About Us at Cristalmar Portuguese water dog

The Path of The Cristalmar Portuguese Water Dogs to Brazil & About Us

King & Prince (aka Rio)

living in Richmond, VA

The Portuguese history is rich in invasions and discoveries. The Portuguese men have been navigators and voyagers since the early times. Those sailors had reached Asia and in 1500, accidentally, discovered Brazil, when they were going to India. Brazil is the only country in Americas where Portuguese is spoken, after all, Brazil was a Portuguese colony. When the Napoleon troops were to invade Portugal, the royal family and the court fled to Brazil bringing the first PWDs. In 1828, when Napoleon troops had left the Portuguese territory, the king D.Miguel returned to Portugal to reestablish the monarchy. His caravel landed in the Belem Beach (Lisbon), such a moment is portrayed by a painting at the City Museum, in Lisbon. It shows a lion clipped water dog swimming around. We believe that the few water dogs alive and pure might have returned to Portugal, by then.

Nevertheless, the Portuguese Water Dogs are believed to be originated from a region in China at the Pamir vicinities. There is great possibility that the known Foo Lion Dogs presented in the China Arts objects and even the DOG in the Chinese Astrological charts would be our current PWDs early ancestors. The DOG in the Chinese astrology is described in such a way that it fits perfectly well into the PWDs characteristics.

Further Info about The Chinese DOG SIGN

Macao had been a city dominated by the Portuguese which could also be another way, although much closer to our present days, to take those dogs to the Western culture aside Marc Polo and the Visigodos.

Jean De La Fontaine is the author of several worldwide known fables.He has lived in the XVII century and later on in the mid of XIX century those fables had a special addition, Gustavo Dore's engravings.

In one of those engravings shown in the left we can clearly see a dog in lion clipping that makes us believe it is another image out of a Portuguese Water Dog.

Our stocks carry some lost, ancient and rare gene pool that "can not be gotten again" as a blending of lines available in the 80's from both sides of Atlantic that includes some famous ancestors such as the bitch Renascença do Al-Gharb and Oura de Tangaring , only a few generations behind. Those ancient and typey lines have been preserved with some of their working skills and profiles and some of our dogs behave themselves as VIGILANT WEATHER DOGS barking when storms are approaching.

Some people affirm that in Brazil during the early 70's there were a couple of people who owned some porties from other lines, but, their origin are still unknown and no record was found about such dogs or possible litters , except for the picture recently found which shows one of our most admired and loved bossa nova musician ( who had composed with Tom Jobim the song The Girl from Ipanema). Vinicius de Moraes & his Portuguese Water Dog.

In the 80’s , four PWDs arrived in Brazil bringing the following bloodlines as their ancestors :

CONDINHO, AZAMBUJA, FARMION, ALVALADE, CANOPUS just to name a few. In 87, the first Portuguese water dog litter was registered in Brazil.Out of this first registered Brazilian PWD litter born on the 25th of July of 87 whelped out from Cintra do Condinho and Wren do Condinho a special bitch named Africa de Negrellos had been returned to its origin country along with her dam and had gifted the breed a legacy of Champs such as Feijoca da Casa de Serra De Agua, Cipó Da Casa da Serra De Água and the 2001 World Ch Nana da Casa da Serra de Agua.

Later on, the breed made its debut in the Brazilian shows and the Vale Negro dogs arrived. In 97 our dogs entered the rings for the first time. Since then, we have been making our best efforts to bring out the breed .Some of our goals have been to maintain a bloodline with their original affectionate temperament and typey, small and compact, good health and color patterns with controlled grey factor to avoid coat color fading.In 2000, we had our 2nd litter. It was the first time our puppies were sent abroad.The experience was quiet traumatic resulting in a full inbreeding and puppies been assumed by the PWDCA rescue without my acknowledgment. In 2003, we had our 10th Anniversary litter. The result was a small litter adopted by wonderful families. In 2004, we had 2 litters, total of 10 puppies, producing awesome dogs , some in conformation shows abroad.In 2005 , we have decided not to stop breeding. It was extremily difficult to deal with the loss of an entire litter and this was enough to stop dealing with the losses and resignations because of our latin culture we get too much bonf to the puppies and it is always very hard to let them go.

