History

We got our first Peke 35 years ago. Kara was just a pet but she sure gets credit for letting us know PEKES are the BEST! She was pretty smart too. I'd never had a dog, just cats. But with the help of a little Peke book, I trained Kara to some hand signal obedience moves like coming and dropping on recall. It was a lot of fun. Kara died (collapsed lung) way too soon at just a year and a half. We were devastated and got two more Pekes to try to "replace" her. One of those died tragically (choked on a piece of stool) and we got two more.

	These were my "original" three: Kara II, Siji, and Man Nei--all of whom lived to a pretty good old age (Siji lived to almost 17).
	It didn't take me long to realize I wanted Pekes that looked more like the ones in the "new" Anna Katherine Nicholas Book of the Pekingese. I went to a dog show, met Ruby Dudley and promptly bought my first show dog. Over the years I've had several Dud-Lee and Lon-Du dogs along with several others. They all get along great with the Frenchies.

Here at Prima Pekingese, my husband, Bob, and I show and breed Pekingese. We also have an Italian Greyhound named Lucrezia (a real home wrecker... literally), and a Chihuahua named Carlos.

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I'm the show-off. Bob stays home and takes care of the dogs: both ours and the Tea Vet Clinic's. He's retired from the SD National Guard Army Band. We love dogs and music. We're both former music teachers. Jazz is my favorite idiom. Am lucky to have seen Chick Corea, Billy Taylor, Cleo Lane, Arturo Sandoval, Harry Conick, Jr., and B.B. King in concert at the Sioux Falls Washington Pavilion. I love all the arts and am liberal. Bob is very selective about music and people and is CONSERVATIVE. He loves Rush Limbaugh so we have our differences to say the least! But we will have been married 37 years come June 2011. Bob doesn't like to talk except about the army, and what Rush likes. I like to talk about dogs and anything in general. And I'm a very good listener.

Bob's very shy.

On June 2, 2000 at the Awards Banquet of the Pekingese Club of America held in Detroit, MI, I received a Breeder of Merit award. It took me long enough, but I finally did it. Actually, had I not misinterpreted the requirements about what year one could start counting one's homebred champions, I could have had the award about 3 years earlier. (You count 'em ALL!) Oh well, I hope to continue this labor of love at Prima Pekingese for years to come.