Page 23 - ShowSight Presents - The Lagotto Romagnolo
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                  him to ‘find it.” All of the work was done in a “pure positive” manner. Luca explained that the dog had much more practice on black truffle and wanted him to make sure that he knew that he was looking for the scent of white truf- fle on this day. Though he was a young green dog, Origano went out and found his two truffles within the timeframe. Watching him weave his way in and out of the branches and cover, you can see why the dog must be both agile and strong in order to work effectively, and to not be too big to get through tough tight spots.
Watching the second dog, Lucky we were prepared for a stellar perfor- mance....as he found one truffle during his pre run “poop” and another while in the holding area. But then his young age and excitement got the better of him and he got some zoomies in the forest, we stepped way back to give him the space to collect himself, but it was not to be on this day. He hadn’t yet gained that focus that Sr. Morara had told us was an important characteristic for a truffle dog.
One of our final acts was to go over the Je handout with Sr. Morsiani, and leave him with the newly articulated
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standard, and ask for his blessing or his criticism.
And soon our 10 day odyssey was at an end. And yet, on our way to Bologna we made one more stop to the famous di Casa Cleo Kennel of Luciano Landi. Sr. Landi is another of the early found- ers of the breed. The loss of his wife almost caused him to stop breeding in the 1990s but other breeders, notably Antonio Morsiani, encouraged him to keep on—that the breed needed him. Just this year, one of his young dogs was Jr. Best of Breed at the World Dog Show so his legacy will continue on even after he retires. With the help of Sr. Grandi who came to translate, we put dogs on the table to go over, and he communicated to us that a dog that was too soft, was not one that he wanted in a breeding program. The walls lined with famous pictures of the past, we were able to put names to pictures we had all seen but never known the iden- tity of the dogs! It was a perfect end to our trip, to be able to do an impromptu “hands on” discerning why one dog was better than another. However, Sr. Landi is constantly tweaking his breeding program and still bringing in new dogs, some with only one or two
generation pedigrees. And unfortunate- ly, for us, these dogs if imported could not be shown.
As you might imagine, getting the chance to see the dogs in action for the activity for which they were bred, getting to speak to the leading Italian breeders was the chance of a lifetime. The sheer number of quality dogs that we saw and got to put hands on was something that could only have been achieved during this special anniver- sary show. We hope that it will make us better at articulating to American judges why certain parts of the stan- dard carry the emphasis they do, how the distinct Lagotto form is designed to carry out the function of the world’s foremost truffle hunter. Stay tuned for our new standard in the coming year.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Adrienne Perry is the Judges Edu- cation Coordinator for the Lagotto Romagnolo Club of America. She has served six terms on the board, includ- ing two as president. She has served on both Breed Standard committees, chairing the first and working hard on the second. She is an AKC provisional judge for Lagotto Romagnolo. After 25 years of breeding and exhibiting rottweilers in sports from tracking, obedience to conformation, she was looking for a fun new and smaller breed that still had the ability to par- ticipate in a variety of activities. Her first Lagotto, imported in 2009 from Switzerland is FCI Int’l Ch, Swiss, Ger- man, Puerto Rican and AKC GCH Ter- zo Kleo of Golden Comfort CM2 UD TD RE NA, and he is the LRCA’s first Versatility Champion.
 
























































































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