Time flies so fast. I know it does, but especially 2008 seemed to fly away too fast to me.
I wish I could ask my girls (Leanne and Janis) how they liked their 2008.
Janis

I went to PCA this April with my friends and with Janis. I really enjoyed the great Poodle show on earth! After PCA, Janis went to Minnesota with Ms. Terri Meyers and started her AKC shows from middle of June.
She finished very quickly, much quicker than I expected. She was placed Group Second once and it was so nice. I didn't expect her group placement, so it was just like a bonus. Her show photo in USA is here.

Finishing is nice but I missed Janis so bad and it was hard for me to be without her. She was expected to come into season in Spetember but her season delayed for 2 months and she had to stay in the States longer than I planned. Probably she enjoyed her life in the States so much and wouldn't want to come back to Japan? I wish she could talk and would like to hear how she enjoyed the shows and her days in Minnesota.
Anyway, she finally came into season in November and I went to the US to pick her up.
On November 14th, we went to Chicago and spent about 10 days there.
I always love to visit Chicago because it is one of my favorite and familiar cities and I have some friends there too.
However, it was very cold and chilly in the middle of November and we even had some snow flakes.

We were staying at Carol's home. Both Janis and Carol's girl were in season at the same time and we used the same young dog, George as a stud. George's owner kindly took him to Chicago and I didn't need to make another trip to Atlanta. Great thanks to Carol and George's owner!
Janis is expecting to have some puppies in January. George is very gorgeous and sweet. I am exciting to see how their puppies are.

While staying there, I enjoyed visiting The Field Museum and a nice long walk along the Lake Michigan with Janis.
New Face? - a story of Chibiko

While Janis was in the US, I had one little standard poodle bitch for a while with us.

With some volunteers, I went to a small house in Tokyo to clean the house and rescue some dogs from there. There lives a woman who was breeding many dogs but she was mentally ill and couldn't organize herself at all.
Her house was just a mess and so awful. That was not the place where a human, even a dog can live normally.
She had over 40 dogs there, including one Toy and two Standard Poodles. This is the reason why I joined the volunteer team.
Making a long story short, I worked a whole day to clip those three poodles all over to the skin (that was really a hard work because they were not groomed at all over a year) and took a young Standard bitch with me on the way back home.
Her condition was of course so bad. She is over 1 year old but very skinny and small, stands only about 20" at the shoulder. She was starving all the time and ate her two cups of kibbles in just a minute! It is not exaggerated, it is true. When I put foods in her bowl, she got nuts and started dancing around for joy and emptied her bowl so quickly just like a vacuum. I don't think even a hungry Labradore eats like that!
She always wanted more and I wanted to ask her to give some of her appetite to Leanne because Leanne always takes about four hours or even more to empy her food bowl.

Since she was so small, I called her 'Chibiko', which means a tiny girl in Janpanese.
As a typical puppy miller dog, she had never been outside of her house before and was not socialized at all. It's not easy to have a non house broken dog but her temperament is great and that really helped her.

Chibiko was with us for about two months.
Now she is adopted and living in a very happy home.
She learned a lot of things while she was with us and I learned a lot from her too.
I am so happy to know that Chibiko, now named Sasha is loved as a sweet pet and living happily. She was born in one of the puppy miller type breeders' home and later had to live in a small, dirty puppy mill house. She was to be bred to another Standard Poodle there when she'd come in season. I really hate to say this, but in this country, there are many dogs in this kind of unloved and unhappy situation, and Sasha was just one of them.
After placing Sasha to a new home, I met another rescued SP bitch who once was in the puppy mill. She was worse than Sasha but fortunately this poor SP bitch could find a new home soon. Dogs cannot choose their life. I hope every Standard Poodle puppy will not be put into such an evil circle of life.