Amethyst Silken Windhounds

06/06/2025

Six months old yesterday!
Spren 20.5" 31 #
Journey 21.25" 33.5 #

05/15/2025

Just a reminder to all those looking for silken puppies that there are fake groups on facebook, and the best place to check if a breeder is legit is checking the breeder list on the International Silken Windhound Society website https://silkenwindhounds.org/breeder-list/
and/or doing a search on Facebook Silken Windhound Society.

Any legit breeder of silkens will tell you the parent's registered names and share health testing via OFA website links, or photos of the OFA forms for the test.

Breeder List This page is constantly being updated so some of the information may be incorrect or incomplete. NOTE: This only lists details of breeders who are members of ISWS and thereby, are expected to follow the ISWS Breeder's Code of Ethics. Being listed here does not mean any of these breeders...

05/01/2025

Mamma (& Grandma) Minx had her first dental ever yesterday at 9 years 5 months old and didn't need any extractions! Here are before pictures and her rads.

We currently give vetriscience perio support daily once dogs are a couple years old, plaque off to everyone except breeding girls, and dental chews 2-3 times a week. Minx definitely lucked out with good genetics, but prevention can only help!

04/23/2025

A collage/composite from race practice a couple weekends ago where 6 out of 7 Stormlight Archive litter puppies got to try chasing a lure! Spren is pictured twice, detouring to me and then her flying away after she got back on the lure 🤣

02/14/2025

Let's talk about health testing! There's been a lot of discussion about health testing recently including a ton of questions from people new to the breed looking for puppies.

I've gone over this before in my tiktok on how to find a silken breeder and verify their health testing, so here's that link again for a quick 3 minute video from 2021: https://www.tiktok.com//video/7021207094007221509?is_from_webapp=1&sender_device=pc&web_id=6917689263748449798

There are a couple kinds of health testing. One kind is MDR1 (a drug resistance from herding breeds that we have) and CEA (an eye issue also typical in some herding breeds) testing, which embark is one of the labs for. I embark all my puppies in case anything weird pops up, and because I like to have genetic COI (coefficient of inbreeding) and other information from it. There are other labs with cheaper single tests available that are also fine, they just don't give any extra info! If both parents are clear it's likely the puppies are clear unless a lab made a mistake testing the parents!

The second kind of health testing is OFA (Orthopedic Foundation for Animals) testing. OFA is just a non-profit database that logs results so they'll exist available online until the heat death of the universe/choose your end of humans scenario. Required OFA health testing for silkens to get a CHIC (Canine Health Information Center) is basic cardiac (this is a vet listening to the heart with a stethoscope - auscultation), thyroid, and eyes. They don't have to pass the tests to get a CHIC number. To my mind auscultations are a very low bar for cardiac testing since we come from two breeds with cardiac issues, so I do advanced cardiac testing (echocardiograms) and holter monitoring on mine, and look for studs with echos (& holter studs I use since I bought my own). Auscultations can only hear a murmur, and can't diagnose anything.

Ideally individuals would be bred when they're a little older to know if they have any health issues (3+ years) and after they've had a couple full rounds of health testing. Then ideally they would also be retested semi regularly as they age so we could have an idea of what conditions are coming up in senior silkens!

I did Minx's third echo (her fourth round of cardiac testing) in January with her having turned 9 in November, and while she did not have a murmur (so would have passed an auscultation and been marked normal on OFA if I just did basic testing) the echo showed that she does has a little stiffness and thickening in her tricuspid valve with some trace regurgitation (aka a tiny amount of blood flows back through the valve when it's closed), and an even smaller amount of regurgitation in her mitral valve. I'll be doing follow up echos on her once a year to monitor. Attached is a screenshot of her OFA record.

Both of my previous two silkens likely had this at an earlier age than Minx, since I didn't do an echo on them until our regular vet heard a heart murmur on both of them at their exam when they were 9 years old, and they both had a higher amount of regurgitation found at their initial echos a few months later.

Every breeder has different ways of doing things and every person interested in the breed needs to figure out what's important to them in a breeder!

02/10/2025

A lot of breeders avoid talking about the sad parts and the hard parts of breeding! I have been extremely lucky and so far (huge knock on wood) had 25 of 25 puppies survive whelping and make it to 9.5 weeks old (Stormlight Archive), almost 2 (Minxators), almost 4 (Verminxles), and almost 4.5 (Winxles) respectively.

I gave a short version of what happened with the Stormlight Archive litter's arrival here a couple of days after they were born, but here's the longer version on tiktok:

53 likes, 3 comments. “It was quite the birth experience, and a 20 hour day! Puppies are all healthy and six days old, Emma is doing great and her incision still looks beautiful. Breeding is serious and you risk the life of your girl every time. If I had been less experienced or done less research...

02/05/2025

In a very happy, last minute turn of events my difficult choice of keeper was made easy with a co-own of Lift! Both me and my great friend Cali, who helped whelp this litter and my last litter, did the temperament testing for this and the last litter, and owns Lux from my last litter, will have options for the future 💜

02/05/2025

Two sets of conformation evals and one temperament eval are over and we have our keeper! Meet Spren, formerly Oath:

12/25/2024

Happy Holidays/Merry Christmas/Happy Hanukkah! Photos from 10 days ago 💜 Everyone's eyes are open now and they're toddling around and starting to play with each other!

12/16/2024

The Stormlight Archive litter are 10 days old! 💜

12/07/2024

Thursday was a bit of a harrowing ordeal with 4 puppies born in the whelping box at home, a 5th in the back of the sprinter on the way to the emergency vet, and 2 via c section at the emergency vet, but they are all healthy and gaining weight and Emma is a wonderful mother and seemingly unbothered by the surgery! (She also has a pain block that should last through Monday evening and pain meds on board.)

We got home at two minutes after midnight on the day the fifth book was released, and the sire is Storm, so presenting the Stormlight Archive litter! They are going to all be spoken for by the time I shuffle through applications. I have 4 chosen homes besides myself since I was planning on a litter of 5 puppies based on the ultrasound and I decided to wait until after they were here safely and I've had a chance to rest and just enjoy them before I do any further work not directly related to them and Emma's immediate care!

12/04/2024

Emma's maternity shoot 😆