A Little Drop of Drago Comes to Kitaco

We've told the story many times, about how, when George from Mystic Legion in Greece offered us Narci, we - a tad suspiciously - asked why he was prepared to send us such a beautiful dog, and George responded that he "had something better coming up". He was referring, of course, to Mystic Legion Drago, his stunning 2019 Crufts Best of Breed winner.

"Something better" proved to be something of an understatment. Drago went on to win at least 19 titles. In fact, we believe the current list includes International CH, Luxembourg CH, Italian CH, Nordic Ch, Finnish CH, Norweigian CH, Swedish CH, Greek CH, Greek Grand CH, Cypriot JCH, UK CH, English CH, Dutch CH, Danish CH, Lithuanian CH, USA CH, USA Grand CH, Spanish CH, 2019 Crufts Best of Breed and the Top Dog (all breeds) of Greece 2016 and 2017.

Of course, with a pedigree like that, Multi CH Mystic Legion Drago has been a busy lad at stud and eventually one of his fabulous sons made the long trek from Greece to Australia. Mystic Legion Ismenios, Drago's beautiful parti-colour son, joined the Atisaldi kennels in Queensland a couple of years ago and we've been waiting anxiously for a puppy from Izzy, ever since.

Finally, we are delighted to announce that Teddy (Atistaldi Teddy Ruxpin at Kitaco) has arrived in NZ.

Teddy is nearly 8 months old and absolutely stunning. He has his grandfather's charm and good looks, along with his father's amazing coat and laid-back temperament. He is so chill and unflappable he reminds us of Mexico - who now works as a therapy dog - when he was a puppy. (Mexico would have days where he was a show dog and other days where he would just roll onto his back in the lineup and ask for a belly rub, LOL)

We have already nicknamed Teddy "The Stoner Dude". Seriously, nothing fazes this little fella at all. He loves everyone and takes everything in his stride. He's already hanging with the rest of the pack, or being cuddled by everyone at Shirley Vets and even Ben likes him, although you could not find a more diametrically opposed temperament from our ADHD nut job, Ben de la Cremé, than this sweet, chilled-out, little guy.

Unfortunately, Teddy's breeder was hospitalised several times in the past few months, so he hasn't done much show work (all is well with her now, thankfully). Also, he's a little "rotund" (to put it nicely). Balancing weight loss against the nutritional needs of a growing puppy is a tricky line to walk but it's important to Teddy's longterm wellbeing to manage that properly, so we'll take our time getting him into "show trim". In the meantime, there are lots of cuddles and laughs to be had with this very aptly named Teddy Bear.

So welcome to New Zealand, little man. You bring us cuddles and joy and the most stunning pedigree. Kind of ironic that we'll now be able to add a little drop of Mystic Legion Drago to our lines, and that Narci's daughters and granddaughters will bear the great-grandchildren of the dog whose very existence meant that Narci was allowed to come to us, in the first place.