MEET JOHN & LORI MOODY

by Lori Moody

John and I were featured in the March, 1991 issue of the "Cesky Chatter" and, after reviewing it recently, we felt it was time to update our "story". We think that only a very few of the present members would have seen that issue, so it is time to learn about us.

John and I will have been married 44 years in November, and have two grown daughters who live in the area. Sue, our oldest daughter, is married and has two children: Jonathan, 15, and Sarah, 10. Becky, our youngest, is single. We are so very lucky to have our family near to us.

John spent 21 years in the Air Force, so we moved around a lot in the early years of our marriage. He retired from the Air Force in 1976 and we settled in North Carolina. He then worked for the state as the Claims Supervisor in the Employment Security Commission. He retired on January 1, 2000 for the second time.

I have mostly been a homemaker, but have had various jobs, such as teaching needlepoint for the local community college, store decorating, and a lot of volunteer work.

John grew up with an Airedale and I grew up with a Smooth Fox Terrier, so we have been "terrier people" all of our lives. We had a Collie mix in our early years of marriage, then two Chihuahuas, but went back to terriers with a Westie. We owned four Westies at one time, and then went on to Soft Coated Wheaten Terriers.

We got our first Wheaten in 1978 and decided to breed them soon after that. We showed and bred Wheatens for about 10 years and finished 6 Wheaten champions with AKC, and pointed about another 6 dogs. Our showing and breeding were quite limited, but we did very well with that breed: even taking a Group 1 with our second female and other group placements with several of our dogs.

It was after getting into Wheatens that we chose our kennel name, "Blarneygem". My grandmother was from County Cork, Ireland -- not far from Blarney Castle, so that accounts for the first part of the name. Everyone has heard of the Blarneystone, so we wanted to pick something different and John had a hobby of rock collecting at that time. We would go to various places and dig for precious gems, semi-precious gems, and other interesting gems or rocks. So, our kennel name was "born".

When we started in Wheatens, there were very few professional handlers in that breed and we enjoyed the showing, but by the time we decided to stop showing Wheatens, it had become a breed that was shown primarily by "handlers". We always did our own showing and were discouraged by this and the amount of grooming that the Wheaten breed required. Hand scissoring all of our dogs became almost impossible with my arthritis.

The last time I was in the ring with a Wheaten, I looked around and found I was the only one of about 10, who was not a professional handler. I realized that I didn't want to do that anymore, but I walked out of that ring that day, having won anyway. Our last Wheaten died of old age about 1 1/2 years ago.

I had seen a photo of a Cesky Terrier in a large dog book, but had no idea of how to find out about the breed. We were interested in the smaller size and also because our younger daughter is half Czech in her heritage. Becky was adopted at 5 weeks of age.

Then, in 1987, there was an article in Dog World magazine about the Cesky Terrier. I wrote to the stated address and received a form letter telling me to send a deposit for the next available pup. Well, I thought that was the end of it, but a few months later I received a call from a woman who told me about a "wonderful" Dutch breeder.

That wasn't exactly the case, as we found out the hard way. We bought our first pup from the Dutch breeder and he was delightful, so we then bought an adult female and another pup. Nikkie (NCTC Ch. DeSchalkjes Nikkie) was our first Cesky and he is now 12 1/2 years old.

The adult female that we bought arrived with an injured leg and was not pregnant as we had been told. She was also terribly overweight and terrified of men. We were "burned" and just about ready to give up on the breed. But since this adult had been born in Sweden, I wrote to the Swedish Kennel Club and was put in touch with Eva and Filip Johnsson. They were extremely helpful to me and gave me the address of Mr. Frantisek Horak, the developer of the Cesky Terrier.

Mr. Horak and I started a correspondence that lasted seven years until his death in January of 1996. We even had the pleasure of meeting him during our trip to the Czech Republic in May of 1995. He was a fascinating man and he taught me a lot about his breed. I have a folder containing 70 letters from him and consider it to be a Treasure.

We started showing Nikkie and he did very well in the show ring. He took a Best in Show at a huge Rare Breed show in New Jersey, with close to 500 dogs participating. This was our first Best in Show with any breed and it was quite exciting. Nikkie became the first NCTC Champion and is still doing well in his old age.

Our next male Cesky was Minimeadow Janko. His mother was sent pregnant to the U.S. and whelped 3 weeks after arriving in Ohio. "Yankee" became the winner of the first NCTC Specialty and went on to win a Best in Show in North Carolina. He also finished an ARBA Championship.

