2003 was a year of genetic testing for Leanne because she has turned 2 years old in the end of January. I submitted her X-rays of hips and elbows to OFA, sent skin samples to the dermapathologist in Washington state. I took her to one of the Veterinary Ophthalmologists in Tokyo to have her eye checked. I also submitted her blood to Dr. W. Jean Dodd's Hemopet. (This is 2nd time. I've already submitted her blood once last September.) I am not much worried about her health (genetic) problems though. I'm happy Leanne's condition is very good and all the results came back as nonrmal.

Sending skin or blood samples to USA takes time and money. I need to prepare some papers and go to the quarantine office with them to get export qurantine certificate in order to send raw materials. The certificate is free to obtain but to send the samples, the only method available is using FedEX. It is expensive. I helped my friends submit their Toy Poodles' blood samples to OptiGen for prcd-PRA test too.
I hope someday near future, PRA and SA gene test for SPs will be available.

I wrote a bit about 'Poodle Boom' in Japan in Poodle Moments '01. Toy Poodles in Red, Apricot or Brown colors have become very popular in these years. The price for Toy Poodle puppies in these colors are very expensive. Especially the pups in Brown and if they are advertised as 'Tea-Cup,' you never can believe its price. How can somebody pay over $5,000 for a just one Brown colored tiny Toy Poodle pup? It is crazy. So many pet shop breeders or backyard breeders advertise 'Tea-Cups' or 'Tiny Red (or Apricot).' What really disgusted me is that there are so many Poodle puppies sold on the internet auction site too. Something is really crazy, really wrong - I just can't believe the prices of those pups are going up and up in a few days. Looking into each photos, I don't think those high prices and the quality of each pups are equal.

We have had this kind of crazy 'boom' repeatedly. 15 years ago, it happened on Siberian Huskies. 10 years ago, it was Golden Retrievers. A few years ago, it was Miniature Duchshunds. And now, it is Chihuahuas and Poodles.

Not only Toys but also colored (Red or Apricot) Standards are getting popular in these years. The registry number of SPs have been increasing. The number had been usually under 200/year or so, but in 2002, it was over 300. The number itself looks small comparing it to UK or AKC registry, but this is big in Japan when I think of the situation around SPs here in these 10 years. When I found Standard pups appeared on the internet auction site, I had to sigh. Some breeders breed their bitches from their first heat (at the age of one or so) and breed them repeatedly - at every heat, every six months, evey year without a halt. At the age of 3 years and a half, one bitch is going to experience her 5th birth! I don't know what to say and I really hate to see things like this. I hoped the breed boom wouldn't happen on Poodles, especially on SPs. It is really hard to see my beloved breed becoming just an item for money. Dogs are not to blame, but those ill minded breeders.

When I see my sweet girls sleeping in peace, I hope every Poodle has a good home and enjoys a good life.

I put a 'Kagami-Mochi' snood on Nanako. Kagami-Mochi is one of the typical New Year decorations, which is a set of two round, flat rise cakes. We pile them up and on their top, we put a 'mikan', a kind of tangerine. It is displayed through New Year holidays and after the holiday season is over, we break them and eat them all. The illustration on the above left is Kagami-Mochi. It seems it has some religious meaning, but I really don't know much about it.

When I tried to take photos of my girls with these snoods, I couldn't help laughing. They looked real funny and silly - monkey snood suited Leanne too well and Nanako just froze there. She couldn't move at all. I was laughing so much that I couldn't press my camera's shutter release botton for a while. (You can see another 'Monkey Leanne on the Poodle Moments '02 photo album.) They are so cute, lovely and funny.