29th January 2021

John Owen, Hon Sec on The Northern Saluki Club has sent the following message: 
“Happy New Year to you all. Although in these troubled and difficult times this seems to be a strange greeting, hopefully 2021 will be better than 2020. Normally I would be contacting you with a reminder that your subscriptions to the club are now due. However, the committee has decided to give all the NSC members a subscription holiday for 2021. It was felt that 2020 was a year when the club was unable to provide the normal activities which we all enjoy so much. As a result, we feel that members may not have received the normal benefits of the membership subscription. However, if anyone wishes to pay their subscriptions, they will be very gratefully received and treated as a donation. I also realise that some members may have paid their subscriptions with standing orders already set up. Please let me know if you wish to have this refunded. If we do not hear from you, we will assume that you have very generously donated your subscription to the club. Please remember to update any changes of address or particularly email addresses, especially if you have recently gone online. This is the fastest way to contact everyone. I often have delivery failures when I email all the members so if you do change emails addresses please let me know.
I would like to provide an update on the NSC dog shows in 2021. Many of you will already know from Facebook posts, that because of Covid-19, we have sadly taken the decision to cancel the Championship Show, which was due to be held on the 18th April 2021. We have tried to compensate for this by attempting to organise two Championship Shows later in the year. The first of these will take place on the 17th July 2021 as a partnership show with The Hound Association, at Stafford Showground. Dr J Hudson has very kindly agreed to still judge the show. Unfortunately, it is not possible to provide the final entry details yet. It may be that the entries will be online only, and the numbers of entries may be restricted to meet Covid-19 regulations. This is something which will need to be finalised with the Hound Association and will be published as soon as possible. Hopefully by July there may be a light at the end of the pandemic tunnel.
 
The second of the shows is also a partnership show to be held on the 19th September 2021 in conjunction with Darlington. Once more the details of this will be made available later in the year. Mr J Walton-Haddon has kindly agreed to judge on this occasion.
We are still hopeful that our Open Show planned for the 26th September 2021 will be able to go ahead as planned, at Shirland Village Hall, Nr Alfreton, Derbyshire. As before the final details will be made available as soon as the situation with gatherings and events has been made clear. Mr J Johnston-White is the judge. Once more our normal routines need to be adjusted to meet the Covid-19 restrictions. The Club AGM needs to be held in March and is planned for Sunday the 28th March 2021. We have made the decision to organise a Zoom meeting for the AGM. This will start at 2:30pm. It will be preceded by a committee meeting starting at 1:30pm. 
There will be two AGMs: the first to discuss the business from 2019 and the second the business of 2020, the meetings will run concurrently. It is necessary to have two AGM’s because of the impact of Covid-19 last year.  If you wish to join the AGM, you will need to have been a fully paid-up member in 2020. To help us manage the meeting I am asking that you register your interest with me, the secretary, in the first instance and then I will send you a zoom meeting invitation. If you have not used zoom before, let me know, and I will attempt to provide some advice. There is no cost to the members for joining the meeting, you do not need to subscribe to zoom, but you can register. You will need to register your wish to join the meeting by the 21st March 2021 to ensure you receive your invitation. Finally,I must thank all those people who sent me and Caroline all the lovely best wishes for my speedy recovery following my complete left knee replacement. Before the operation I was very severely affected by my knee. I had stopped being able to walk in the final weeks and was suffering a lot of pain despite massive pain medication. Thankfully, the operation has been a great success (8 weeks on). I am now walking about without crutches and am virtually pain free. There is some muscle and nerve pain which needs to recover but the knee is completely pain free!! The only problem now is the right knee which needs to be replaced next and the leg is now shorter than the left because of the damage in the joint.
I hope you are all managing to stay well and avoid infections particularly Covid-19. This is certainly a difficult time. Our start to 2021 was marred by the funeral of Caroline’s sister who had been diagnosed with terminal liver and pancreatic cancer, but actually died from Covid-19 in the first week of December 2020. So, wishing you all the very best for and a healthy 2021. Hopefully, we will all soon be vaccinated and can look forward to returning to some sense of normality and once more meeting each other in person.”
Birmingham National has announced a change of date for their 2021 Championship Show.  Hounds and Utility breeds will be judged on Saturday 25thSeptember.  Bath Championship Show will also be changing their dates.  Hounds and Utility breeds will now be on Monday 2ndAugust.  I am sure there will be more changes in days to come. The latter half of 2021 will be very busy with shows.
In this week’s notes I will take a short trip back in ‘memory lane’, looking at the breeding history of Kay Perkins and her Pennyworth Salukis.  She was very much a success story of a small kennel.  When I first met Kay, she and her husband, David had returned to the UK after living in Australia.  She said they were ready to settle down now.  Kay’s first breed was Afghans which she had shown and bred a couple of litters. She decided along the way that she might prefer to have a Saluki, purchasing a puppy from Jim Kenyon.  Jim was showing the lovely Ch Mazuri Lail, a smooth bitch.  It was a fairy tale beginning, the little black and silver bitch became Ch Kaus Kezia. Penny as she known went on to win 16 Challenge Certificates.  
Penny’s sire was Don Wieden’s Eng/Am/Can Ch Sedeki Barre and her dam, Ch Mazuri Lail.  Lail was the first smooth champion bitch in this country.    I remember Jim at dog shows, where he would always have his pipe in his mouth usually sitting on a hill watching the proceeding.  Showing was not Jim’s thing, coursing with Lail was.  Lail came out of the last litter ever bred by Gwen Angel.  The smooth line came down from her grandfather, the first smooth male champion, the Henderson’s Ch Kumasi Kommandan. Penny’s sire, Sedeki Barre won 14 CCs and 9 reserve CCs.  He went BIS at the Hound Assoc show in 19787.  He was top Hound (all breeds) in 1973.  He had four BIS at Championship Shows.
Kaus Kezia had two litters, the first litter was to Sue Rabey’s Ch Sedeki Haz.  The litter consisted of two males and two bitches.  Kay kept a black tri bitch, namely Alexa.  When Alexa was thirteen months old she was stolen, they managed to find her in the end but she had suffered a traumatic injury to one of her front legs.  Unfortunately, it left her unable to use it for the rest of her life   The other bitch in the litter, a grizzle, went to Daphne and Tony Parnham. She became Ch Pennyworth Belinda of Amirah.  Her second litter of two was to Diane Merchant Giles’ Ch Shamal Kharaz.  They were Ch Pennyworth Katiya and Pennyworth Riaz. Other champions from this line were Pennyworth Katinka, Pennyworth Kassim and the last being the smooth Ch Ermcote Ilex with Pennyworth (s).  She was out of Pennyworth Kestrel.  Ann Jones and Kevin Carter bred their Pennyworth Katisha producing Ch Clearwing Beraq.   Kay never bred for quantity but for quality and I think she achieved that.  Unfortunately, she became ill before passing in 2014.