Rheingold Vizslas

Szilva was the beautiful daughter of our first vizsla, Llona Louie v Shlyen-Miller (1981-1997) and the mother of Dvor (see below).  We kept two vizsla from "Lulu's" breeding, Szilva and her brother, Bertalan Albert Moshe JH, "Bertle."  The two of them and Steve starred as a winning brace for several years. Szilva's sister, Poppy, went to our close friends and neighbors, Henry and Willa Anderson in San Francisco.  As with Szilva, Poppy was bred to - CH Rotkopf's Russet Leather Rival, one year later, produced a beautiful litter from which Annuska came, who produced a lovely litter and out of that breeding came Russet Leather Red Wolf, winner of the 1997 VCA National Show Best in Sweeptstakes.

Dvor is gone, but he will never be forgotten. He is the foundation for our present dogs and lives on in his children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren who are featured on the pages of this website!

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        Dvor comes from the only litter of Szilva, a litter of four.  When Szilva whelped, her brother, Bert, came into the room, took one look at what was going on with his precious sister and her babies positioned on her for feeding, turned around, ran from the room and didn't come back for several weeks!  Later, Bert and Dvor became best buddies!

Dvor earned well over 200 best of breed ribbons (defeating well over 1500 vizslas along the way in his career), over 60 group placements, including 15 at the Group One level, back to back Group One wins and many weekends during his career where he was undefeated within the breed and high placing within the Group.  He won 5 Specialty Shows, was awarded the Judge’s Award of Merit numerous times at Specialty Shows as runner up breed winner, including 2 times at the annual Nationals Vizsla Club show.  Consistently, Dvor was in the final cut of dogs for Best of Breed.

Sonny and her sister, Ziggy, below, are daughters of Dvor from the same litter.  At almost three years of age, Sonny's family was forced to move to Arizona and asked us to take Sonny because they couldn't bring her with them.  After a few months in her new home here with Steve and Stan, Sonny was off to dog shows and easily completed her championship with her owner/handler, Steve.  This would be the first champion that Steve would finish on his own without the help of professionals. Sonny is the reason that Debra Evalds became involved in Rheingold Vizslas; she fell in love with Sonny, but passed on taking a puppy from her litter in order to take a rescue, J.R., whom Stan and Steve were fostering. Finally, when the time was right and Sonny's daughter, Cara, whelped a litter, Debra and her husband, Paul, purchased one of those puppies, a Sonny granddaughter, Scarlett, who is so much like her grandmom in temperament and appearance!

The picture of DJ, above, was taken when he was just under two.  At that time he was finishing up his bench championship in the morning and running at field trials in the afternoon, or, on occasion, running in the field in the morning and going to bench shows in the afternoon.  He loved both.  He was ranked in the top 10 field vizslas as a young puppy/derby dog.  DJ loves the field but he is equally comfortable at home lounging about the house.  In contrast, DJ now at 12, soon to be 13 this coming April, 2010, is grand in appearance as shown below.  DJ was bred to Sonny and they produced Cara, who as mentioned above, is the dam of the Evalds' Scarlett.  DJ still hunts on our property, runs big and enjoys leading the younger dogs around the course.    

We originally picked Ziggy as the litter pick and the dam's family kept Sonny.  Steve showed Ziggy easily to many wins and handed off Ziggy for her last major to become a champion.  Later, when looking at the point count, Steve determined that he did acquire the necessary two majors and might have easily finished Ziggy himself, but did hand that honor to his professional handler, pictured above.

In 2003 Ziggy was bred to CH Dirigo Gambler's Marker.  A few of these puppies are mentioned below.  Coco was purchased by good friends in Bethlehem, PA.  When Stanley became so ill in 2004, we were forced to outplace all of the dogs at Rheingold Vizslas and Ziggy went to the owners of Coco for what was to be a temporary stay.  In collecting our dogs, several months later, it was decided that Ziggy would remain with her daughter and now both of them live the good life, along with Coco's son Scooter (who is a littermate to Pip)!  Another of Ziggy's puppies, Chloe, (see below) has produced a beautiful litter and is living the good life with her son, Duncan, out off Main Line. A third puppy, Atticus, lives in Solebury with his owners.  Atty became a Junior Hunter easily after working toward his bench championship.  Atty now lives with his son, Harvey, who promises to be as versitile and good tempered as his father.

Here are Atticus (right) and his son, Harvey (left), playing in the snow.  This is Harvey's first snow.  He's having a ball!