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"BACK TO THE FUTURE"
Bernadette Paula Quercio

Over thirty years ago I fell in love with the breed named the Alaskan Malamute.  
As a child growing up in New Jersey my grandfather always had dogs.   In his 
shoemakers shop his dogs were always obedient----they knew English and 
Italian. One time some one stole my Grandfathers dog.  We went to court and
of course I was a witness to the fact that this was my grandfathers dog----Spotty.
The guy who stole the dog claimed he had it since a puppy. My grandfather 
asked the judge if this guy taught this dog any tricks---Of course the guy said
no! My grandfather in Italian told the dog to play dead and he did!!  Shake hands
and he did! Roll Over and he did! Than he repeated in English! We went home
with Spotty!  I told my Grandfather I wanted dogs like this when I grew up. 
So the dream of having Spotty’s and World Champions started!  The dream 
ended when I became a teenager and interested in other things! 

After marriage at a young age and moving to California----I was introduced to an 
Alaskan Malamute at a Swap Meet!! This Hugh Black & White male laying 
underneath a pick Up truck. I asked the guy what kind of dog he was
--A Malamute--A sled dog! He than told me he had a litter of pups at the house
not to far from where I lived. My husband and I went to his house and there they
were 8 pups running loose in the yard. $150.00 and I get the pick of litter! WOW!!

Ch (USA) Artic-Luv's Swashbuckler ROM
"Flynn"

That was a lot of money in 1971!! Two weeks had gone by and the breeders of  the litter came by and wanted us to go to a 
puppy show. What is a puppy show? A dog show for pups---Actually called a Puppy Match! We went and there were about 
30 dogs entered and they were not all puppies!  My puppy’s brother went BOB and I had the best female BOS!

This started a career of showing and breeding Malamutes! It was not an easy beginning! I was hooked in the breed and I started 
hunting down every puppy match there was! I was off every Sat and Sun to some park for that Puppy Match challenge.
As time went by we met other people in the breed with more years than I had in experience and one such person was 
Jan Shelton for Frostwind Kennels! She was the Breeder of my pups MOM!! WOW! She was the first one to have a 
Red and White Champion on the West Coast: Ch Kodara’s Makushime who was my Pups Grandfather---WOW! 
Jan wanted to know how many points my female had? What did she mean by points?? First lesson in AKC Shows!! 
A year after my first match - I was in my first AKC SHOW. What an eye opener that was! Men wore suits and women 
dresses and skirts. They all looked like they were going to church.

My Dog was in the American Bred bitch class and there were two exhibitors
in that class. The other female won with some guy they called a 
“Professional Handler”. He looked like the Good Humor man to me! He was 
dressed in a white suit and he had a handle bar moustache. Jan was 
outside the Ring waiting for me and asked me if  would like to come back 
to her house for lunch? At the time there were other people I had met from
the Puppy Matches that were Jan’s clients and she sold my pups mom too. 
We all went back to Jan’s house and she started teaching me how to handle
 a dog and how I should dress. This was the first of many weekends at Jan’s
House. Not only did she teach me to handle, but also we looked at her 
photo album viewing the dogs behind my dog and asking all kinds of crazy 
questions. With a lot of understanding and patience I would get my answers
from her. 
This was the beginning of me becoming into a human sponge and trying to 
understand everything I could! As I learned, other people and kennel names
 came up. Some of the names were like out of space to me. Going to shows
 and winning a little, seeing the big winning dogs of the day, that were doing
 a lot of winning, I decide that this is what I wanted to do. 
WIN AND HAVE THE EGO!!! 

Through the dog shows I met a few other mentors, people who really influenced the breed in the early days. This was the 70’s
-----Tigara Kennels with D.C. Dillingham, Sam Maranto the owner of Ch.Cochise of Husky Pak, Martha Guiffre from 
Pak N Pull Kennels, Dr Leo Rifkind from Kodara /Snocrest Kennels, Dr. Rifkind bred the first Best In Show Winner in Breed 
History who’s Sire was Ch Cochise of Husky Pak. So there you have it the Mentors that came into my life that made a major
impact on which line and what direction I was going to go! 

