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Cagney and Lacey |
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| Cagney
and Lacey were littermates born in September of 1993. They were
out of the first true black/silver litter that we produced. Their
dam was our dear Chelsey, who is still with us today, their sire was
WGSDCI CH Backman's Ivan of Ravenwood, a beautiful White German
Shepherd. We specifically bred this litter to keep the best
black/silver for our breeding program. Imagine the difficult
decision when there were in fact 6 black/silvers in a litter of
10. We couldn't decide if we wanted to keep one with extreme
silver markings or one who was predominantly black, so we decided on
two. Cagney, the darker of the two was a bit smaller, very calm
and much like her father. Lacey, the lighter of the two, had
the temperament of her mother, very excitable (especially if what
crossed her path was furry and ran from her!) and grew to be even larger
than her mother. They were raised together and soon became
inseparable. It was amazing that they were littermates and yet
were so different in both temperament and looks. We were very
pleased that they were both so beautiful. We hoped to use both in
our breeding program. When they turned two we had their hips
x-rayed and sent to OFA. We were delighted when Cagney's came back
OFA good and ecstatic that Lacey's came back OFA excellent. Now to
find suitable partners for them. We decided to breed them both to
the same stud dog, a beautiful black/red German line male, Argus
von Stevenhaus. At that time in our breeding program we felt that
the American bred shepherds needed more drive and specifically wanted a
German bred stud. We realized that we would lose the black/silver
coloration in the first generation of their offspring, but felt that
producing the correct balance of temperament was more important.
Cagney produced 7 puppies, all black/tans and Lacey produced 10, again
all black/tans. We were very pleased with their offspring. We did
not keep any of the pups ourselves but instead kept breeding rights on a
few, with hopes of pulling the lines back into our program at a later
date. Cagney and Lacey both were excellent mothers and we had such
hi-hopes of incorporating them both into our lines and breeding
them to other studs in the future.
Unfortunately our plans were to end suddenly. Cagney died shortly after a trip to the beach (oh, how she loved the ocean!!), where she contracted Salmon poisoning. Even after surgery to remove part of her inflamed intestines, she was too weak to recover and died within a few days. Just six months later, after we moved into a larger home with a 5 ft high chain link fence surrounding the home, Lacey - who had never offered to jump a fence in the past - jumped the fence (we suppose she was trying to catch one of those furry little things she loved to chase!) and was instantly struck and killed by a pickup truck that was rounding the corner. She never even saw the truck coming. The deaths of Cagney and Lacey, especially because they happened so suddenly and unexpectedly, were hard for us to deal with. It seemed as if our "breeding program" of attempting to produce black/silvers with the ideal temperament and structure had come to an immediate end. We had kept nothing out of the two breedings and hadn't even began the breedings we had hoped for. That year SureFire Shepherds ended for us, and the thought of starting over with different dogs just didn't feel right. Two years later, a call came from the breeder with whom we had placed our pick of the litter from Cagney's litter - "Meko". The breeder was in a situation in which he would no longer be able to keep Meko - did we want her back? Could Meko have enough of Cagney in her to rekindle the black/silver coloration that we had so badly wanted to produce? It didn't matter, she was a part of Cagney and of course we wanted her back. We had not seen her since she was 6 months old and didn't quite know what to expect. But... she was beautiful!! It was good to have her back with us. When it was time to breed her we decided to attempt to re-create, as closely as possible, the breeding like we had done with Chelsey to WGSDCI CH Backman's Ivan of Ravenwood, that produced Cagney and Lacey. So the search was on, to find the best White German Shepherd dog to breed her to. We purchased Tumbledowns Super Sonic from Regalwise Shepherds and the breeding took place and 10 puppies resulted - to our amazement two of them were identical to Cagney and three of them identical to Lacey!! The spark for SureFire Shepherds had in fact been rekindled and today it grows strong. Thank you Cagney and Lacey for making the dream come true for SureFire Shepherds. Today we are producing the beautiful Black/Silver Shepherds we had hoped for and a part of you is in every puppy we place in homes today. We love you and miss you!! |
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| Cagney and Lacey as babies | Lacey and Cagney at two years of age |
