he story of Blue Legend Kennels

It was never really our intention to start a Cardigan Kennel.  In our younger years, we would never have believed that we would fall in love with such a short-legged long eared dog. For at that time we were the proud owners of a bunch of wild huskies, with, to our modest opinion a perfect conformation, yet with little or no discipline, still with the beautiful and exceptional gift of being wonderful and lovely sled dogs.
 
We spent years with our exclusive friends. Since they were definitely no guardian dogs we always had a Newfoundlander to protect our homes through the years. Huskies and Newfoundlanders make a perfect match since they both are dogs from the Northern countries.
 
But eventually we stopped racing our dogs - lack of time and perhaps lack of real ambition for mushing.  So we kept some of the huskies as pet dogs - until they went to rest in their dog's heaven.
 
Since we were (and still are) also very busy with horses and always loved to have dogs around us, we decided in early 2000 that we would look for a dog that could get along with horses.   We figured that we would have to look for a cattle or sheepdog.   Now cattle and sheep dogs come in a variety of colors, heights, shapes; so making the right choice was not that obvious.   We had one leading idea - the dog had to have a blue merle coat.  It sort of reduced the choice in the range of breeds and we somehow focused on the Australian Shepherd and Cattle dog with a possible option for a Border collie. 
 
Still, after checking some of the dogs at work, we found them to be a bit "over reactive" - too nervous for our purpose.  After searching further and further we had our mind made up - we would investigate about the Cardigan.  As told previously his physical feature wasn't really our thing, but after seeing some pictures of blue merles we concluded that it was a rather nice looking dog.   His character also seemed to fit the best in our way of living.  Quite, obedient, social dogs - yet alert, intelligent, playful and sportive whenever needed and asked for.
 
So we went to a dog show to see our first "live" cardis.  A lovely French lady (she'll never know how much her sales competences have influenced our lives!) showed us two variants from the Welsh Corgi breed: the cardigan and the pembroke.  She gave us all the necessary information and the address of a serious and renowned breeder in France.
 
We contacted Mr. & Ms Boulon and after a while found ourselves with a blue merle female cardigan puppy named Tiny Blue Toon of St. Hilaire's Park. (We call her Tiny)
She immediately stole our hearts.  Not only was she a gentle pet dog, but also she was a well-built dog with the perfect conformation for shows.
 
So we took her to several shows with success.  Her marks were always very good. 
 
Since the adventure looked a bit dull with only one dog, we soon started to look for another cardi.  Going through the Internet, we discovered a Finnish lady who obviously did some excellent work in the breeding of cardigans.  Meri Tuli Aalto was a dedicated breeder and the proud holder of the Yardican kennels.  She helped us in the choice of the male puppy and in February 2003 we welcomed our second cardigan named "Yardican Lapland Legend".  (We call him Shooter).
 
Shooter had a very good show conformation but he soon distinguished himself has a more sportive dog.  So we did not take him to lot of shows for we needed to make a choice.  Both keep him on a "fattening" diet and prevent him from running and playing in order for him to have the necessary "show" figure or just enjoy his super social, sporty dog qualities.  We choose for the latter.
 
One thing resulted in another.  In 2004 Tiny was expecting puppies.  Since we did not want to be regarded as "back yard breeders", we decided that we would apply for a kennel name.   Our puppies would have the suffix of "Blue Legend" which is actually a mix of part of Tiny and Shooter's pedigree affix/suffix.
We also decided that if there were a blue merle puppy in the litter we would keep him or her. 
We had 5 beautiful puppies all tri colored brindle pointed females except for one blue merle male.  We kept him - and Dawson became our second stud. 
 

Our Goal