Marta's second and last litter was born 10 years ago today. Father was Swedish import SUvCH NUvCH SvCH FC Hound’s Kashmir.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!!!!!

This good photo of Marta at 13 years was posted on Facebook by Jennifer Fry.  Marta, with the ever-present blue oral appendage, was a very special dog in her own right. She was also mother of the wonderful N and O litters. Nexus and Owl are the two who stayed with me. They regularly remind me of Marta aka "Smart Mart."

Thank you for the photo, Jennifer!

This picture is to honor a dog that I did not own, and seldom saw, but who meant so much to me. This is DC Grampus von Harbor Park in the 1980s. I have some other photos but this one, I think, shows something of his enormous dignity and strength of DACHSHUND character. 

Bred by Barbara Axel and owned by Joseph & Olga Heil, his sire was CAN CH Villanol's Redson von Piercen and his mother CH Camp Guthrie's Devil's Sprite CDX TT. Sprite was from a multi-champion litter sired by CH Han-Jo's Flaming Flare L. 

I'd received a letter from Karla Martin (now Deithorn) after one of the first Long Island field trials. I believe it was a match trial. Karla told me of a Champion standard long male with a lot of drive and a lot of voice. Highly intrigued, I spoke of this with a beagler friend, Preston Current while we were out running dogs one day. Preston said, I'll tell what I'd do. I'd go look at this dog and if you like him, breed your bitch to him. Keep the best female in the litter and breed her back to him. Preston knew I needed and wanted trail voice (spurlaut). It was an exceedingly rare commodity and finding it in an excellent dog that I could use had been very difficult. An understatement!

Eventually, I did just what Preston advised. In 1984, I traveled from DCA in eastern Pennsylvania to see the dog on Long Island. In 1986, I had a litter by him. In 1990, I went to Hilton Head, South Carolina where he was then living and bred DC Grissel v Dorndorf L CDX TD VC to him. The subsequent litter produced FC Ilsa v Dorndorf L. Ilsa was Absolute Winner 15 times and the first dachshund to defeat 1000 Field Champions. More importantly, Ilsa produced Marta. 

Can we ever really repay the dogs and dog people who have paved our way? It is something of a rhetorical question. Outside of doing the very best we can do by what they have given us, the answer is no.

Marta's first litter was due to be whelped on Tuesday, March 5, 2002. Marta herself was born in the last Dorndorf litter 3.5 years previously and I was so looking forward to her puppies. The father of the litter was my CH Walmar's Luke v Dorndorf. Luke was not my first choice of stud dogs. In fact, over the past two years, I'd sought out five other dogs, all with other owners, as "first" choices for Marta's first litter. One by one, for reasons of complete infertility, minimal fertility, sickness, and death, five males became unavailable. I nearly began to believe that Marta should not have a litter!

Rather reluctantly, actually, I decided to use Luke. Not because he was not a good dog himself or because I didn't think he could produce well. In fact, Luke had already sired two litters for others and I'd seen and liked the puppies. I simply had doubts that Luke was the best choice for Marta. Central to my thinking was that Luke ran mute on game. I did not want to lose the great trailing voice that Marta had.

I had already set up the whelping box in the little mud room off the kitchen and introduced Marta to it. Turns out that was a good thing.

Saturday morning, March 2, 2002, Marta was acting perfectly normal and I decided to spend some time running errands. I was gone from home about five hours. (Errand running at my house generally includes at least two hours driving, one hour each way.) When I returned through my front door carrying shopping bags, I heard the unmistakable sounds of little puppy noises coming from the direction of the kitchen. I literally dropped the bags where I stood. I hurried into the kitchen. There was Marta, in the whelping box in the mud room, calmly attentive to four little red heads bobbing at her breasts. I spoke her name, she looked briefly up at me, then back down at her puppies. Well, I thought. Who needs me. Nobody here, that's for sure. Marta had everything and everybody well under control.

