Our Papillon Story

It all began in 2000, when we were looking for a suitable companion dog for our daughter. I was watching TV one day and saw the cutest dog I had ever seen. It was a Zyrtec commercial, so I set out to discover what breed of dog it was. After calling the company and being transferred many times, three days later I discovered that it was a Papillon!! I was immediately in love.

I began my internet search and sadly, will have to say, I was not treated very nicely. All we wanted was a papillon to love, but seemingly we were not good enough! Because of that, we went in a different direction for her dog, but the papillon was always on my mind.

My husband had a birthday coming up and while looking at the newspaper one day, found an add for a papillon. So off to Nashville we went, "just to look". Knowing absolutely nothing about the breed, shame on me for not doing any homework, I fell in love with this tiny little sable and white boy. Rufus was my constant companion and he was loved dearly. I now consider him my rescue....I kept waiting for him to look like the pictures I had always seen of these beautiful show dogs, but as you have guessed....Rufus was the product of a very poor back yard breeder. He lived to the age of 8 but succumbed to kidney cancer.

After we got Rufus, and realized he was not a correct papillon, I began to do real research. Our love for Rufus and the breed in general led me to my now close friend and mentor, Carrie Blair owner of Blairwynn Papillons, home of the famous AM CAN CH Springhill the Muppet Caper "Elmo", sire of merit, father to numerous American and Canadian champions. In 2003, Carrie graciously agreed after a multiple page questionnaire asking all sorts of questions etc, to allow my "heart" dog Blairwynn's Sarah's Rocky to come and live with us. This beautiful little fellow and watching her show awakened a past love of the show ring in me. As a young girl, I showed Guernsey cows in 4-H.

So, once again, I turned to the internet to do research. I found a breeder in Sweden who indeed had a cute little black and white girl who had just been born. Carrie and I watched Candygold's Fancy Béchamel "Beechee" until she was about 12 weeks old and decided to take a chance and have her come to the US. Jerry, Rufus and I went to Chicago to pick her up....thus the beginning of our love of showing papillons. Together, Beechee and I learned a lot about showing and grooming but most of all, we had fun!!

Carrie and I had dreams of meeting some of the people and their papillons that we had seen via the internet. I wrote a letter to Yvonne Weber in Germany inquiring about various kennels. To our delight, she graciously invited us to come to her home in Germany. With much excitement and dreams of papillons, we planned our "dream papillon" trip. Carrie, Jerry and I left New York City in September of 2004 on our way to Germany. Yvonne picked us up at the air port and was a very gracious hostess. Yvonne drove us to multiple kennels in Germany, one of which was Vom Calavierchen, from which I imported 2 wonderful girls. From there we went to Sweden, Denmark and Copenhagen. I was able to meet Beechee's breeder, Margot Hornqvist in Sweden. Carrie and I brought back 2 beautiful sisters from her and another girl from my now good friend Bitte Solvberg of Zkarabi's kennels. This was a dream come true and a great beginning for Hart's Papillons. Today, we continue to breed and show for the love of the breed! I have had lots of help along the way from Carrie and others who have helped to advise and encourage me in this endeavor, and for these people, I will ever be grateful.

All of our "furkins" are beloved family members and occasionally we are fortunate to find wonderful forever homes that will love our "kids" as much as we.

I hope you will enjoy looking at the pictures of our papillons and continue to develop a love for this fabulous breed....THE PAPILLON!!!!

Harts-Papillon is a member of the Papillon Club of America , please check out the website: