November 1st, 2009, and Cinammon is large with a litter sired by Blue. Cinammon was whelped in 2004 by Eclipse, in turn sired by J. Richter's Rebel Dawg and Aden's Joli. The great-grandsires on her side are Show Champion King's Pretty Boy, and Capt. Black's Snickers, who was a multiple ribbon winner. Red Dog was sired by Ingram's Rojo Vea. His grandsires were Deep South's Rusty and Sir Rock's Beaux. Blue (ie, Panhead's #7) was whelped in 2001 by Panhead's M.J.Lucky (Mary Jane), sired by Sir Rock's Beaux, who thus appears on one side of the bloodline as great-grandsire, and on the other as grandsire of the current litter. This bit of line breeding properly reflects the high esteem accorded Beaux, who was a mostly black bobtail with double glass eyes, exceptionally intelligent and physically gifted. Beaux and his dam, Dixie Doo, were two of the original Louisiana dogs brought to Florida by Stephanie Cox when she founded Panhead kennel in the early 1990's. Beaux'x grand-sires were Delta's Bob and Rockin 4 Bob, another early Panhead bobtail. The other granddam is Panhead's Rosebud, who is lying outside in the fall sunshine, as befits her extremely advanced age.

We had our first litter since January on September 19th, eleven Louisiana Catahoula Leopard dogs, whelped by Panhead's Busch, and sired by Panhead's Jr. Gong. There were 7 females, quite the reverse of our recent litters which have been heavy on males. It is October 1st as I write this, and we have five females and two males still available. These guys will be old enough for new homes on November 14th. I haven't gotten back here to the Dog Blog lately, some of you are probably aware of our new monthly newsletter, which has been coming out for a couple of months now and has eaten up a lot of my limited computer time as I try to figure out the software and so forth. If you would like to see how it is coming, there is a gizmo on the Home and Available Puppy pages that lets you put yourself on the mailing list. Anyway, now that the puppies are on the ground, people have been asking me about the bloodline. Having fifteen dogs and all, I can't keep all the details straight in my aging mind, so I just went through a bunch of the paperwork and this is what I come up with. Figured I can set it down here and refer people to it. Starting with Busch, her dam was Eclipse. Running up that side of the pedigree, we find John Richter's Rebel Dawg, Aden's Joli, Captain Black's Snickers, who was very well known around these parts, winner of many ribbons and shows, as well as Show Champion Pretty Boy, owned by Aubrey Aden, Rene's Ms. Molly and David Smith's Hailey Tacky. Busch's sire, Panhead's Doughboy, was sired by Ingram's Rojo Vea, who as it happens was also the grandsire of litter sire Panhead's Jr. Gong. Thus he is both grandsire and great- grandsire of the new litter. Dam Busch was sired by T-Grit, who in turn hailed from Louisiana hog dogs owned by Vernie Ray Cruse, Mac's Kennel and J. Mcdermott. Panhead's Jr. Gong, who is nothing short of magnificent, is a large, naturally bob-tailed blue leopard sired by C&S's Bongo, who is smaller, mostly black and the best all-around dog I have. Bongo was sired by Capt. Black's T-Bone, ace hog dog, who came from Aden's Capt. Hank and Elsie Girl, owned by David and Kathy Smith. Junior's dam was Panhead's Cayenne, a bob-tailed, double-glass eyed red leopard, who was sired by Panhead's #7, known to his friends as Blue and still living here, and whelped by Dixie Blue, sister of Eclipse and likewise granddaughter of Capt. Blacks Snickers. Further back on that side we find Sir Rock's Beaux, owned by Panhead founder Stephanie Cox, Panhead's M.J.Lucky ("Mary Jane"), Delta's Bob, Sandhills Dixie Doo, Rockin 4 Bob, an early Panhead star, and, amazingly, litter great, great, great grandmother Rosebud, who in her fourteenth year is still enjoying her retirement here at the ranch. I started the newsletter thing with the idea of giving people an idea of how much time it takes to put together litter like the one just had by Busch and Junior. But considering the family tree detailed above, I realize we are just building on the work of many men and women, thoughout the years and across much of the south, who have done so much before us. We are very proud of the new litter, and even more proud to be associated with this fine tradition and these great dogs.

Mary Jane (Panhead's M.J.Lucky)turned ten in July, so perhaps I should not have been too surprised when she passed suddenly about a week ago. Apparrently, and hopefully, she went quiety, I found her in one of her holes, curled up as if asleep. The day before she had been energetically running Doughboy (her long time roomate) away from her food dish, seemingly no problem. Mary Jane was the quintessential alpha female (we have our share of those), who raised her leg when she whizzed and would not tolerate another female in her cage. It took a big strong male to hold his own sharing her space, and protecting his own dog food! Mary Jane loved to eat and didn't mind eating everybody's if she got the chance. She was a red leopard with the natural bob- tail, and looking over her pedigree brings back memories of a lot of great dogs we have dealt with over the last fifteen years. Her two grandsires were Sir Rock's Beaux and T-Grit, two Louisiana born curs Stephanie brought to Florida when she started Panhead Catahoulas, as was one of the grand-dams, Baby Blue, known to us as Fanny, probably because she was quite adept at showing her butt. The other grand-dam was Molly, owned by a local gentleman we became acquainted with. Molly was a sweetheart, a beautifully marked red leopard. Her sire was Rockin 4 Bob, who was a giant white trimmed blue leopard bobtail with double glass, who once chased down and ate a wild rabbit, amazing for a dog his size. Her mama was Panhead's Rose Bud, who amazingly is still living here with us, albeit very quietly, she must be about fourteen by now. Rosebud is probably the toughest Catahoula I have ever known, she was run over by a car, bitten by at least one snake, and went on to have a large litter after the car incident, doing an incredible job with a very large litter, walking funny from a leg that never healed right. Mary Jane took in all the grit from that line, and was incredibly loving toward us. She had a good life, and in 2001 caught lightning in a bottle when she had Blue, Tabasco and Li'l Bob all in the same litter. Those three bobtail males carried us a long way. Bob preceded her in death earlier this year, Blue has retired to a small pen outside the kitchen door as he has a bum knee which doesn't tolerate a lot of running. Tabasco rules the front porch, still has stud appointments, and sired a bodacious litter from Florida in January. You may have noticed a new wrinkle on the website, inviting you to sign up for our newsletter. The second one is coming out tommorrow, so you havn't missed much yet. Once a month I will note whatever is going on at the kennel, post a couple of pictures, feature one of the dogs and touch on any related area of interest that catches my eye. I hope you will check it out.

