Welcome All

Welcome to Highfield Russkiy Toys .I would like to share with you my experiences, joys , thrills and spills with my World of the little Russian Toy Dog.
I began my search for my first Moscow Toy Terrier ( as they were known for the long coated variety), in the fall of 2004.I went through all the normal channels one would take when researching a new breed by gathering as much information as possible, I should say as I could find at the time. Very little was known about the breed outside its native land , Russia. I contacted the only available sources here in the USA at the time.I contacted the only breeder at the time located here in the USA , Sheryll Alred of Mozaika , who quickly told me she was only interested in breeding tiny pet quality dogs not selling show quality or breedable dogs.I contacted the other two "kennels" that were advertising Moscow Toy Terriers and found out that they were not breeders but were indeed brokers at the time. Importing dogs for potential buyers.
I spent countless hours perusing the internet looking for as much information as I could find about the breed. Looking for fine examples and top winning dogs. There was so little information on the breed anywhere at the time.I wrote countless letters to what breeders I did find.Frustrating at best. I thought I had a good idea of what I was looking for in the breed but trying to find it was a whole different matter.
I finally settled on a breeder named Elena Morozova, Hrustalnaya Mechta, as she was so kind and answered my countless letters. She was always truthful and forthcoming with her answers. And believe me I had plenty of Questions for her.I looked at her dogs and picked out the structure and different characteristics that I wanted in my first dog. Again Frustrating , as I could not find exactly what it was I was looking for in just one dog.I am a bit of a perfectionist and can be very critical of what I was looking for exactly in my first Toy Terrier.
She finally had a litter that I found a puppy that I felt was as the standard described. Now that was the one I wanted.I chose my first Moscow, I wanted a boy as I prefer boys over girls in temperaments in any breed. I have always found boys to be much more loving companions.
I chose a little red boy named Lutik.I changed his name to Pooh,I thought Lutik sounded too close to lunatic and I knew that I did not want that.The rest is history as the say.... now I have many after my meeting of my little Pooh.
So next will be the history and story of my Pooh.

Welcome All

Welcome , again to Highfield Russkiy Toys web blog. As I have stated before , I want to introduce you to my "World" of the Russkiy Toy, also known as Russian Toy. I began my search and infatuation with this lovely breed in the fall of 2004. I acquired my very first Russian Toy , Pooh, (registered name Hrustalnaya Mechta Centinel' Prekrasnogo) in July of 2005.Pictured here is Pooh at age two winning "The Mexican Winner 2007" a title the same as Euro winner but from Mexico. He also became 3 x Mexican Champion, Las Americas and Caribbean Champion and most prestigious the World Champion 2007 by being awarded best Male. Not a bad start for my very first Russian Toy ! Pooh is the most championed titled and winning-est Russian Toy in the USA

Searching for Moscow Toy Terriers , as the long coat variety was known back then, was difficult as there was not much information available outside of Russia at that time. Very few were even available or known in other countries outside of Russia too.Of course my search led me to the only couple of web sites that were located here in the USA. At that time only one of the contacts was a breeder , who openly admitted she was only producing tiny pet quality dogs and the other two were just brokers for the breed "taking orders" for importing a puppy of their liking. One person, Anki Larsson, was very open and willing to help in any way. She admitted she just brokering dogs for resell and was just making a "small" profit for her efforts. As the breed was so hard to find and with the difficulty of importing it was nice to find someone who was willing to share their experiences. The other person, I also contacted was not willing to share any info with us. She was only interested in selling us a dog. Period.Without disclosing any information or her resources. She did have a picture on her web site of a black and tan male that I thought was gorgeous and would like to have another just like him, but again, would not share any information on the pedigree or breeders name or kennel of where they came from.
Having been "in" dogs all my life I knew to stay away from breeders who sell whole litters.There are only rare circumstances that one benefits from buying whole litters, and its not for resale. As we know it , many a kennel has imported a whole litter in the past from foreign countries to see those dogs make a major impact on someone's breeding program. But to import litters for resale as pets is a whole different story.

I spent countless hours searching the internet looking , reading and absorbing as much information I could find on the breed. I do not know the number of breeders I have written asking about their breeding programs and the availability of first class show quality dogs. I was comfortable in my abilities for selecting a good example based on what I had studied and observed, with my years of involvement in showing , breeding and judging dogs. Although I felt comfortable in my interpretation of the standard, it can take years to fully know an individual breed. Since I have never seen a Russian Toy in person at the time I had to rely on my research abilities. Frustration was the biggest obstacle I would face, as the dogs that I dreamed for were just not available to people outside of Russia. Going to Russia on a sabbatical , touring the country looking for and visiting top breeding kennels, was not in my budget, nor were the kennels really made known to anyone outside of Russia. So I had to settle on the best I could find through correspondence.
Another obstacle for us at the time was the lack of web sites and resources.
I would print out any and every pedigree I could find saving almost every picture of every Russian Toy I liked or from the lines I dreamed to own. I kind of was starting my own pedigree database here in the US.I have crashed two computers that died from Russian Toy overload !
I am learning to speak or I should say read many words in the Russian language just from my experiences of researching the many sites.

To be continued.....