) and Rosie (4 months)
In this earlier "4 Generations"
photo, from eight years ago,
Laa Laa, who is a grandmother above, was the baby below.
Four generations of Blue Heaven Kennels: From right to left they
are
Molly (our foundation bitch, great grandmother and ROM), Ishtar (grandmother and ROM),
Katie (Mother and VN), and LaaLaa (daughter). January 2000
Last Year's Mega Litter(s) Puppies Celebrate
their One Year Birthdays Click anywhere on the gallery to go to a page with everyone's
pictures!
Recent News From Blue Heaven Newfoundlands and their
progeny
December 2008
Ben and Rollo danced on Animal Planet's new show,
Dancing With Dogs on December 6th. Ben took a lovely poop for the
nation to admire and both did lovely bows. Laurel looked gorgeous in an
orange tight something. They were much watched. I think it replayed four
times....and beautiful.
Shakoka (Bumper/Solomon) is racking up her points out west.
Omen...son of Celeste and Nemo, brother of Juno and Solomon....is really
beating the big guys in California. He has twice trumped two of the top
ten dogs in the country, and one who is the brother of the top Newf in
the country. The judge loved him because he was so happy. He's also
gorgeous and we might even get a show picture.
And our Elsa, mother of them all, mature, sensible, loyal, intelligent,
etc. took her son Ben for a ten hour excursion. Hunters found them
resting miles and miles from here and let us know. They took off
again...we followed tracks until dark...and finally l0 hours later there
was Ben coming up the road toward home. I walked that road a long time
calling for Elsa. The dog warden had alerted everyone in the areas (of
course he owns a Celeste/Gus puppy Sasha,...and finally the call came in
nearer to our house at 8 pm.They'd seen tracks in the snow. While I was
out walking the roads, Bob called to say Elsa had just appeared. They'd
been on trail with our walker...who was supposed to put one of them each
time on a thirty foot lead...and didn't. They took off after a deer
about l0 a.m. It was a long day. I told Elsa how disappointed I was in
her. She turned her head away from me. She understood. The vet explained
when they get lost they run in smaller and smaller circles until they
find something familiar. I guess they did. I think Bob and I gained ten
years. Alex sent out prayers. All the neighbors helped. Even though
they're microchipped, they didn't have collar tags. We put them on the
next day. Life on the farm!
September 2008
Here is a picture of LaaLaa winning Best Veteran at the Wine
Country show on 9/27.
Very proud. She is ten years old, and not only did she look beautiful and
move great,
but there are not many ten year old Newfies that can still go
around the ring.
On the other end of the scale, 9 month old Rosie took Best of
Opposite Sex
in puppy sweepstakes at the same show.
Some heartbreaking farewells in 2008. This year, we had to say goodbye to some beloved ladies
who lived wonderful and amazingly long lives. We celebrate their
longevity but mourn them deeply. Katie and Daisy, both 13 1/2 and Tasha
at 14 1/2. We also said goodbye to LuLu at 13 1/2 and Packard at 10 1/2.
LuLu reports through our animal communicator that she's fine and her
sister Inka is "on assignment" someplace. We're waiting for them all to
come back on their new assignments to us. When we can bare it, we will add them to our In Memoriam
page.
The winter of 33
puppies!
Litter #1 Parents: Solomon and
Elsa
Blue Heaven Kennels is a small kennel in Western New York. Many people
know us well because of my book, In the
Company of Newfies, about the dogs at Blue Heaven Kennels and our
relationships with each other.
And many more people know our dogs since so many are in the show ring.
Our outstanding characteristics structurally are balance, large heads, soft expression,
straight topline and race-horse movement. Our foundation bitch, Molly, and her daughter Ishtar,
both now Register of Merit dogs, have produced many champions and titled children. We are
extremely proud of them and grateful to them.
We are very proud of our beautiful dogs, but what we take the greatest
pleasure in is their sweetness and goodness and willingness to live our lives.
In August, 1998 we moved from our house of 26 years in
Cazenovia, NY to our present home in Port Crane, NY which is right outside
of Binghamton. This is the place we had been looking for for years. It is
perfect for our Newfie family. It has 140 acres of wooded land laced with
old lumber trails. And the dogs have a 10 acre pond all to themselves,
except for some resident ducks and some very cheeky beavers. It has been everything we dreamed it
would be...and more. We walk constantly with the dogs and we can't keep
them out of the pond.
We got our first
Newfie, Ben, in 1988. The following
year we got Molly. The next year Molly and Ben gave us Ishtar and Celeste.
And that was it. We had no intention of breeding again, and we weren't
interested in showing.
Until, that is, someone told us we should show Ishtar
because she was, in his words, "the perfect Newfie". And so, we
suddenly became Blue Heaven Kennels. (The name, by the way, came from the
old song, "My Blue Heaven", which goes "Molly and me, and
baby makes three, we're happy in our blue heaven.") Ishtar, of
course, wasn't the perfect Newfie (is there one?), but she was very good,
and 6 months after we started showing her she became a champion and about
a month later took Select at the Nationals. We lost Ben when he was seven,
but dear old Molly is still with us. This March she will be eleven and in
October Celeste and Ishtar will be ten. In 1998 Molly and Ishtar honored
Blue Heaven Kennels by both becoming ROM's at the same time.
Every litter we have had came from Molly.
She is the mother, grandmother, great grandmother and yes, even great
great grandmother of every one of our puppies. We have four generations
here at our kennels and we are so proud that we took a group picture which
is on this page (above).
This adorable picture of Molly at five
weeks came to us from a friend of her breeder who was a dear
friend of ours.
Breeders
of Newfoundlands:
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We got our first
Newfie, 
n and about
a month later took Select at the Nationals. We lost Ben when he was seven,
but dear old Molly is still with us. This March she will be eleven and in
October Celeste and Ishtar will be ten. In 1998 Molly and Ishtar honored
Blue Heaven Kennels by both becoming ROM's at the same time.