Lee and Deann Christianson of Chelsea Whippets
are located in Bakersfield, California

          In November of 1983, we acquired our foundation from David and Donna Lukasky (Spectre) of San Diego, California. Two bitches, Spectre Chalcedony and Spectre White Hot who were excellent bitches with different strengths. Both were basically a combination of the classic "nick" of old American and English bred lines.
Although both bitches carried the same prefix they were, in reality, unrelated. Both completed their titles in short order, and the time came to choose our course of action for the future of Chelsea. After an all consuming study of pedigrees and breed history, a mental ideal of our own was formed of the perfect Whippet. In our minds BIS Ch. Greenbrae Barn Dance, ROMX rose to the top as one of our ideals of the breed. We decided to tap into this great dog by concentrating on his linebred descendants.

          Our general course was set. Upon evaluation of our bitches, we were attracted to the big bodied soundness of Whippoorwill as well as pedigree compatibility for our first litter. We planned to consistently cross to linebred descendents of Barn Dance with our long term plan to eventually cross our two foundation lines together at some point in
the future.

          Chelsea was born in 1985 with our first litter sired by Ch. Whippletree's Raisin Cain out of Ch. Spectre White Hot. This cross produced four champions which included Ch. Chelsea Saffron, ROMX. Our second litter, sired by Ch. Allerei's Cabin Fever, LCM out of Ch. Spectre Chalcedony, produced three champions which included
Multi-BIS Ch. Chelsea Satin Doll, LCM, and Ch. Chelsea Prelude to
a Kiss, ROM.

          From those first two breedings sowed the seed of every litter that blooms from Chelsea. Within our line we have the very sound branch (down from White Hot) and the drop-dead gorgeous branch (down from Chalcedony). We've made meaningful crosses of the two branches and yet still some portions are unrelated, which has been invaluable for outcrossing. Towards our goal, we have incorporated the best from Whippoorwill, Surrey Hill, Shilo and Allerei. One never achieves success alone, though the years we've been fortunate to have knowledgeable friends from whom we have sought excellent counsel on more than one occasion. Our formative years were spent soaking up the knowlege of this breed freely shared by Dr. Barbara Henderson, DMV and Karen Lee. We will be forever grateful to Donna and David Lukasky for entrusting us with their gene pool to form our foundation. Last but not least gratitude is extened to Iva Kimmelman (then Cottrell) for taking the time to point a newbie couple in the right direction.