Blast from the Past

ARBA Convention 2001 was also held at the Del Mar Fairgrounds. And the AFLRC awards banquet was at Chevy's (see you there again next week for the awards banquet!) Look carefully and you will see some familiar, though younger faces below.




At this Convention, Rob and Paula brought blue tort Fuzzy Lops for their final presentation.

The ARBA Standards committee is discussing the presentation and eventually announced that they passed.

Remember when...

...the ARBA Convention was in San Diego in 2001?


Keyes Pat was the Best of Breed American Fuzzy Lop...

...Joey Schultz judged open Fuzzies...

...Tom Keyes judged youth Fuzzies while Adam Green took comments....

...Mollie Dorrance won Best of Breed youth Fuzzy with Dreamcatcher...

...Muriel Keyes (owner/breeder of BOB) and Brian Hartzell (owner/breeder of BOSB)posed with the gorgeous awards made by Jan Savage.

To be continued.......

Brian's Rabbitry

A website has been made to help disperse most of Brian Hartzell's AFL and JW rabbits. Please see http://www.briansrabbitry.homestead.com for available stock.

There is a page on the website showing Fuzzies that will be at Convention. All will be for sale so if interested in some on Brian's beautiful stock, check it out.

Sherry Hartzell is also donating one of those rabbits to the AFLRC trio. The other two animals are donated by Jennifer Burns and Lindsay Brinson. This will be the trio to win! Tickets will be available at Convention for the trio, but are also in your latest issue of Fuzzy Tales. You can also buy tickets if you are not attending Convention. Send tickets and money to Paula Grady. Be sure you have identified someone to pick up the trio and transport for you in case you win.

Good luck to all!

We have a winner!

Have you heard the news? The ARBA Convention in Del Mar, CA entry numbers are a record for a Convention on the west coast--13,035 animals! The numbers for each breed/class are now posted and I can make the big announcement--the winner of guess the entry number contest!

It was interesting to see how many Fuzzies you all thought would be at the show. The total numbers (open and youth combined) for the guesses ranged from 119 to 971. The actual Fuzzy Lop entry numbers for the 2009 Convention are 247 in open and 56 in youth for a total of 303 rabbits. Most people made individual guesses for open and youth and Tausha Tucker gets an honorable mention for guessing 250 in open but she was off by almost 50 rabbits in her youth guess. (Close Tausha but "no cigar").

Drumroll please......and the winner is Ginger Mendat who guessed 314 total rabbits. Ginger can't make it to California for convention this year (we will miss you so much!) so I will mail her the prize. You have to wait until after Convention though because I am going to pick up a nice Convention item while I am there.

Hope you all had fun with the contest. Now go out and groom your Fuzzies.

Make a guess

Convention entries are still open for additions. So you have time to put more charges on your credit card and enter just one or two or.....more Fuzzy Lops. How many Fuzzies do you predict will be entered in the ARBA Convention in Del Mar? Leave a comment or send an email to me at hoploppitryatyahoodotcom (you know how to convert that email don't you? Read it and you will figure it out.). Leave your guess for the total number of open and youth American Fuzzy Lops by midnight tonight, October 12, for a chance to win a wonderful something at Convention. (Actually if you send the email to me before I wake up tomorrow morning that is soon enough! I won't be up at midnight making sure your email gets in under the wire.) This is not a joke--there will be a prize!

Carol

What's in a name?

How do you name your rabbits? Some exhibitors have a theme, e.g. all Shakespeare characters or only the names of cars. Some use names that start with a certain letter, and then some of us run out of names and get tired of the effort so just call their show rabbits by their tatoo.

I give my rabbits names and I have a very exacting system -- "WOD" (whim of the day). Some Fuzzies just look like a "Tate" or "Lassen" or "Mollie" to me, so that's the name on the pedigree.

For example, below is AK's Vane. When I was trying to name her, I had just seen the movie "Stardust" (2007; watch it, if you haven't seen it. Fantastic! It is right up on my favorite movie list under "Princess Bride"). The female protagonist of Stardust is a star that has fallen to earth. She is beautiful, and has a certain attitude (well she is a star after all). She's found by a simple, handsome farm boy and the story (love story of course) continues from there in ways you can't predict. So what is her name? Yvaine. When I saw the little tort doe, I saw a star and a whole lot o'attitude, so her name became "Vane".

Last weekend, Vane lived up to the promise I had seen when she was little. She won Best in Show at Santa Rosa, CA! RBIS was Betty C's English Angora doe, Susie, and the judge was Manual H.
We are all looking foward to the ARBA Convention in a few weeks!

Another Best in Show

I knew it was true and now the whole country must know it--there are some fabulous Fuzzy Lops in this country! Above is Burb's Jubilee, winner of Best in Show at the Utah State Fair, owned and bred by Nate Burbidge and Lou Towne. Congratulations!