Tag Archives: california

akc, beagle, puppy, woodinville

An open letter to the fancy about Tex

Last October, Chelsea and I were given the opportunity to send our young special, Tex, with longtime handlers Mike and Karen Kurtzner to begin a campaign in pursuit of letting him live up to his full potential.

In January, Tex and Mike took their first steps into the ring together and were awarded Best of Variety and a group placement that very weekend! In the months that passed, Tex quickly amassed some great BOV and Group placement wins, making him the #1 fifteen inch beagle in the nation for January and February.

Much to our delight, we also had the honor of exhibiting at this year’s Westminster Kennel Club dog show, to which Tex continued to make more dreams come true – winning Best of Opposite Sex at his very first Westminster.

Campaigning a dog is an incredible privilege and responsibility. It is something we feel incredibly blessed and grateful to experience and, when you have a dog you believe in as much as we do, you have to give them the opportunity to shine.

Campaigning a dog also comes with considerable costs – time, energy, travel, personal life and financial demands. While we had hoped to make the budget stretch until December, it has become obvious that this is not achievable for us at this time.

To this end, Mike, Karen, Chelsea and I talked openly and made the mutual decision that Tex would go to Westminster and then head back to the West Coast to live with me again. While we all felt sad, we also all felt this was the best decision given the parameters we had to work in.

Tex has touched down in California after a little stop with me in Seattle, and is doing great. Mike and Karen took incredible care of him, and he is in top condition, and will be shown by Chelsea as I can.

We are so incredibly proud of all that Tex has accomplished is such a short amount of time. All that would not have been possible without the hard work, dedication, sacrifice, and years of experience that Mike and Karen have poured into our dog. We are so blessed, proud of, and incredibly grateful for them.

… Onto the next chapter! 🌟

akc, beagle, cavalier king charles, ckcs, puppy

Tex gets BOV each day and Group 2s in Columbiana

Tex and Mike had a wonderful weekend – they won three hound group 2nd!

This boy is on a roll… going 15 inch Best of Variety all four days at Columbiana, AL and Hound Group 2 three of the four days! At just 2.5 years old, we are so delighted.

Thank you to judges Mrs Pamela Peat, Mrs Joanne Buehler, Mrs Molly Martin for these wins and for Mike and Karen for your hard work!

🌟GCHB Kazuri N Van-Mar Trouble In Texas 🌟

(BISS CH Ha-Penny’s Too Much Trouble x AUS CH Karakush Proof Is Inth Pudding)

Proudly bred and owned by Sarah Sweetman and Chelsea Metteer

akc, beagle, cavalier king charles, ckcs, puppy, woodinville

An open letter regarding epilepsy

An open letter to the fancy:

On behalf of Chelsea and Myself, and the wider group of breeders/exhibitors/handlers that this impacts, we would like to address some rumors that have been floating around.

I will admit that I am disappointed that people in the fancy haven’t had the respect to come and talk to us directly, but chatter behind our backs and spread half truths. This was not the first time hearing of such rumors and so we felt we needed to address it. Our breed doesn’t improve without honesty, and we are prepared to be honest with anyone who will ask. Chelsea and I pride ourselves with open honest conversations.

I would like to address the rumor that one of Tex’s littermates has epilepsy. That is not true.

We are in regular contact with all of the owners of the dogs and no one has shown any symptoms, and are healthy dogs who will be 3 this summer – of course none of us have a crystal ball to know the future, but that is true for any breeding or litter or dog we have regardless of their breed or breeding.

Furthermore, Tex has sired several litters with no issues in any puppies at this time.

What is true is that there was an “oops” unplanned litter that occurred between a brother and sister – two full littermates of Tex’s. The resulting puppies of that litter were placed with that knowledge to the new owners and none of these puppies will sire/whelp a litter. This was obviously not a planned breeding and full littermates made it very inbred which is never ideal.

Last August (2023), one of the resulting puppies from that litter, experienced one single series of mild focal petite activity, on one day.

This puppy was in an extreme heat situation with smoke from local fires present and she was under stress when they occurred. This puppy was checked by a vet, and is being monitored and has not had any kind of seizure activity since. She has not been medicated or treated for this, as it was over by the time she was seen by a vet, with no after effects.

It is unknown if the external circumstances played a part, but it would seem logical since she has not had any issues before or since that day.

We are hesitant to call this “epilepsy” as it has been an isolated event so far, with extreme and abnormal circumstances surrounding it. The vets also agree that they would not categorize it as “epilepsy” at this time for that same reason.

The other puppies, and this one, will continue to be monitored. So far they are all happy and loved members of families. We are thankful.

If anyone has any questions or concerns, please contact myself or Chelsea about it. We would prefer honest conversations rather than hearing about chatter behind our backs.

Thank you so much

Sarah

akc, beagle, ckcs, pupp, puppy, woodinville

Tex is number one in the USA

I am so very proud of Tex, piloted by none other than Mike Kurtzner.

This boy is young and learning the ropes of showing more consistently – Chelsea and I couldn’t be prouder to have Tex stand amongst other wonderful dogs in the top rankings.

There is a lot of time between now and the end of the year, but for now we will be excited that for January Tex was #1 15 inch beagle.

Tex – GCHB Kazuri N Van-Mar Trouble In Texas – bred and co-owned by Sarah Sweetman and Chelsea Metteer.

akc, beagle, puppy

Pud’s pups turn 4 weeks old

Time is starting to fly by – we are at the half way point – I am not sure how we got here already. The babies are starting to be awake a little more and play in their pen.

