The Paisley Breed Of Dalmatian
The Paisley Dalmatian is owned by Dave and Sue MacMillan who are located at St. Paul, Minnesota. When Paisley Peterbilt completed his championship in March of 1985, he became the 50th conformation champion owned or bred at Paisley. And during that same month, Paisley’s QindaBritt became the 30th obedience Dalmatian to have earned a C.D. degree.
Although she was actually their fourth Dalmatian and third champion, champion Melody Up-Up and Away, more familiarly known as “Pooka,” is credited with being the true foundation of the Paisley breeding program, probably because she is to be found in the background of all but one champion carrying the Paisley name. All of the younger dogs are line-bred on this remarkable dog, some of them having as many as five crossed to her in their pedigrees.
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Pooka was a liver colored Dalmatian and a multi-Group winner. Her show credits include having been a Top Ten Dalmatian, and she was Best of Opposite Sex at the Dalmatian Club of America Specialty in 1974. But despite these accomplishments, it was in the whelping box that her most notable successes were achieved, such as becoming the dam of 15 champions, second in this number only to her half sister, Champion Melody Sweet, C.D. who exceeded
her number by only one, making a total of 16 champions. Adding to her success as a producer is the fact that Pooka’s offspring seem to be following in her pawmarks in this regard, and a number of them are providing foundation for other highly successful Dalmatian kennels.
Paisley is basically a combination of Melody and Watseka lines with the addition of some Long Last and Coachman. Each of these lines has its strong points, and Sue is finding that the combination is giving them the look that they prefer. At the time their breeding program was started, Sue and Dave felt that there was no line that really possessed the combination of characteristics that they wanted in their Dalmatians, and they saw no point in line-breeding just for the sake of doing so.
Thus they started out by doing judicious outcrosses attempting to pick up the features they felt they needed to add. Although initially they received considerable criticism for pursuing this course rather than the more conservative line-breeding, these outcrosses laid the groundwork by bringing in those qualities they had felt they wanted to improve upon, and thus incorporating them into the developing Paisley Dalmatian lines