Northern Lore Windsprites

10/12/2025

Haven and Fable on a schooling run at the final Minnesota Coursing Association American Sighthound Field Association trial of 2025, held at Rookie Retriever Grounds in Waverly this weekend.

Thank you to Hailey Sobania for the photos!

10/11/2025

To the victor, the spoils! 😁 At the Minnesota Coursing Association's ASFA trial today, Fable not only placed first in the Sighthound Mix category (a misnomer for Windsprites, who are purebred sighthounds, but are yet to be recognized) and Best of Variety (awarded to the high scoring dog in a given category at that day's trial), she also achieved both her Lure Chasing Instinct (LCI - awarded to dogs with 8 qualifying scores in ASFA lure coursing) and Lure Chasing Champion (LCC - awarded to dogs with 100 total lifetime points) titles! Getting her championship with only eight trials under her belt is a pretty big deal!

This was my number one dog-related goal this year, and we achieved it! I'm so incredibly proud of her. ❤️ She gets two new sets of letters tacked onto her name, and we're going home with some cool swag, along with our big, pretty rosettes, which may or may not now have muddy paw prints on them... 😆

JCH Blue Mist Moral of the Story LCC LCI NTD CGC "Fable"

10/09/2025

No dog ✨ gazes adoringly ✨ quite like a Windsprite.

10/08/2025

Fable landed herself a little modeling gig a while back. She's on the packaging for Young Again Pet Food's sensitive stomach formula! Though our goal for her was to make sure she could do well on a regular kibble, Young Again was there for us when we needed a trustworthy hydrolyzed option. ❤️

I'm happy to report that we officially brought Fable's diet trial days to a close several months ago. She has successfully made the transition off of prescription diets and hydrolyzed food and onto a number of different affordable, over-the-counter options with no ongoing allergy symptoms! The diet trials enabled us to slowwwly, but surely identify what ingredients she's sensitive to, making it easy to avoid them. She's currently thriving on a rotation of limited ingredient formulas in various flavor combinations.

P.S. I should add - Though these are common symptoms of food allergies in dogs, Fable has never had itchy paws and rarely experiences stomach upset! Her symptoms when exposed to her allergens (either in a large quantity all at once or in small amounts over longer stretches of time) mainly present as mild itchiness around her mouth and eyes. Occasionally, if she's ingested a lot of the allergen, the brief itchiness may be accompanied by some inappetence and sometimes an instance of bilious vomiting. Typically, in cases where she temporarily loses interest in food, her appetite resumes as normal after she throws up some bile. Fortunately, this is a rare occurrence and only happens when we've really slipped up and she's thoroughly gotten into something she shouldn't have. The vast majority of the time, all runs smoothly and she's a voracious eater!

Meet our current Sensitive Skin & Stomach dog model! This is Fable, the Windsprite. She has mild food allergies and is specifically sensitive to chicken. With Young Again, she doesn't have to worry about an itchy muzzle!

Young Again Sensitive Skin & Stomach is chicken-free and made with coconut oil and sources a singular protein, hydrolyzed pork so pets can say goodbye to itchiness and upset stomachs.

The only thing Fable is sensitive about now is not getting seconds.

09/23/2025

It's been quiet around here! We had a busy few months in the world of dog showing and sports, so we've taken a break for the month of September. It's been nice to just stay home for a bit and recharge our batteries.

Looking at these photos from the MCA ASFA trial back in August, taken by Tina Hince, we're itching to get back out there in October! The final Disc League season of the year will begin October 1st, we'll be in Minnesota for the ASFA trial October 11th, and then traveling to Illinois for the American Sloughi Association's National Specialty with Fig from October 16th-19th.

Haven will not be entered in the October ASFA, but we will have her do another tandem schooling run with Fable, if possible, to continue to build her confidence running a full course. Although she takes off like a shot, she doesn't make it all the way around yet on her own. Hopefully with time and maturity, she'll get there! I look forward to her first qualifying run, but we're in no hurry.

08/31/2025

Love these infographics about mitigating risk when socializing your young pups!

08/21/2025

This is a long post, but there are some important concepts discussed here that reflect my own thought process on the idea of breeding away from health concerns without a genetic test, such as autoimmune issues present in Windsprites.

"When it comes to genetic diseases without a DNA test, we are all 'breeding blind' so to speak on this matter, making our best guess based on what we see pop up in the pedigree. I hope someday we have a genetic test. But for now, we do have genetic diversity testing to help us breed away from the riskier haplotypes and breed away from internal relatedness and breed toward greater genetic diversity, all things that can help reduce incidence of disease.

We are never going to eradicate disease... We are lowering its incidence. Genetic Diversity is not magic but it doesn't have to be magic for it to have value."

Louder, for the people in the back...

"WE ARE NEVER GOING TO ERADICATE DISEASE... WE ARE LOWERING ITS INCIDENCE. GENETIC DIVERSITY IS NOT MAGIC BUT IT DOESN'T HAVE TO BE MAGIC FOR IT TO HAVE VALUE."

The effectiveness of increasing genetic diversity to help reduce the risk of autoimmune issues is backed by a significant pool of evidence. We believe in science here. 🧬

08/03/2025

Not only did our friend over at Waterbug Design do a beautiful job creating the Prairie Fire Windsprites logo recently, he also made these gorgeous vinyl decals featuring a gaiting Windsprite silhouette! I'm partial to the one with the hand-lettering myself.

Pick up a couple stickers and support a wonderful artist, while showing your Windsprite breed pride 🥰 Link in the comments!

Thank you, Lenny!

07/31/2025

The Summer season of K9 Frisbee Worldwide League started tonight! I'm pretty rusty after not throwing at all last season, so it wasn't our best night. However, Fable and Haven were both awarded commemorative patches to celebrate their participation in the Spring season, and Fable received a Super 8 Pin in addition to that!

In her first season, Fable and I earned our small Club some number of Super 8 Club Points towards a Division-wide competition and we received a pin in recognition of that! Pretty cool, huh? 😁

---

About the Canis Felix Patch:

"Every club member competing in a K9 Frisbee Worldwide League season earns an embroidered patch that commemorates their participation and achievement in each season they play—an integral reward for a season’s accomplishment. Each patch pays tribute to a different frisbee dog, chosen by the League in recognition of the dog and/or handler’s outstanding contribution to our sport. Handlers whose top-scoring dog competes in a season and finishes below the top 40%, celebrating the season’s effort and spirit."

About the Super 8 Pin:

"In the SUPER 8 format, just the top 8 [individual handler and dog] Teams in each Club are assigned SUPER 8 Club Points, giving smaller Clubs an opportunity to compete head-to-head with the giant ones. The Top 8 Teams in each Division winning Club will receive a SUPER 8 Division Champion pin along with the season’s commemorative Canis Magnus or Canis Felix patch that they earn based on five weeks of cumulative scoring. The Captain of a Division winning Club will claim a Champion Pennant for the season."

07/20/2025

Throwback to baby Haven and her epic whiskers and puppy dog eyes! She's still got it.