The top winning dogs of the day on the West Coast were the Tigara Kennels and the dogs of Kodara bloodlines!! 
But what really impressed, me was the Tigara dogs. They were consistent in there with, looks (Breed Type) and Boy 
did they get those ribbons! So with a lot of guts and “No Glory” I worked my self into the Tigara Camp and managed to have 
DC Dillingham be my mentor. “How did you get to breed all those dogs that look a like?” I asked. Then answers dawned on 
me. The Magic pill must be to breed to a Tigara dog! The hunt was on for a Tigara stud! D.C. Dillingham was the person 
who hurt my feelings first!! He told me to spay my female and take her home and love her. He told me to get a good female, 
“BITCHES ARE A BACKBONE OF A KENNEL AND A BLOODLINE.”  Gee!! The people at the show did not feel that way 
they loved to see me come and they were very encouraging too!! But I kept losing! Oh the Magic pill I need a Tigara Stud!! 
Some one told me this guy out in the Boondocks had an old Tigara dog. So I went to his kennel and there were a lot of 
Malamutes, just like D.C. had at his Kennel. There must have been at least 15 or 20 Mals! But this guy had some that were 
different than Tigara! Here comes this guy to me and it’s the Pro Handler that looked like the Good Humor man! He had a 
Tigara dog “Ch Tigara’s Jo Dan of Arctica”. I told him I wanted to use him for stud. He said, “fine, give me $150.00 and you 
can use him, on top of that he is yours to keep”. Jo Dan had a growth on the back of his neck and it looked bad. I took him 
to the vet to get him back in to shape. At the time he was Nine years old. I had my litter of pups and about 9 months later the 
l973 National Specialty was held here in California! Shelly Dillingham came to me and asked if it was true that I had Jo Dan. 
I answered her “YES”.  Jo Dan won the Vet class at the National and DC came up to me and asked if one of his daughters 
could show Jo Dan in the specials class and so it came to be that Shelly Dillingham handled him and did a fine job!

The handler that gave him to me wanted him back after that. My reply
was “NO WAY”. His son out of my first litter was placed in the ribbons
out of a big class, and later in his career Jo Dan’s son 
“Champion Artic-Luvs Jonas of the North” finished at the West Coast 
Area Specialty. D.C. being the gentleman he was still trying to 
convince me to start with new stock! The question of CHD came up. 
There was a lot of high probability of dogs behind my lines and by 
breeding to Jo Dan I played the numbers game to a lower Chd rating 
to clear Jonas! But did I?? No! Later on I would come up with a dwarf 
litter from Jonas! Here stepped in my Mentors to help me and start 
my new beginning!

Each of these people had different views and about things. The 
question I asked were they wrong? NO! They just had different 
ways of doing things, their very own unique way. 
D.C., Sam Maranto, Martha Guiffre, Jan Shelton, & Judy Cronk 
were onto me. Well as the saying goes “any press is better than 
no press”. This statement could not be truer. My name was mud, 
my self-esteem was at very low point, but I did love the 
Alaskan Malamute. My new friends and only friends were my 
Mentors. They have been through the Wars and they knew there 
would be more set backs in the future. Marty would come down from
Idaho, and stay at Sam’s house. I call this space of time “the brain 
washing on bloodlines”.  They both saw something in me to become 
a breeder of their Line of Malamutes.  They did not talk genetics that
much, but they did explain each dog  in the pedigree the strengths 
and their weakness. Marty line bred and never did a half brother/sister 
breeding, but grandfather to granddaughter was her favorite. 

Ch Tigara's Jo-Dan of Arctica
Best Veteran in Show 
National Speciality Show 1973 
10 years old!

HERE STEPPED IN “CHAMPION PAK n PULLS KODIAK ATTU” who was a product of “CH KODARA'S KODIAK OF EROWAH” 
bred to his granddaughter. Ch Pak N Pulls Kodiak Attu would be my Foundation dog of ARTIC LUV KENNELS. Now that I knew
and I loved Attu, he was also CHD clear (test Bred), I acquired a daughter of Attu. I was now running around with Marty’s stuff at 
the show and doing some winning. Sam Maranto and Marty Guiffre brainwashed me into breeding the Kodara lines and Marty had
her last litter with a Kodi son of Bob Carsten Ch Car Mal Kodiak Kaniq. The bitch was from Sid Flerthy breeding out of all 
Pak N Pull of Marty that was test breed!!  I bred 4 Champions out of that bitch. Mean while I was talking with DC Dillingham on 
how to be consistent in breeding because Sam and Marty bred to dogs they liked within the lines, 
but they were not intensely line-bred.

D.C. Was disappointed that I did not go with his line, although I still had great respect for him and his wife Dorothy. 
He corned me at a show and said ‘SO YOU THINK JUDY’S ATTU IS A GREAT ONE?”   “Yes, D---I do.”   “ Prove it” he said. 
“Do a ½ brother/sister breeding on him”. I went to Judy and she said “NO”.  So I went to a pet son of Attu behind Judy’s back 
and I did the breeding. The bitch was one month in whelp and I had to come clean, so Judy calls Marty and Marty tells Sam. 
“It’s a good breeding if D.C. told her to do it”. So Champion Artic-Luv's Swashbuckler “ROM” aka “Flynn” was born. This line is a 
very slow maturing line and at six months old I told Marty “he looks like nothing”. Marty looks at him and tells me he is a good 
one. He is a slow mature quite typical like her line is known for. Years later a Malamute person goes up to D.C. and ask him 
“What do you think of that dog, D.C?” His answer was  “don’t ask, I told her to do the breeding and he is a good one”.   
Now behind Flynn are dogs that were inbred and heavily line bred, so Flynn is also heavily line bred and produces what I wanted. 
He was National Ranked 4 years in a row and #1 West Coast Malamute.  Flynn never went Best In Show but has 15 Group ones 
and many group placements.  I started line breeding half brother sisters and Uncle/Niece breeding.          

