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Susan and Kevin are first cousins who come from a long
line of doggy/horsey people on their mother's side of the
family. The Scheibelhuts and De Belius' enjoyed show dogs
and show horses for generations. It so happened that Susan
and Kevin's mothers decided that they wanted nothing to do
with this avocation, but S&K joined their other doggy
cousins back in the show dog game once out on their own!
Susan is 14 years older than Kevin (and not above
reminding him that she was his babysitter for his first 4
years of life!) and so got a headstart on him. She got her
first basenji at age 11, years after watching the
movie, GOOD-BYE, MY LADY, on television. She convinced her
father to take the family to go look at a litter of basenji
puppies after reading up on the breed, they both fell in
love with the pack of little red elves, and the rest is history.
Susan's mother, on the other hand, was never a fan of the
breed after basenji #1 turned her antique furniture into
his own collection of chew toys, and reduced the interior
of the lake cottage into kindling in a matter of hours -
after escaping from his crate! sigh. The Pattersons learned
the hard way about basenjis from BWANA M'KUBA OF OLDUVAI -
his breeder sure never told them anything about the breed,
nor how to find out more about them!
'Chief' - that first basenji - died of Fanconi in 1972 when
it was still unknown to the vets treating him, as well as
The Ohio State University vet school staff doing the lab
work on him. Susan made a concerted effort to get extensive
medical history information from breeders she contacted for
basenji #2 and was surprised at the number who would
absolutely not provide any such information. Unbeknownst to
her at the time was that the Hemolytic Anemia crisis has
been raging not long before, driving many old time,
prominent breeders out of the breed, and Fanconi was
prevalent to such an extent that it was shortly to be
identified officially.
The breeder who DID speak openly about her dogs and
bloodlines was Cecelia Wozniak of Land of Woz basenjis in
Hobart, Indiana, and it was from Cecelia that Susan bought
Chief's replacement. MR
BOJANGLES CALYPSO OF WOZ (Ch
Flower Power of Woz x Ch Jolain's Flower Child of Woz) was a
wonderful intro-to-shows basenji. Cecelia didn't guarantee
that he would finish, but that he would be a good
'starter'... and he was! He ended up an American and
Canadian Champion!
While in graduate school at Washington University in
St.Louis, MO, Susan took handling classes from PHA handler,
Shirley Miller Yates and got started in dog shows. Shirley
invited her to accompany her to shows and learn the ropes
from the inside and those years were an extraordinarily
valuable educational experience.
At the same time, the basenji folk in Missouri were
wonderfully welcoming and the years spent as a member of
the Show Me Basenji Club and part of their show scene are
among her favorites. That Club had the honor of putting on
the BCOA's first ever NATIONAL specialty show (previously,
shows had always been regionals), and Susan wrote the
article featuring this event for the AKC 'GAZETTE'. This
show was the first of 4 National specialties on whose
committees Susan served. Jon Curby was a wonderful mentor
during these years!
Years were spent learning about basenjis (buying every
book Susan could get her hands on!) - and not only about
basenjis, but about dog behavior, genetics, breeding
practices,etc. The Basenji Club of America 'Bulletin' and
'The Basenji' magazine were great resources. She also
obtained books detailing English pedigrees so that she
could trace Bo's pedigree back to its origins. Studying
about basenjis, their origins, and dog anatomy and
physiology in general helped to refine the idea in her head
of where she wanted to go in developing her own bloodlines,
and in choosing a bitch whose bloodlines would help her get
there. She found her ideal -and that ideal has not changed
in all the years since! - in a red/white bitch bred and
owned by Frances Carlisle (Papalote Basenjis) of Sinton,TX.
The bitch is Ch. Fancy Fandango of Papalote.
