You may have noticed that the new Rysan web site has nearly daily updates recently. I hope the frequent updates aren't intrusive, but Facebook is the most effective mode of notification available.
So why a resurrection of the website, and why now? Well, why is because there are many people in the breed who don't know us and our breeding program and our involvement with dogs, and why now is because I happen to have the time available to tell the story.
When I was at WSSCA Nationals a few weeks ago, I realized how the composition of the breed club and the people attending the Specialty has changed. Where Rich and I were once the novices, then part of the established fancy, we are now the senior members of the club-OMG, we're the OLD TIMERS! We are the ones who remember the sons and daughters of the dogs pictured in Bill Pferd's book. For gosh sakes, we even MET Bill and Jane Pferd and visited their home and met Deckard's Pendefig and weown an AUTOGRAPHED copy of his book because we bought it from Bill at a WSSCA banquet in 1981!
We've been members of the WSSCA for over 30 years, I think. And in all that time, I've never written down the experiences we had with our dogs since the very first cocker we bought as a newly married couple. So, it was time to sit at the laptop and rustle up the memories, hunt around on the hard drives and in all the maddening places I've hidden scanned photos, digital photos, articles from the old website, and memories, oh the memories. It's like bringing back ghosts from the past. This new website is an opportunity to write about the 35+ years of living with our dogs. If I don't write about it now, then it'll never get done. It's true, there's no time like the present...
The easiest part of the website to put together was the general information about the breed, links to interesting sites to buy WSS memorabilia, our current dogs, health information, art and books about Welshies, and general puppy information. I enjoyed doing the research for those pages and they are pretty straight-forward. I hope folks use the information there. I try to update it as I find interesting things online, and I have topics I haven't brought on board yet, like rally, obedience and hunting, to encourage novice pet people to explore these options. They'll get done eventually, and I'm sure many of you are far more expert on most of those topics than I am, anyway, so I don't feel like there's alot missing because I haven't gotten to those sections yet.
The hardest part of the website to put together is the 'Dogs in Our Hearts' section. This section will be constantly added to as I find the photos of our past pets and remember the special times with all of them. I'm recalling the stories of dogs who are long gone, and I want people to know why those dogs were important to us, and that they were loved by us, and trained by us, and taught us far more than we ever taught them. It has been hard because tears roll down my face when I look at the photos, when I remember the funny times, the wins, the disappointments, the puppies we bought, the litters we raised, the dogs we kept who are gone except in my heart.
If the new Rysan Welsh Springers website is more than a collection of photos to you, and helps you get to know us, makes you see the hard work and commitment and love that we've put into the sport of dogs and our chosen breed, then it has succeeded beyond my wildest dreams.
So why a resurrection of the website, and why now? Well, why is because there are many people in the breed who don't know us and our breeding program and our involvement with dogs, and why now is because I happen to have the time available to tell the story.
When I was at WSSCA Nationals a few weeks ago, I realized how the composition of the breed club and the people attending the Specialty has changed. Where Rich and I were once the novices, then part of the established fancy, we are now the senior members of the club-OMG, we're the OLD TIMERS! We are the ones who remember the sons and daughters of the dogs pictured in Bill Pferd's book. For gosh sakes, we even MET Bill and Jane Pferd and visited their home and met Deckard's Pendefig and weown an AUTOGRAPHED copy of his book because we bought it from Bill at a WSSCA banquet in 1981!
We've been members of the WSSCA for over 30 years, I think. And in all that time, I've never written down the experiences we had with our dogs since the very first cocker we bought as a newly married couple. So, it was time to sit at the laptop and rustle up the memories, hunt around on the hard drives and in all the maddening places I've hidden scanned photos, digital photos, articles from the old website, and memories, oh the memories. It's like bringing back ghosts from the past. This new website is an opportunity to write about the 35+ years of living with our dogs. If I don't write about it now, then it'll never get done. It's true, there's no time like the present...
The easiest part of the website to put together was the general information about the breed, links to interesting sites to buy WSS memorabilia, our current dogs, health information, art and books about Welshies, and general puppy information. I enjoyed doing the research for those pages and they are pretty straight-forward. I hope folks use the information there. I try to update it as I find interesting things online, and I have topics I haven't brought on board yet, like rally, obedience and hunting, to encourage novice pet people to explore these options. They'll get done eventually, and I'm sure many of you are far more expert on most of those topics than I am, anyway, so I don't feel like there's alot missing because I haven't gotten to those sections yet.
The hardest part of the website to put together is the 'Dogs in Our Hearts' section. This section will be constantly added to as I find the photos of our past pets and remember the special times with all of them. I'm recalling the stories of dogs who are long gone, and I want people to know why those dogs were important to us, and that they were loved by us, and trained by us, and taught us far more than we ever taught them. It has been hard because tears roll down my face when I look at the photos, when I remember the funny times, the wins, the disappointments, the puppies we bought, the litters we raised, the dogs we kept who are gone except in my heart.
If the new Rysan Welsh Springers website is more than a collection of photos to you, and helps you get to know us, makes you see the hard work and commitment and love that we've put into the sport of dogs and our chosen breed, then it has succeeded beyond my wildest dreams.
RSS Feed