In l980 I met Harold Swartzapfel at a Specialty in NY State. I went to that 
Specialty thinking I need to bring something in to California. I wanted to 
buy something from him and he was too involved with Terry Sewell and 
did not have anything for me. Ch Karahonta Sky Master ROM won the 
Stud Dog class and Uyak Indian Inez won the Brood Bitch class. 
Panzer went BOB with Inez going BOS. The judge was Peggy Anderson. 
I travelled 3,000 miles and stayed a month on the East Coast showing 
dogs and won a lot of points in the Breed and Group placements with 
the 4 dogs I had with me. It was a lot of work. So I went to Candy and 
Bob and got Buffalo Chip out of Ch Uyak Buffalo Bill. I then went to Terry
 and bred some dogs there. Richie Harrison let me have Wild Bill for a 
year so that I can breed to him. Other dogs I also bred to were 
Ch Karahonta SkyMaster, Ch J Len Arctic Windjammer and from these
breedings came Multi Best In Show winner Ch Artic Luv's Skullduggery (Trick). 
In between those breedings I bred almost 60 Champions using these dogs!! 

In 1981 at another National in California an old breeder of the Tigara 
bloodlines ask Dorothy Dillingham “there is a Tigara dog over there isn’t it?
Dorothy tells her “no”.  The women asked,   “Whose dog is that?”    
Dorothy answers “One of  Bernie’s: CHAMPION ARTIC LUVS SKULDUGGERY
aka “TRICK”!  Dorothy’s comments were that she has D.C. Dillingham’s formula.

BIS Ch (Austr) Artic-Luv's Kodiak Attu

CONCLUSION.
Politics can ruin the Breed----Peer pressure can ruin the Breed.   Do your own thing, but first go to the people who have been 
through wars and know the dog’s history well, the TRUE DOG MEN AND WOMEN.   Not the people or so called breeders that 
mention style of Malamute but the ones that breed to the “CORRECT ALASKAN MALAMUTE”  that the standard of the breed 
blue prints out for you to follow.  

Now that I got some of this history behind lets go to the 60’s and 70’s when the old time breeding kennels had anywhere from 
15 to 50 dogs in their breeding program.  Although I did know of a breeding kennel that had 75 Saint Bernard’s and the top-winning
kennel around back than.  Were they moneymakers?   Did they produce sound dogs and top winners?  There were much more
of those breeding kennels back than.  For reason beyond my thinking I asked, “why can’t breeding kennels be a money maker?” 
To make money you have to spend money I knew a lot of breeding kennels in all breeds in the 70’s some of them had 10 to 20 
litters a year.  I was told they did not make money or a profit.  Ok this money was turned back into the dogs their breeding stock
to produce health dogs and have nice facilities to house them. All those litters they produced were not all quality and they could 
afford to try breeding—they did not have to settle for mediocre ---they kept the best— there was no DNA in those days for 
scanning dogs for genetically defects.  Breeders kept records of what these dogs produced and always bred to the Positive 
or healthy dogs. The pet person back than were lucky—they got nice healthy pet puppies out of Champion stock and from 
breeders that were always a phone call away to answer any questions they may have.    Puppy money went back into the dogs
---the feed—the extras in vitamins and fresh meat—the Veterinarians etc.  This is how they kept the quality up and the producing
 in the right breed type that the standard called for ---not breeding to just the top winner of the day and going all over and having 
open pedigrees that produce uncertainty on the unsound dogs that are not healthy!  In those days of the Big Breeding Kennels---
the quality was up and the competition was stiff!!

Another issue when selling pups is many top kennels put them on breeding contracts for the bitches to come back to them for 
the first breeding and this helped in strengthening the bloodline!  REMEMBER BITCHES ARE THE BACK BONE OF A 
BLOODLINE AND KENNEL.  Some breeders believed if you want to have a good strong line going, then you actually need 100 
dogs in your program. That is why breeding contracts are important today, especially with the lack of space and zoning its 
important today more so!!    Today many people can only have one litter a year because again of the zoning and space.  This 
one litter a year – may be produce mediocre or even worse.  These dogs are all they have to work with.  Suppose your 
mediocre dog has a problem, such as CHD.  That can end your career as a breeder!  This is the reason why DNA mapping 
of defectives genes is important in today’s world. I therefore appeal to all that are passionate and that are in The Sport of Dogs 
to support The American Kennel Club Canine Health Foundation that do studies on defected genes.  These studies will in the 
long run help all dogs and not just the pure bred dog.

Back Up!!