We are giving them more activities to interact with and it is fun to see them explore the world around them. They are using the litter boxes when it is available to them about 50% of the time – a great start to litterbox training 🙂

I took them outside for a little outside time since the weather was so favorable. They were a little unsure at first but it didn’t take them long to use their little noses to start exploring that weird green stuff and all the plants in my garden.

Enjoy the photos of them this week.

Faith

Todd

Bronte

Suni

Naomi

Bolt

Jagger

Tiina

Please note that none of these pups are available at this time. thank you for your patience and understanding.

akc, beagle, puppy

Puddin’s pups turn 2 weeks

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Pudding’s babies are all thriving and growing like little weeds. They are all opening their eyes and toddling around the whelping pen. I can’t wait for the coming days/weeks as their personalities start to emerge.

Enjoy the latest pictures of these precious little ones.

Girl 1 – Faith

Boy 1 – Todd

Girl 2 – Bronte

Girl 3 – Suni

Girl 4 – Naomi

Boy 2 – Bolt

Boy 3 – Jagger

Girl 5 – Tiina

Thank you for all the interest in these pups. At this stage no pet pups are available from this litter.

The boys
The Girls
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Puddin’ and Spencer are having beagle babies

On behalf of Leigh and Helen Gibson (from Karakush Beagles in Australia), Terri Papagni-Carter and Daniel Carter (from Danter Beagles), Chelsea Metter (from VanMar Beagles) and I, I would like to formally announce the most anticipated announcement of Van-Mar and Kazuri’s latest breeding!

Sired by the one-and-only “Spencer”, sire of the 2015 WKC Best in Show Winner and many other notable champions and producers, BISS CH Ha-Penny’s Too Much Trouble and out of our stunning Australian import, CH Karakush The Proof Is Inth Pudding “Puddin”.

This breeding was of paramount importance for many reasons, but mostly because Spencer has been gone for several years and has very limited breeding opportunities left. We are forever indebted to Terri and Dan for trusting and allowing us to use the 13 year-old frozen semen with Puddin. We can never repay you!

Secondly, our unending gratitude also goes to Le and Helen for without them there would never be Puddin. She is the sweetest, happiest beagle there was and gives us the opportunity to bring in lines to strengthen our programs tenfold.

My personal thanks and love goes to Chelsea who has been such a joy to do beagle partnership with – it has been hard to believe we only met in person a few short months ago – I feel like I have known you all my life. We are so aligned with how we feel about so many things and our goals – this process with you has been nothing short of easy – so thank you friend.

Last but not least, a big shout out to ICSB Nor Cal (Shannon and Sydney Stone) for their professional progesterone timing and TCI services (they are seriously on point!) and going above and beyond for this breeding, Willow Creek Veterinary Clinic for their amazing service and ultrasound machine.

Spencer x Puddin, due July 24th, 2021 with a confirmed 8 puppies aboard, we are thrilled to bits!!! ???

beagle, puppy

Nick picks up his majors in Brooksville Florida

One of the biggest early show clusters of the year happens in Brooksville Florida. It is 10 days of shows broken into two 5 day clusters. The week before there is a multi day show circuit in Texas and so these shows tend to pull pretty good numbers. Little did we know that with the added stress of COVID cancelling dog shows all over the USA, these shows had record numbers this year 🙂

My co-breeders/co-owners Mike and Karen Kurtzner thought it might be a fun idea to head across to the first cluster of these shows from the 14th – 18th Jan and take Nick (Kazuri’s All I Want For Christmas) and Rosie (Kazuri’s Everything’s Coming Up Roses). As luck would have it, Rosie went into season days before the shows started, and so we had to pull her from showing. No one wants an ovulating female driving all the boys wild in the ring or even ringside. 🙂 It was such a bummer, but needed to happen.

With an entry of around 35 beagles total each day, there were 4 and 5 point majors each day in the classes. Wonderful numbers. Nick went “Best Bred By” in dogs each day except for Sunday. The icing on the cake was Nick going Winners Dog and Best of Winners for a 5 point major on Saturday under judge Ms. Denny C Mounce. Then on Monday, he repeated his success by doing the same thing, gaining a 4 point major under judge Mrs. Joanne Buehler.

I am very proud of sweet Nick and thankful to Mike and Karen who drove all those miles back and forth to Florida to show our boy. Thank you to the judges who recognized our boy. We appreciate it so much.

beagle

Vixen – “feeling A Little Foxy”

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Miss Vixen was born on Christmas Eve. She was born down at my co-breeders home in Sacramento CA as we were on sabbatical in New Zealand for 7 weeks, and knew we wouldn’t be in town to whelp and raise the litter. This is the reason she bears the initial Affix “Hailstorms” as well as “Kazuri”. 🙂

Her nicknames are “Vickle Pickle”, “Pickle dust”, “Pickle juice”, “Pixie” and “Dobby”. We always laugh that when she puts her ears back she looks just like Dobby the house elf. See if you can see it in the photos 🙂

She is a fun loving little beagle – I say little as she is about 12.5inches tall. She is our fence jumper, although she cracks us up by pretending every day that she can’t jump on the couch. We joke that she likes to be a baby when she is inside and a “big girl” outside.

She is our best swimmer and avid boater – she loves to be out on the lake and jumps from Paddle Boat to Paddle Board. She has even been known to dive off one and swim to another to get to the boat or board she wants. Lake life sure does look good on her.

I took photos of her today. She is 9 weeks post whelp, but she is looking pretty good. I didnt have time to groom her, so she is hairy, but you get the idea. We are about to do a home remodel and so she is going to have a little vacation back with Mike and Karen in California, so I wanted to take some pictures before she left. <3 Love my little Dobby Pickle.