New CHAMPION! WB/BOB over a Special

Announcing “Hope” – New Champion (pending official AKC approval)
CH Queen of Hearts JLS At Last I See The Lights CGC TKN STR
Below is her “Wow!” professional photo from Warren Cook of Cook Photography.
Show dog people and preservation-breeders understand the immense amount of luck, effort, finances, time, energy, and coordination involved in breeding, raising, training, traveling, and showing to achieve an AKC conformation title. It does take a village!
If you’ll allow me grace to express at length as my gratitude cup is overflowing…
Thank you to Tanya Sue Tresino for the friendship and encouragement and the professional handling of our pups from Day 1.
Thank you to Judge Debra Thornton for Hope’s BOB placement on 6/29/25 and kind words about both Hope and Mystique.
Big hugs and Thank you to my co-owner, Connie Erickson, for your friendship and letting me take your/our girl when and wherever the show schedule took us.
Loving Thank you to Julia Soukup for your friendship, all the mentoring, and co breeding with me for this OD x Ruby litter.
A genuine Thank you to OD’s dads, Daniel Brumfield and Kevin Smith, for your good dog’s genetics and your kind support and friendship.
Heartfelt Thanks to my best friends Roy and Cynthia Pflughoeft for the ever uplifting support and frienship over the years of our parallel journeys.
And more of the village: Thank you to the members of Alaska Kennel Club for a great show. Thanks to my friends Joan Faas & Kathy Kochendorfer, and my club – and many mentors (esp Patty, Meg, Crystal, Shari) at Puget Sound Dalmatian Club, Dr. Clinton and Meredith Christine Mapes, and Blaise and Linday and Christy J (also my first conformation coach) & Dr. Elton at Midnight Sun Animal Hospital. Thank you to my friends, Patrick Jones, Sharon & Steve Nielsen, and much gratitude to Dave and Sandy Slattum, and friends Selby Simpson-McGrath and Robin Mendez and Jill Lisenbee, Cortney Brooke, and Crystal Beam for caring and helping at DCA.
And Thank you and love to my Partner, Jonathan Butzke, who wasn’t a “dog person” to start with but came along on my career hobby journey. He summed it up yesterday when he called to see how the show was going-“Hope! BOB?! New Champion?! Yeah! Thats why we worked so hard to save that pup!”
This is the OD x Ruby pup born 6th and in extreme distress. It took a lot to revive her, but we persisted and so did she…Hope…My first bred-by champion