Susan offered to buy her from Frances in 1979, but of
course, Frances would refuse, and thus began the long wait
for a 'Fancy' puppy girl out of the magnificent
Ch. Shadowbye's Mitty, a 'Re-Up' son clear of all the
inherited bugaboos in the breed. You have seen the head
study of the resulting puppy girl on our website face page,
Ch. Calypso Flair of Papalote. From the time of Bo's
purchase from Cecelia Wozniak to the arrival of Flair from
Frances, SIX YEARS had elapsed! Susan still finds it a bit
unsettling when newcomers to basenjis are already breeding
within a year or two of acquiring their first basenji..
what can they REALLY know in that short a time?
The relationship between the Woz-Calypso-Papalote
connection came full circle when it came time to breed
Flair and it was discovered at the zero hour that at age
10, Bo was sterile! aaaugh! Midge Greenlee of Serengeti
provided the information that the wonderful Am/Can
CH. TRI-TAN'S UZURI SUPOW LIHU, long off the basenji radar,
had recently come into Cecelia's possession, and after a
phone call, it was off to Indiana from Missouri for what
turned out to be a most fortuitous union - of the six
resulting pups, 3 finished and one had needed only a major
to do so when personal problems forced his owner to quit
showing (!), but Calypso gained its dynamic brother/sister
duo of Champions CALYPSO AMERICAN GIGOLO (Rhett) & CALYPSO
AMERICAN EXPRESS (Cruz). Those two became the foundation,
after their mother, Flair, of all our basenjis. To this
day, we continue to breed back as closely as possible to
Rhett and Cruz in repeated blendings.
Of note is that after decades of close linebreedings on
these original dogs, nothing from their breedings has
produced any of the inherited health problems identified in
the breed. We are well aware of the Fanconi carriers
identified by the experiences of others in certain of the
dogs, but obviously the carrier genes were not carried down
to the dogs in our branch of the family or we'd have dead
and dying dogs by the cartload due to the archetypal, tight
linebreeding we've done. We follow the same principles as
the thoroughbred (race) horse breeders Susan studied from
childhood thanks to the influence of her maternal
grandfather Patterson.. if problems are there, they will
most certainly rear their ugly heads in linebreeding!
Throughout the years, Susan has belonged to regional
All Breed clubs near to where she lived, and also to the
Gordon Setter Club of America for over ten years. Shirley
Yates had introduced her to the marvelous setters back in
the 70's, and she owned several of her own, as well as bred
one litter. Frances Carlisle bought one of the pups, who
became a Top Ten Gordon, CH Calypso Apex of Papalote
(Tex), handled and conditioned by Bill and Cathy Martin,
professional handlers living in Indiana. He retired with
them where he lived out his life.
It was a pleasure and honor for Susan to serve as
Secretary of the BCOA for five years in the 90's, as well as
the successor baseenji breed columnist in the AKC GAZETTE
to breed icon, Damara Bolte of Reveille basenjis. An
inflammatory column about the informational 'blurb' on the
basenji during the Westminster Kennel Club dog show ended
up getting not only the attention of the WKC powers that be
(and the wrath of then-commentator Roger Caras), but that
of other breed fans who had been listening to
often-erroneous narratives about their own breed. After I
sent them a proposal for a new narrative on the basenji
that was succinct but ACCURATE, they ended up sending out
an invitation to all breed clubs to update THEIR own
narratives. The squeaky wheel DOES get the grease - but also
the axe! My columns tended toward the thought-provoking and
although the Gazette editor loved the mail, the new BCOA
president thought the breed columns should NOT be of the
content Susan was choosing and fired her through Board
action. Oh well! However, it was not before a column on
show giving clubs being castigated and criticized for not
offering entry discounts for the puppy and Bred By
Exhibitor classes raised another ruckus.. and the
consciousness of many in reminding them ever so NOT gently
that it is the breeders who are the backbone of the future
of dog shows - so give 'em a break and encourage them to
make multiple entries! It worked and it the clubs who do
NOT, these days, give those discounts stick out like sore
thumbs among those that do encourage and support the
sport's breeders.
