Saturday, April 19, 2014

My Time Bandit

 Some excellent news to share! A few weeks ago, I put a deposit down on this beautiful puppy, Starswift Time Bandit. He's a lure coursing prospect, very bouncy, food motivated, gets along well with other dogs, great with new/unfamiliar sounds, sweet, and very pretty ♥

He lives in Michigan right now, and will be hanging there 'till June when my home is finished with construction and ready for a Borzoi.

The story is kind of a funny one with this little guy. Back in November/December when I was in the throws of all my Borzoi research, I was doing extensive searches on facebook to connect with people involved in the breed. There were only a couple breeder fan pages (I'd imagine because it can be hard with all the anti-breeding culture, and pages dedicated to sending death threats to breeders--ugh!). I also closely followed the borzoi rescue network, national borzoi rescue foundation, and the borzoi rescue of Northern California. I really wanted to rescue a dog if at all possible! The good news is, compared to other breeds, there aren't that many borzoi in need of homes. The FB pages and websites would only list 2 or 3 at most at a time. The unfortunate news (for me) is that they prefer sight hound experienced homes, or homed in a specific state, or bad with [children/small animals/X gender] etc. Anyway, it became pretty clear that my best option was finding a responsible hobby breeder.

Eventually I stumbled on Starswift's fan page, which was frequently updated with pictures and videos. Love! I got to keep up with all 10 puppies as they were born and grew. However I didn't think I'd be taking one home-- they were in Michigan after all and they'd be 6 months old by the time I was ready. Surely they'd all have homes by then! None the less, I found myself greatly enjoying the puppy overdose.
I remember from the very beginning, this little guy was my favorite. Maybe it was how he was the darkest of the 10, or those sweet little white toes, or the way he looked at the camera. Always I found myself thinking "whoever takes him home is a lucky one."

Come January, I began reaching out to breeders in my area to see when litters were planned. There were so many wonderful kennels to choose from, all with several champions. All with structurally sound and healthy animals. All with fantastic temperaments that would make for great companions. And all of them invited me to come visit their dogs!

But somewhere along the line, they'd stop responding. Who knows why. I mean, I'm sure all of them were very busy (one of whom was off in another country attaining an international championship). It was frustrating, but I kept looking, eventually expanding my search to out of state people. 

March rolled around and having read my puppy troubles on tumblr, a friend suggested joining the borzoi yahoo groups. One day after I joined, I got an email from Jamie. 

Bandit was about to turn 4 months old and was looking for a forever home! I thought surely he had been claimed but it turned out his first potential home couldn't financially commit. The more emails that were exchanged, the more I felt like this was meant to be. Starting with an older puppy seemed ideal considering we're new to the breed. Plus he's had the opportunity I hang with the other dogs a lot more (socialization), get some early training down (sit, recall, fetch) and more :) 

And that's the story so far! His most recent pictures at 4.5 months old are below. All that's left at this point is finishing the house, having a representative from the Borzoi Club Of America come to do a home check, then getting him from Michigan to California. 

I'm so excited!