Socialization

Our dogs had been socialized according to our cultural beliefs and our Portuguese inheritage. Firstly, the puppies are not allowed to play around with other dogs. They stay in”quarantine" whilst the vaccination program is not fully finished. At least, it usually takes 15 weeks to ensure that our puppies have a good immune response that may let us assume any risk to let them go out of their "quarantine". When this period is over, it is undeniable that they are a bit unfamiliar with many things. Nevertheless, that is the most important time because it will depend on the capacity of the adopting families and myself as a breeder giving them some assistance as the puppies need to feel protect and secure for new challengings. Step by step the puppies are introduced to their new friends and human family. If the pups are kept with us for a longer period they are twice a day walked to the parks where they meet numerous dogs and humans( photo below) . Later, they finally have the chance to learn how to swim and to dive following their siblings as their mentor. It usually takes 2 months to socialize the puppies and make them to become confident and very easy going. No dog is ever allowed to be in crate.Our puppies nature is a profound affection and sympathy that shall be stimulated by responsible owner under the breeder's guidance whenever required. We don't believe dog trainers can make any important success if there is lack of dedication and love from the owner's side. However, if the dog and the owner have both of them the synchronicity, there are great chances that a dog trainer may not even be needed, although it is always very interesting to have a dog trainers supervision for a while to get the most potentiality from such intelligent and sensitive creatures, the PWDs. Nonetheless, the dogs repeat whatever they see as they have a strong body reading understanding...if they don't have other dogs around they will interact with you as they do with other dogs. Soon, the dogs can translate our "body language” and our gestures may be understood as commanding. As a good friend that knows you so well by a simple blink of eyes. We don't believe that dogs that are socialized in a private properties limited to the same dogs and environment

such as kennels which have a huge land property or crate trained dogs are more or less socialized as long as they meet other people and have some dog friends to come over. It is all a matter of cultural differences, which may result into interesting patterns and diversification. It is our cultural blending richness that is passed along our dogs, which will result some outstanding show dogs with the traditional soudness, but mostly, assured companion dog excellence or even outstanding sporting dogs. Certainly, the most important of all: Behind ANY good dog there is a good person from both sides: The owners and the breeders as the dogs are creatures that carry the breeders and adopting families' aural subtle energies and, therefore, my belief is: Having a dog is to have the most complete unconditional love of all.

Health Issues

There has no record of GM1 and Juvenile Dilated Miocardiopathy (diseases that cause the death of your puppy) in the small and closed Brazilian gene pool. As a responsible breeder, since I have been aware of the health issues, I have been doing my foremost and everything in my control to assure that our puppies have the best chance for a normal healthy life span. Some diseases are discarded by inheritage and controlled by empirical processes.

As in any form of life, depending on environment and genetics some breeds may be more subjected to certain types of diseases than others. However, need no panic, as those lethal diseases are not very easily found in porties and the techonology developments have been helping breeders to have a new tool when selecting breedings.

Its very important that you are aware that health tests such as GM1, Optigen for PRA are only available in the USA. In Brazil , we can only check for hips and eyes(such as CERF). Regarding PRA tests, Optigen has in Eur and AU representant offices to assist breeders, while there is none in South America. The Brazilian burocratic procedures are tremendous and it has become even more complicated to send any bio sample abroad form Brazil after 911. In addition to that, the costs had increased drasticaly as very restrict rule to ship biomaterial abroad to prevent biopiracy has been imposed. All those reasons have made the genetic tests not feasible and its easier and cheaper to some dogs to America to be fully tested instead. Some of them had been fully tested . The health tests are important and we encourage the adopting families to test their porties. Many lethal inheritage diseases have no tests yet whilst others are still under continueing process to make them as more accurate as possible , thus, it is crucial to send material for tests to increase the number of samples and turn them to be more reliable . Because since 91 our stock has been locked out from the rest of the pwd worldwide stock , weve been striving to control the health issues we may have , but, most of all, to ban out any risk to import a dog that may be carrier of some lethal inheritage diseases that we have not found here yet. All our dogs that have been PRA tested in the USA got PRA type B , but , 2 puppies out of an accidental full inbreeding in US territory have diagnosed as PRA affected. At the present time, health tests cannot insure genetic disease free litters yet . The downnote is that some tests may restrict the breed gene pool that may trigger other lethal diseases that are still recessive and unknown in the breed..Thus, the diversity and the different breeding program priorities is always salutare.