We acquired our first Anatolian after extensive research looking for a suitable livestock guardian dog. In 1999 we located an eleven month old, biscuit colored female, from Sherry Baker in Indiana. And our love for Anatolians began from there.
Two months after Rudder came to us we got another Anatolian. She was a dutch marked four year old who I soon learned really knew her job well. Cheyenne was the epitome of the livestock guardian temperament, not afraid of anything and tender, loving and bonded to our herd of Saanen dairy goats. We were so impressed with Cheyenne that we agreed with Sherry when she suggested we breed her to CH Night Watch's Rob of Sorter "Robbie", owned by Sherry. Cheyenne had one litter with us in 2002, eleven puppies! We decided to keep one of her pups, Sirin, a biscuit colored female. Sirin was meek and submissive toward us and her goats as well as being a fierce protector of her livestock, property and family.
At this time we figured we should locate a male Anatolian to call our own. After many phone calls and e-mails we decided on a male pup from a litter owned by Chris and Jill Maxwell in Northern California. So off we drive to California to pick up our boy Alec.
Alec is who inspired me to start showing Anatolians. He has such a bubbly personality and he loves going places with us. We had great fun together and met some pretty wonderful people going to some of the AKC shows in Arkansas, Oklahoma, Missouri, Wisconsin, New Mexico, Texas and California. Alec won BEST SENIOR PUPPY at the ASDCA 2005 National Specialty in California. And it was so much fun when Alec would win!
Then in 2006 we decided to breed Sirin realizing that we did not want to loose that wonderful line of guardian behavior. Cheyenne was 10 then and spayed. After much research we bred her to CH Night Watch's King Kadir, "Luke", owned by Sheryle Hart in Tennessee. We were blessed with a beautiful litter and kept 2 females, Melek and Dilara. They have just been charmers ever since they were old enough to see and crawl around.
So now we have 4 female Anatolians and 1 male, living together within our dairy goat herd and I'm meeting more Anatolian owners and lovers. I then begin to show Melek and Dilara along with Alec.
Melek finishes her Championship at eighteen months shown in Bred-by, with five 3 point majors received in 3 weekends of showing in Missouri and Oklahoma. That was way fun! Melek also won BEST WORKING BITCH at the ASDCA 2007 National Specialty in Grey Summit, Missouri.
To be continued....