Susan Coe of the internationally distributed THE BASENJI
magazine was not afraid that one writer's column could
single-handedly wreck her publication, and thus the monthly
CREATURE FEATURES column penned by Calypso's Susan was
born. The current editors have continued its tradition. The
title of the column, by the way, comes from the nickname
Susan calls the basenjis, 'creatures', and a play on the
title of a 60's/70's Saturday night local tv horror movie
show that played in the wee hours of the night. Somehow,
'horror movies' and 'life among the savages' sometimes goes
quite well together!
Where does Kevin finally come into the picture? The
United States Air Force - Little Rock AFB. As he was coming
into Arkansas, just four hours away from where Susan used
to live in New Madrid, MO, she had relocated back to their
mutual home town of South Bend, IN to be closer to their
ailing and beloved grandmother (and GREAT dog lover),
Dorothy De Belius Scheibelhut, and her own mother. Kevin
let it be known that at some point in the future, when he
was more settled and more in control of his own future, he
would be very interested in owning his own basenji. It
would, however, take some years for this to come about, and
the Gulf War intervened...
Following Kevin's involvement with the Stealth Fighter
Jet (F-117A) program out in Nevada, and 3 tours of duty in
the Persian Gulf, Kevin requested and received, assignment
to greener environs - Goldsboro, NC and Seymour Johnson
AFB, home of the 4th Fighter Wing and its F-15E fighter
jets and 916th Air Refueling Wing. He's a supply/logistics
specialist who has morphed into a developer of logistical
analytical software for the Wing and the Air Combat
Command, among other talents and duties! *** Kevin was promoted to AF Master Sgt. in June 2006__Congratulations!***
Kevin's first basenji joined him upon his return from
his final tour in the Gulf, Ch Calypso Eyes of Egypt
(MacGyver). He is trained for obedience, although an
obedience ring humiliation at the inventive 'hands' of Cruz
has kept Kevin from ever darkening THAT ring entrance ever
since! (haha!)
Before Susan's move to North Carolina in 1997 during her
divorce, Kevin had been host to just MacGyver and Cruz. The
entire Calypso crew, then numbering an additional 13 dogs,
invaded the new home he bought to house 'Calypso'
(coincidentally just 15 minutes north of Calypso, NC!) in
June that year, and Kevin began training for the dog show
and breeding business. While she stayed at home more and
more, doing the pooper scooper duties, Kevin hit the road
with the dogs to learn-by-doing about shows and showing.
It's been a successful collaboration, and one that has
expanded to include international showing at FCI shows the
world over, and new friends in many new places! Susan
insisted that he accompany her on one of her Scandinavian
trips to meet the Fabulous Finns over which much fuss has
been made, and is now firmly in the Finland (And Aland)
Forever Fan Club. Susan has yet to convince him to sit down
and begin reading from the enormous doggy library on the
premises (she thinks his plan is to absorb it all by
osmosis or just from listening to the resident Big Mouth),
or perusing the complete Blue Book American basenji
pedigrees collection, as well as the Finnish collection of
their champions... but if he's ever sick and confined to
bed, he is going to find himself a captive audience! After
all, Susan read to him when he was a child, so why not...?! :)
Calypso as a breeding program continues to evolve. We
have imported some Australian/English/Finnish bloodlines to
blend with our old-old American ones, and are excited thus
far to see what has been produced. We are tremendously
excited at the prospects that the University of Missouri
Veterinary School researchers, in cooperation with the efforts of
fellow professionals at the Nat'l Institutes of Health (NIH), may be
able to identify the
DNA marker for Fanconi. Since carrier genes and affected
genes are everywhere in the US and world population, being
able to make INFORMED BREEDING choices will be the ultimate
luxury, as well as a challenge. Will people still continue
to breed the winning flavor-of-the-month even in the face
of a genetic nightmare? We'll see, and hope that folks will take
the higher road.
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