We spend our days "trapped" betweem the past and the future. I personally am big on living in the moment, preferring to devote my attention and energies to the current moment, as oppossed to dwelling on the past or yearning for the future. That said, of course, we all spend a fair amount of time thinking of the past and looking to the future. I have had a couple of occassions of late to reflect on the past of Panhead Catahoulas, but at the moment I am all about the future, as this Saturday we will be moving Busch and Junior in together for the duration, in hopes of a litter this fall or winter. We are very excited about both these dogs, I will get into more bloodline details and so forth in a future post, but this truly represents a step into the future for us, as these are both young dogs making their first attempt at continuing the bloodline. The past has presented itself for reflection in a couple of ways of late, first with the death of Panhead's Li'l Bob in May. Bob has been the de facto face of Panhead kennel for some years, if you do a Google image search for Louisiana Catahoula Leopard dog, his handsome form appears on the first page. He is the white trimmed, double glass eyed blue leopard with shoulders from hell and a politically incorrect natural bobtail. Bob was born in 2001, sired by Sir Rock's Beaux (Sir Rock being the original foundation stud Stephanie started her kennel with back in Louisiana) and whelped by Mary Jane, who in turn was sired by the original Panhead Bob, Panhead's Rockin4Bob, who was a giant as Catahoulas go. People often asked me why we called him "little Bob), because there was nothing small about him, except in comparison to Grandsire Bob and Sir Rock his ownself, who approached 100 pounds. Beaux went directly back to two Louisiana dogs, Delta's Bob and Sandhill's Dixie Doo, mildly ironic because the section of the Florida panhandle where we live is known as the sand hills. Anyway, Bob lived a good life, did us proud, threw some great puppies and I miss him. It was a very great pleasure recently to get a phone call from one of Stephanie's sisters, who brought a puppy home after Stephie's death in 1998, which is 11 now and still going strong, a beloved family member. Her son is now set on a male, which again relates to the proposed Busch/Junior alliance. So the past folds into the present, or the future, or something like that. I know a lot of folks are going through hard times these days, and we have been doing some tough sledding ourselves of late, but I believe, like the old Sam Cooke song, "that a change is gonna come." Or not. I don't have any inside information, but I have vast faith in the power of a positive outlook. Good Lord willing, we will all get through this just fine, enjoying the company of some great dogs.

The last two of the winter's puppies (2 litters, 15, if I do say so myself, pretty damn exceptional puppies, found their new home yesterday, off to central Florida to hunt hogs. The match-ups of Tabasco and Florida and Bongo and Boo both came out very well, Peggy did a wonderful job with the litters and looks forward to a break, as our next breeding is scheduled for late summer/early fall, involving we hope Panhead's Jr. Gong ("Junior") and Panhead's Busch. It is a bit bittersweet, not having puppies around, but central as the Catahoulas are to our lives, we do have other projects to attend to, the pigs, chickens, the garden, a miniscule social life, a weekend in Branson Missouri with my mother the last of this month, and oh yeah, that damned job which keeps eating into my free time, slowing construction of the new hog pen and training complex for starting dogs, as well as various fence and shed-building projects that struggle to get to the top of the to-do list. They arrested a disturbed woman down the road from us last month, had 89 Chihuahuas stacked up in cages in her trailer. The stench was so bad, the people who came to take her dogs away were gagging, she said she didn't smell it. So much nitrogen in the air it was a health hazard for her and the dogs. When I tell people I breed dogs, I sometimes get the look, running a puppy mill, eh? How can you breed dogs when so many die in shelters? We do a fair amount of dog rescue ourselves in our "spare" time, and I love every one of our 17 remaining Catahoulas on an individual basis, who live, by the way,in large fenced-in enclosures which average out about 90 by 100 feet, 9000 square feet with typically a couple of dogs each housed. The puppy money from the last fifteen years has essentially gone into chain link fence, dog food, vaccinations and so forth. We are more about dogs than money, and if you walk the pens with me and note the dogs reaction to me, you can see each dogs loves me back, and each is convinced they are the most important dog we have. When you have pick of the litter for years like we do, every dog is an alpha dog in it's own mind, and that goes double when dealing with Catahoulas. So we look forward to a bit of a break, but can't help thinking about the next litter, and even the one after that. Carrie from Kentucky has reserved the pick female from the next litter, pick male is still up for grabs as of mid-May when I write this. Junior and Busch are featured on the home-page of this website. We are holding the line on price at $300 per puppy, $500 for a pair, which if you shop around and compare bloodlines, is quite competitive. There are people who get twice as much or more for their Catahoulas, I am unconvinced their dogs are twice as good as mine. I have said for years, and believe it, you can spend a lot more money for your Catahoula, but you will be hard pressed to find more dog for your money!