Well 2006 is at a close, Christmas day has passed us by and the frantic shopping days are now just a distant memory, all wrapped and given to our friends and loved ones as a sign of our love and affection for their involvement in our lives. For those who like ourselves have spent many days out on the road traveling to dog shows, it is a time to reflect on our efforts, bask in our successes and dream of future expectations at forthcoming shows.Like many of you, we follow the achievements online of our dog world colleagues around the world, cheering them on from our armchairs and hoping that success and glory follow them from show to show. Oh how technology has helped us in our quest for reaching wider horizons, forging friendships with people we have never met and strengthening the ties with our competitors in the show ring.

We have been very fortunate to meet some wonderful and fascinating people on our travels, and to those people who have become part of our circle, we would like to thank you for sharing our experiences and making our days spent at shows enjoyable. We would also like to take this opportunity as the year draws to a close, of thanking all the judges who have so kindly seen certain qualities in the dogs we have shown, giving them recognition and placing them on the days in question to the titles achieved. We are grateful that they take the time to visit countries far from home, sometimes in all extremes of weather to grace us with their knowledge and wealth of experience. Already many of us will be planning the shows for 2007 and like at so many shows of the past year, all our paths will cross at some time or another in 2007. Thank you also to the show organisers who without the hard work and extremely long hours we would not see some of the spectacular shows presented. Special recognition to the individual kennel clubs for ever improving the quality of shows, for stamping out many of the bad practices that were creeping in and for ensuring variety is offered throughout the year. Last but not least, the breeders who continue to strive for perfection, who continually produce beautiful puppies and who spend many sleepless nights hand feeding because of their love and dedication to the breed. This is really the start of the chain and without these dedicated individuals dog showing would not be what it is today, so hats off to each and every one of you, raise a glass to the New Year and may you continue to offer quality and good breeding in the years to come.

We have had our own little corner of success this year with our boy Zsacharias and our girl Heidie who I am sure you have followed on our web site www.apollodane.com. Both have proved much beyond our expectations and we are delighted at their achievements. We have all covered some miles in search of success and our Danes now have their very own "frequent flyer cards" an initiative set up by our local kennel club and our regional airline carrier, something I personally feel we should all be perusing, as between us all we must cover some flying miles and let's face it, any saving on excess luggage with our dogs means we are able to visit more shows in support of other countries. Cyprus Airways to their credit and recognition give a 50% discount to members of the scheme, so for those of you out there and actively involved in your own kennel club, this is a benefit supporting two very worthwhile causes. The next thing would be to get the member cards accepted on ALL airlines, that really would be a great achievement. Anyway, back to the success of 2006 with Heidie and Zsacharias. For 2007 Zsacharias will cover Heidie and for those interested in this mating, more information can be found on our web page, copies of pedigrees and copies of the pedigrees of the potential offspring. Heidie will be given a break to concentrate her efforts on motherhood and our lovely girl Odette will take to the show circuit. Let us hope she sees similar success in 2007 to follow in the lines of Heidie.

From all here in Cyprus, especially at Apollodane Great Danes, we wish you all the very best in 2007, we wish you continued success in forthcoming shows and we wish you good fortunes in future matings throughout the year.