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After settling in at the hotel in Plano, Texas, Doyle Johnson and I headed over to Dian and John Clarks home in Carrollton to see their canaries.
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Dian warmly welcomed us to their home and provided us with refreshing cold sodas for our tour of their breeding room.
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John and Dian are canary boosters dedicated to providing high quality stock for breeding and exhibition. Their web site is MyRedCanary.com.
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We immediately began discussing canaries and walking around examining them.
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Promptly we were invited into their breeding room to view their breeding stock and invited to critique their birds!
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Most cages had only one gorgeous bird but for each variety their were numerous equally good specimens! There were dozens of identical beautiful red intensives!!
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And also dozens of equally beautiful Non-intensives!!
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And then the numerous fantastic Rose Ivories!!
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Followed by a good selection of yellow intensives!!
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And Red/Black (Bronze)!!
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And some very Beautiful Staffords!!
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But surrounded by all those beautiful birds, this Stafford immediately took my eye and once I had a full view, my heart!
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Wow!! What a bird!!!!
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Too quickly, after a most enjoyable afternoon, it was time to head back to the show.
The next morning, when I approached the Stafford show bench to begin judging, I was really surprised. There set Dian Clark, she said " John and I want you to have the Stafford you loved so much!" Tears filled my eyes as I accepted the Special bird!!