Havanese History

My name is Liz (Vargo) Tustin and I am Destiny Havanese. Most of you don't know who I am
except for looking back on your pedigrees and maybe finding some Destiny dogs in your dog's
background. Although I am now one of the longest dues-paying members in the HCA (I joined in
1982) I no longer get involved in club politics or policies. I am not on any of the "lists" and for
the past 10 years have chosen to just do my own thing with regards to the Havanese. Having
shown and bred various breeds of dogs since the late 60's, and after being actively involved as
an officer and board member in many breed clubs and local kennel clubs (I am a past president
of the HCA and also of the Lowchen Club of America), I have experienced first hand the
intricacies and battles that occur in breed clubs and local clubs and simply choose not to make
that a part of my life anymore. Being married to a "non-dog person" is probably one reason,
but after devoting 40 years of my life to dogs, it's kind of a "been there, done that" sort of
thing and for me now there are other issues in life about which I have become passionate.

However, having spent the last 27 years of my life devoted to the Havanese breed, I take it
personally when an organization, namely the Havana Silk Dog of America Association,
publishes statements about Destiny that are not true. I find some of the text on the website just
pertaining to me to be so incorrect that I wonder how much else of the material is false. It is a
puzzle to me that in all of the supposed research done by the organization no one actually
contacted me to verify any of the statements that were   made about my kennel! So it's time to
set the record straight.

I purchased my foundation stock from Dorothy Goodale, as did every early breeder, after
meeting Arlene Gaglione (Ti-Ara Havanese) at a dog show and falling in love with her dogs -
the first smaller breed I had seen that wasn't hyper and yappy! But I was not one of the early
breeders, those being mainly of course Dorothy (Havana Doll House), Mary Money (SRR),
Sadie   Stromberg (Mendoza) and the above mentioned Arlene, and curiously not mentioned
Mark Kolbe (Hallmark), all of whom were breeding way before I even knew what a Havanese
was. Mary, Sadie, and Arlene have long since retired from breeding, Dorothy is extremely ill, so
it is unfortunate that they don't have an opportunity to respond. Perhaps Mark wasn't
mentioned because he is still actively involved with the club and thus would be able to tell a
different side to the story, and perhaps me because I have been a non-active member for so
long no one thought I would. Who knows? Whether you agree with the early breeders or not, I
believe we later breeders should show some respect to the early breeders and to their efforts
and sacrifice rather than to criticize what they did. Were it not for Dorothy Goodale's efforts to
recover the breed, NONE of us would be here today, and certainly not those doing all the
criticizing.

A smattering of new people became interested in the breed in the early 80's, myself among
them and also Marsha Peterson in Richmond, VA who was the original Elfin Havanese. All of us
started with dogs from Dorothy's Havana kennel. When Marsha decided for personal reasons
to no longer breed dogs, Joanne Baldwin inherited her kennel, which essentially means her
foundation stock also was of the same background as the rest of us. Somehow that fact was not
mentioned on the website. The mid 80's brought an influx of new people to the breed, many of
them still breeding today. Those long-standing members surely will remember the camaraderie
shared by club members at that time, all of us working together to better the breed. It was a
great club to belong to! And although we of course did not always agree, we respected each
others opinions and right to disagree without descending into personal attacks on individual
members. The HCA at that time was one of the most democratic clubs in the country, the
ENTIRE membership, not just the elected board, voting on issues. And the board of directors in
that era would not have tolerated the behavior of some of the members today. But I digress.

The HSDAA take s great pains to explain the origins of the dogs procured by Dorothy with
which she began her breeding program, dividing them into types, the 'Costa Rican' and
'Arizona' among them and describing each. Having seen most of the early Havanese I have to
take exception to some of the statements made on the website. In fact, the 'Costa Rican' dogs
WERE generally smaller, lighter boned, and shorter backed. However, they had "
Maltesy-looking" heads with shorter muzzles, rounder eyes, shorter ears. They were not longer
legged and they shared the same problems with front assembly with the so called 'Arizona'
Havanese. The AZ dogs were larger, heavier boned, longer backed, with a blockier head
piece, longer muzzle, (those who know me will remember I used to call them "horse faced", not
derogatorially!), beautiful almond eyes, longer ears. Both types had PROFUSE double coats
ranging from straight to curly, and ONLY the curly coated dogs had wirey coarse guard hairs
and ONLY the curly coated dogs would form natural ringlets much like those of an Irish Water
Spaniel if left unbrushed. We called it "cording" back then - a whole other subject. If one reads
the Cuban standard for the breed, the 'Arizona' type Havanese were actually more to their
standard than the 'Costa Rican'. They had what I can only describe as "that Havanese look"
which set the breed apart from any other smaller coated breed, something the early breeders
were desperately trying to establish. The 'Costa Rican'
dogs were many times mistaken for Maltese.

Be that as it may, with such a small gene pool there was no choice but to use whatever was
available in trying to set a more uniform type. We used what we had to work with, which is
exactly how all the breeds started. It is always easy in hind sight for newer breeders to look
back after 40 years and criticize what past breeders did. But they weren't there using a limited
gene pool, so I would say as to the ' CostaRican' vs. the 'Arizona' type: and your point is
?????????? We're 40 years down the road now, get over it!