Cesky Terriers that we have bought, bred, and own, or bred and sold, have won 30 championships, and have won 14 Bests in Show. Our dogs have the only ARBA championships in the NCTC at this time, and we have seven of these. Right now, we have five NCTC champions in our home, and dogs with championships from other organizations, e.g., DFUSA, FORB and YWC. We have twelve dogs at this time, and ten of them have 1 to 5 championships. We surely have the record for more wins with our dogs with no one coming close.

We have helped most of the NCTC breeders get started in the breed. Most people who are breeding now have bought their original females from us, and most have bred to our stud dogs. We talked several new breeders through their first whelping experience, helped with advice on puppy care, sent buyers to the new breeders, and loaned a whelping box. We have always tried to help breeders and pet owners with advice for any problem, or at least to guide them in the right direction for help.
We imported eight dogs from Europe -- always with genetic diversity and improving the breed in mind. Any breed with a limited gene pool must continue to expand its genetic pool as much as possible. Our goal has never been to promote ourselves, but rather to promote the breed and the club. Along the way, we have been successful as a kennel because of our primary goals.

When we started in the Cesky Terrier breed, we became some of the founding members of the CTCA, but we could never convince the person in charge that a Constitution and Bylaws were needed. After a couple of years, two other women (also in that club) asked us if we were willing to start a new club. Being unhappy with the way things were going, we said yes. Little did we know all the work that would be involved or that these women would soon get out of the breed and it would fall on John and me to do everything.

John agreed to be President and I was appointed Secretary/Treasurer in those early years. We found that we had to make hundreds of copies of many forms and documents, so we ended up buying a copier. That was the first of three copiers we have bought over the years. These copiers and many other necessary items were never charged to the club.

The forming of the club became a part time job for John, and the club and dog care became a full time job for me. We bought many file cabinets for all the papers and forms, and we never charged the club for any of the paper we used until 1997. In fact, we charged very little to the club until very recently, so that we could build up a treasury for the club.

John kept the NCTC registry from 1990 until we turned it over to the AKC-FSS system in 1996. He has done a few more registrations since that time for people who wanted to register their dogs in Canada, since they don't recognize the FSS as a registry.

I was already writing my newsletter, the "Cesky Chatter", so I brought it with me to the NCTC. Then people started asking about a book about the breed, and since there was no book, except for one in Czech printed in 1987, I felt the need to write a handbook about the breed. I put in everything I knew at the time and have had to update it three times. So, the Handbook is now in its fourth edition. It will probably need updating in another year or so, as we learn more.

Then people started asking for a grooming video. Well, I am certainly not an actress and don't like to see myself on tape, but the need and demand was there. So, we started making a video, and in the middle of doing it, our camcorder broke down. We went out and bought a new one just to finish the taping.

We have been selling the tape through the club, with the profits going to the general fund, as with the Handbook. We also received a translation of the Czech book from Mr. Horak and printed that to sell for the club.

We have had 14 litters of pups in 12 1/2 years in the breed. It may sound like a lot, but if you take the time into account, it is less than two litters a year.

We now own 12 dogs, half of which are males. Most of our present females are no longer being bred, but we do have a couple of young females who will soon be having pups, hopefully this fall for one of them.

We do not breed for financial gain, and anyone who does soon finds out that it does not work that way. We breed to improve the breed, to help with the demand for pups, and sometimes we want to keep a pup for ourselves. We have always told our buyers that we will take our pups back at any time. Last year we bought back a dog who was almost five years old. We found out that he was going to be sold to a buyer who we totally disapproved of, and told the owner that we had first option to buy him back.

Well, we have learned that we should have had more in our contract (and have since added it), because this person doubled the price that he paid for the dog as a pup. The dog had been used for stud for over four years, but we paid the asking price to save our dog from going to a place where we felt he would not be treated well.

We are limited in showing, since we have so many dogs and have to rely on our daughter to "dog-sit" when we go away for a weekend. Our area does not have many rare breed shows, but we have managed to garner a number of championships and are pleased with the success of our breeding program.

We hope to see the eventual recognition of the Cesky Terrier by the American Kennel Club. This was the hope of Mr. Horak, and we have always worked to help his dream become reality.

Edited reprint from the "Cesky Chatter", Vol 12, No 3, Jun 2000
Copyright 2000 by Lori Moody

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