If I can Dream Energy of Africa for Saadani (NAF) (TAF) aka Rusty

Rusty is our beautiful boy who joined us from the Czech Republic in January '21. The advert for the planned litter popped up on my news feed and I recognised the Mum as a lovely female I judged in 2019 at the CZRR club show. I really liked her and her sister, with Mum winning Best Mover overall (judged by myself and Sharon Rossiter, Sonstraal) and her sister winning Best Bitch. I loved the look of the sire, who reminded us all of our Elvis - he is also from a kennel I have long admired who have produced some beautiful hounds and I loved one of his progeny who we judged as Best Baby at the show. Impressed by the pedigree and health scores I enquired if we could be considered for a male puppy to show.

I do love liver, but out of our current show team, we have more liver than anything else and they are an acquired taste among judges so we had been hoping for a black nosed boy. I'm not that fussy with colour and markings as long as it's within the standard, but if I could pick, my ideal would be a self coloured red wheaten, with just a touch of white on the chest and toes. The litter was born on 18th October 2020, 4 boys and 3 girls. Of the boys, only one was black nosed! We waited a long 8 weeks and the stud owner picked one of the liver boys so black nosed boy was ours!

Jana and Jaroslav kindly allowed us to pick a name, it had to start with the letter 'I' in keeping with the litter theme. We had a few shortlisted options, but all agreed that the best name for him was 'If I Can Dream Energy of Africa' which we got from the well known Elvis song title - a song which has lovely lyrics and links to Martin Luther King's famous speech. We called him Rusty, who was a character that Elvis played in one of his many films. He is also the colour of red rust, a true red wheaten with fabulous depth. He is self coloured, with milk dipped toes and a white wishbone on his chest - perfect!

We are thrilled with the clever, confident, outgoing and beautiful puppy we have added to our family and cannot thanks Jana and Jaroslav enough! They have given him the best possible start in life, he is scared of nothing and loves everything and everyone! He has beautiful bone and conformation, and is a free mover - looking forward to getting him into the show ring whenever that may be! We are enjoying clicker training in the meantime and continuing his socialisation to his new home.