Paragon Cairns
My husband, Vern, and I began our venture into showing dogs in 1989 with our first little cairn name Diamond in the Ruff, "Beans". She was not particularly fond of the show ring, but she did give us our first home bred champion Traveler in the Ruff, "Traveler". We were so proud of our little guy.
We have met some very nice people in our travels, but became particularly fond of our friends in Colorado. They encouraged us to purchase a more tightly line bred dog. They very nicely explained "Traveler" was a good little starter dog, but nothing we would want to breed because of the many different blood lines in his pedigree (not bad lines), just too many.
That was my first lesson in genotype (genetics) and phenotype (appearance) in the dog world. Their exact words were "buy the best little bitch you can get your hands on and breed it to the very best male you can".
We were fortunate enough to purchase a finished champion from Pat DeNeui named Ch. Spring Valle Bann-Wen, "Darby" and we bred her to Lydia Hutchinson's top winning dog, BIS/BISS Ch. Caledonian Berry of Wolfpit, "Groucho". No puppies-very disappointing. Next plan was to purchase a male. We purchased a "Groucho" son, we named him Caledonian Paragon O'Wolfpit, "Oliver". He pretty much decided he would show and finish his championship himself and resisted my feeble attempts to help him. "Oliver" was an absolute delight. With "Oliver" and "Darby" we were able to establish a sound basis for what we have today.
Our dogs are a delight to live with and an absolute pleasure to show. We have been able to travel the country and establish friendships with folks we would never have known without our little four legged friends.
We continue to live in LeMars, a small town in the northwest corner of Iowa. I am a retired registered nurse. My husband does energy auditing for homeowners. We have two daughters, both grown, and three granddaughters that are as cute as they come, so life is good.
Vern and Mary Fedders