"Sunshine" Ch. Oakbrook’s Heart of Gold, HIC, NAP, NJP
Born: 3/12/2000
WP962883/05 OFA#SA-13046G28F-PI Elbow#SA-EL393F28-PI Cerf#SA-4070/2006-77
Sunshine’s story:
Sunshine is out of Heather’s first litter. We were not planning on
keeping a puppy and had them all sold. Towards the time the pups were about
8 weeks old, Heather started having second thoughts about the buyer for
“yellow girl”. Just a gut feeling. We learned a very important lesson about
trusting our gut feelings and ended up taking the puppy back after 3 months
in this scary person’s care. Needless to say, she did not come back the same
girl that left us just 3 months prior. She did not know her name, her tail
would not come over her back, she was extremely insecure and did not trust
men at all. The minute she came back we knew that she was home to stay. It
took us 4 months to get our hands on her without her freaking out and about
a year for her tail to come back over her back. It broke our hearts. This is
why her name is Oakbrook’s Heart of Gold. She got her call name because
Brianna, who was 3 years old at the time, named the yellow girl, “Sunshine”
because Heather used to sing “You Are My Sunshine” to her every night before
bedtime. It is amazing she knew her new name the first day she was back in
our care.
Sunshine was the first in her litter to finish her Championship. She
finished the day after her father Ono died. When the judge pointed to her
for Winners Bitch, Heather promptly burst into tears which really confused
the judge! It was a very bittersweet moment.
Sunshine started agility awhile after finishing her championship. She was
bored at home and getting into all sorts of trouble but once we started her
in agility she stopped bolting out our front door and digging holes to
China. She really enjoyed it and was almost ready to start competing when we
bred her for her first litter. She had 3 litters totaling 12 pups, producing
5 champions. She is the most instinctive dog we have ever had. Her first
litter, she decided that the $40 bag of premium puppy food was not good
enough for her kids so she killed a crow and dropped it in their pen! She
didn’t allow anyone in her whelping box except Heather. Her last litter of
one, she decided at the last moment that she would much prefer to have her
kid in the cavern she dug behind the shed. This cavern was impressive! It
was about 5 inches tall, about 5 feet wide and went back into the hill about
5 feet that opened up into a cavern she could turn around in. Luckily,
Heather caught her tail as she was about to dive in and held on for dear
life! Luckily the neighbor heard her cries for help, jumped the fence and
helped to dig her out. She shook the dirt off and we went back inside to
have her puppy in the no longer sterile whelping box we built for this
purpose! She was very unhappy with us for spoiling her plan. She gave birth
about 10 minutes later to our singleton named “Bonzai”.
When she was done having puppies she went back to agility with her new
training partner, Brianna. They started competing together in Oct 2007 and
achieved both novice titles. At the 2008 National Specialty she took 1st
place in Novice Standard. She was also the #2 Veteran Bitch at the 2009
National Specialty.
She is now mostly retired from agility and the show ring at almost 11 yrs
old and enjoys being Heather’s jogging partner and resident
c lown.