I find it most amusing to learn that, quoting verbatem   from the HSDAA website "Havanese
produced under the Destiny prefix were primarily AZ phenotypes as this kennel had
purchased dogs of 100% AZ breeding." News to me, and I do recall being there! In fact, my first
2 Havanese, both males, were one of each line, both being very typical of each type. I later
added 3 more of the pure Costa Rican lines and 4 more of the others, and that is what started
Destiny Havanese. In 1999, I was graced to have my dogs on the cover of the Havanese book
written by the founder of the Cuban parent club, Zoila Portuondo Guerra. She apparently
thought the Destiny dogs were of pretty good type! Another statement made on the website is
that the CR dogs were much healthier than the AZ dogs: "the dogs   from the Costa Rican
kindred and their immediate inbred offspring apparently suffered no problems". In fact, the very
first Havanese diagnosed in 1991 with hereditary cataracts was one of the "immediate inbred
offspring". At that time, Nancy Holmes (Nor-Ann) and   I were the first 2 breeders to test eyes.
We found cataracts to be distributed pretty evenly in all the lines, as did the other breeders who
tested eyes after our discovery. It is a credit to the Havanese breeders that from a high of
over 15% of our Havanese having hereditary cataracts in 1991, 15 years later the incidence
has been cut to under 2.5%, one of the lowest in all breeds. (These facts are from CERF.)

As to the allusion that all the dogs descending from Dorothy's originals have terrible health
problems, I find that really really hard to believe simply because I am one of the few breeders
left that still has all the orignal lines and my dogs routinely live to be at least 15 years old, the
majority living to 16 and 17 with a few 18 year olds (I have mostly a geriatric kennel now.). I
have been shocked at the few times one has died at an earlier age. Not one of my Havanese
has ever needed to be on any kind of heart medication, not even at a grand old age. The
incidence of patellar luxation, which initially I found in the early 80's to be about 1 in 10 puppies,
has been drastically reduced to about 1 in ever 32 (I haven't had one iagnosed with PL in 4
years). When the club went into a hissy fit about all the supposed deaf dogs, I BAER tested all
of my 37 dogs, all were normal. Now the furor over hip dysplasia. So I xrayed 11 of my dogs
ranging in ages from over 4 to 9 years old. Guess what. They all came back OFA "Good". And
don't even get me started about supposed chondroplasia in the breed. Spending over
$200,000 on a flawed study group (dogs being hand-chosen sort of implies the study was
slanted in a certain direction) proves absolutely nothing except to further the cause of a
certain group of people. I have found this breed to be exceedingly healthy. Considering the fact
that we started with such a limited gene pool, and also the   fact that I am a big proponent of
very close linebreeding (you find out where your problems are real fast, and you set type real
fast!) I am just not seeing any of those reported terrible problems. And with the method of
breeding that I use, they surely would have manifested by now. Either that or I'm one lucky
breeder! And because I have been breeding for 25 years, I have people coming back for their
2nd and even 3rd Havanese. Surely they would not be coming back if their original dogs had
health problems.

With respect to supposed changes to the standard in 1989 - I have talked to many members
and people who have quit the club but were members at that time, and none of us can
remember drastic changes being made. In fact the standard has been changed more times
since the breed was accepted into AKC than at any other time in breed history. When the breed
was accepted into the miscellaneous class there was still much work to do to try and
standardize the breed type. I was one of those who opposed and voted against going AKC, but
the majority of members felt differently, and that's democracy at work. I was privileged to both
judge and spectate at the first HCA national specialty in 1999 and I can unequivocally say that
the breed at that point in time was much more standardized then than it is today, and I believe it
is due to all the changes made to the breed in recent years. Havanese were supposed to be a
rectangular breed, now they approach square in outline looking more like Bichons or Lowchen
then their own unique breed. Rather than trying to breed correct short legged straight legged
dogs, the solution seems to be: make the legs longer. The muzzles have been shortened to the
point that some dogs look like Shih Tzus or Maltese, with big round eyes. And toplines that are
INCORRECTLY higher in the rear than at the withers? Where did that come from? Did
someone mistake a "slight rise over the loin" as meaning high in the rear? Until AKC
acceptance the standard called for a LEVEL topline (The Cuban standard calls for the spine to
slope slightly TOWARDS the rear by the way.) With the exception of some current breeders
who are holding fast to what they know to be correct (and Thank God for them), I really fear
for this breed, what will happen to it as time goes by.

I have never understood why certain people feel the need to disparage others to promote
themselves or their causes. Somehow people listen to those with aggressive personalities or
the biggest mouths whether those people are wrong or right or somewhere in between. There
is nothing new about a group of people trying to breed a new breed of dog. It happens all the
time. Designer breeds have become very lucrative business. As one pet owner put it to me
"This whole Havana Silk Dog thing seems to be an obvious attempt to get more money for the
"special" dogs within the breed. It smacks of elitism, more created than in actuality. Rather like a
big marketing initiative". Couldn't have said it better myself. Seems to me they are trying to
have their cake and eat it too. Stay with the HCA just in case it doesn't work, split if it does. The
current members and board should take note   of the outstanding job they have done to
promote their 'new breed' to the public and take steps to preserve the Havanese breed as it
should be.

In closing I want to thank all of the breeders and pet owners (almost a hundred of you!!!)who
have contacted me expressing both outrage and support (I would actually not known a thing
about it, as I said, I'm just not into club politics anymore). Please understand that it is just
impossible for me to individually thank you (I HATE the computer!) but I do so appreciate your
loyalty and your loyalty to this wonderful breed. I just choose not to make this a battle. It's up to
you guys now.

Liz

Liz Vargo was kind enough to give me permission to share this with you. If
you've wondered about the roots of our beautiful Havanese, she's a wealth
of information and got her dogs directly from Dorothy Goodale who is
responsible for bringing our Havanese back from the brink of extinction.
This is a wonderful read and well worth your time. Thank you Liz for the
information you provided.