When Marta had finished, she was mom to seven shiny, healthy, and hungry pups. There were six reds, one black/tan, four males, and three females. Marta raised them all as superbly as she had whelped them. They turned out to be a wonderful - and voicing - crew, these puppies from Luke and Marta.

Happy 11th Birthday to:
Narco and Nathan, both in Dayton, Ohio
Nexus who stayed with me
Nick in Sweden
Nadja in Mississippi
Natasha in Iowa
and Nutmeg in Illinois!

Marta 11 years ago today with the first of her two litters

Some of you know that Marta has been living with Jennifer Fry in Columbus, Ohio since April 2011. In July 2012, two days after she turned 14, Marta had surgery to remove her spleen that had a large mass . Pathology proved it to be hemangiosarcoma.

Marta did very well for months after recuperation. She continued to dance around Jennifer's kitchen at meal time, obsess over her ball, remain on critter alert in Jennifer's backyard, keep her 'boyfriend' Griffin company, and keep her granddaughter Gretel in line.

Unfortunately, in December a lump came up on the back of her neck and biopsy confirmed malignancy. Since then, Marta has had a number of good days and, lately, some not so good.  Through them all, day in and day out, Jennifer has been giving her the best possible care, with the assistance of her friend and talented veterinarian Dr. Angie Callahan.

Yesterday, Christian Stock, who owns Marta's granddaughter Pie, took the time and made the effort to get some photos of Marta. Here is one example, and it is excellent. I love this picture! Thank you, Christian!

And heartfelt thank yous to Jennifer and Dr. Callahan for taking such wonderful care of Smart Mart. I know, Jennifer, that you love her, and Marta knows it, too.

Sage, the third and final female in the Dorndorf S litter was spayed yesterday. Her owner just did not want to have puppies - and that was known when she acquired Sage.

Nevertheless, knowing that Sage is spayed has not been an easy pill to swallow.

It is the end of eight continuous generations of Dorndorf bitches, or the "bottom line" on all of our pedigrees.

Our very first bitch, CH Dorndorf's Dana v Bricken, was obtained at nine months of age from a kennel in Texas in 1972.

• Dana was the mother of

1. 1973 CH Dorndorf's Andrea L (Winners Bitch at DCA in 1974)

• Angel was the mother of

2. 1981 CH Dorndorf's Ericka L CD TT

• Ericka was the mother of

3. 1983 Felda v Dorndorf L CD TD TT

• Felda was the mother of

4. 1986 DC Grissel v Dorndorf L CDX TD VC

• Grissel was the mother of

5. 1990 ABS15 FC Ilsa v Dorndorf L

• Ilsa was the mother of

6. 1998 ABS6 FC Marta v Dorndorf L JE LH

• Marta is the mother of

7. 2002 DC Nadja v Dorndorf L SE CG

• Nadja is the mother of

8. 2009 Sonic, Sage, and Seiko v Dorndorf

Nadja, owned by Stan and Tina Knoll, produced three litters numbering 1, 2, 3 puppies, all females. Of these six offspring, one is dead and four are spayed. The one remaining intact Nadja daughter is Tina Knoll's ABS3 FC Bob's Babe von Knobydox. On the distaff side, then, though not a Dorndorf bitch, it will be up to Babe to carry on. She was bred to Owl in May this year but did not become pregnant. Our plan is to try again in the spring. Wish us luck!

One thing that I have learned from all this is that it is ultimately unwise for a breeder to put all of her eggs in one basket. Yes, it worked just fine for me to have only one producing female at a time for 29 years (!) but...

Here's to Owl x Babe puppies in the spring.

How fast things can change. Their vacation cut short (see previous post), Marta has a splenectomy to remove a large tumor on her spleen that was diagnosed yesterday. We are hoping that the pathology report will show the tumor to be benign.

Happy 14th Birthday to FC Marta v Dorndorf L JE LH! Marta, mother of the N and O litters and a young 14, has been living with Jennifer Fry in Columbus since April, 2011. They are on vacation in Michigan today where Marta swam in Lake Superior and is enjoying some birthday cake!