When La Belle Helen walked into the ring at the AKC National Championship in December 2020 and won Best of Winners, I had a thought that I have come back to many times since.
She was born here. In Lynden, Washington. On a farm, in a whelping box that I had prepared and monitored and sat beside through the night. She was handled with Early Neurological Stimulation from day three. She was socialized through the Puppy Culture protocol. She was raised the way every puppy we produce is raised.
And she had just won Best of Winners at the most prestigious all-breed show in American dog showing.
The families who receive puppies from Northwest Lagotto are not generally thinking about show rings. They are thinking about hiking partners and family companions and truffle-hunting weekends and dogs that will grow up alongside their children. That is exactly as it should be. But La Belle Helen's result that December is the clearest possible demonstration of what this breeding programme is built on — and it is a story worth telling in full.
It begins not with La Belle Helen, and not even with her mother. It begins in Romagna, Italy, with a kennel called Il Granaio Dei Malatesta.
Mocha in the Italian countryside. The lineage begins here.
The Source
Il Granaio Dei Malatesta
Monica Benelli has been breeding Lagotto Romagnolo at Il Granaio Dei Malatesta for decades. Her dogs have won at the World Dog Show. They have won at Crufts. They have produced champions across Europe, Australia, and North America. When serious Lagotto breeders talk about the lines that define the breed at the highest level, Il Granaio Dei Malatesta is part of that conversation.
Monica Benelli's programme prioritizes genetic diversity (explored in depth in our genetics essay) while maintaining the specific qualities that make a Lagotto a Lagotto. That alignment of priorities is why, when I built Northwest Lagotto, I went to Il Granaio Dei Malatesta for our foundation dogs. We brought home two.
Generation One · Foundation Dam · Il Granaio Dei Malatesta
IGDM Yelina Salas
MochaSent to Italy in fall 2018 under handler Artur Bullari. Placed 5th from 56 and won Best of Sex from 34 at the Bastia Umbra Specialty. Won Best of Breed on two consecutive days in Slovenia. Placed Third in Group on Italian national television. Top-three finishes at Lugo di Romagna over three days under three judges. Came home with Italian and Slovenian Championships, an invitation to Crufts, and an invitation to Westminster — both of which she declined in favour of beginning her breeding career. Ranked #10 in the US after six weeks of showing in 2020. Read the full campaign account →
Generation Two · Dam · Il Granaio Dei Malatesta
IGDM Cannella
CannellaArrived at Northwest Lagotto in early 2020, already a proven dam — her Italian litters had produced puppies who went on to earn Italian Championships. In her debut Italian show season, shown by Artur Bullari, she won Best of Breed, Best of Sex, CAC and CACIB, and qualified for the World Dog Show — the FCI's annual global competition representing the highest level of international showing. She finished her Italian Championship. As with Mocha, we chose her breeding career over additional titles when the families on our waitlist were ready and so was she.
Generation Three · First Litter at Northwest Lagotto · Bred Here, in Lynden, WA
La Belle Helen
La Belle HelenFrom Cannella's first litter at Northwest Lagotto. Born in Lynden, raised on Puppy Culture from day three, socialized by hand through the critical early weeks. At the AKC National Championship in Orlando — the event that brings together the finest dogs in every AKC-recognized breed — she won Best of Winners. The first Northwest Lagotto litter. The most prestigious all-breed show in American dog showing.
December 2020 · Orlando, Florida
AKC National Championship — Best of Winners
Best of Winners at the AKC National Championship is not a routine result. This is a competition that draws dogs who have been campaigned nationally, handled by professionals, bred specifically for the highest levels of American competition. For a dog from a first litter at a Pacific Northwest breeder — raised on the same Puppy Culture protocol as every Northwest Lagotto puppy — to take Best of Winners at that show was the moment the programme's design was confirmed, publicly, by the most rigorous available test.
What the Three-Generation Arc Actually Means
I want to be precise about what I am and am not claiming here.
I am not claiming that every Northwest Lagotto puppy will win at Westminster. The families who take home our puppies are looking for companions, not show dogs, and companion quality and show quality are not the same thing — though they overlap more than people sometimes assume.
What I am claiming is this: the genetic quality that produces a dog capable of winning at the Bastia Umbra Specialty, placing Third in Group on Italian national television, ranking Top 10 in the United States on six weeks of showing, qualifying for the World Dog Show, and producing a Best of Winners at the AKC National Championship — that genetic quality is present in this programme. It was documented by judges with no personal stake in the outcome, in competition against serious opposition, over a period of years and across two continents.
Three generations from Romagna. Raised in Lynden.
The families in Seattle and Portland and New York and Los Angeles who walk their dogs every morning — they are living in the same story. They just don't know it started in Romagna.
— Mark Nelson, Northwest LagottoThe temperament that made Mocha settle back into farm life as if she'd never been away, that made La Belle Helen perform under the lights in Orlando, that makes the Northwest Lagotto puppies into the dogs their families describe — that temperament comes from the same source. It is heritable, it is documented, and it is the foundation of everything we do here.
Monica Benelli has spent decades building something at Il Granaio Dei Malatesta. We have spent several years building on it in Lynden. La Belle Helen's Best of Winners at the AKC National Championship is the moment where those two things came together most visibly. It will not be the last such moment. It was the confirmation of a direction, not the destination.
The Standard This Programme Is Built On
Every breeding decision at Northwest Lagotto is traceable to this lineage, these judgements, and these results. We do not breed for volume or convenience. We breed when we have the right pairing — one that carries the genetic quality documented across three generations and two continents forward into the next litter.
If you are considering a puppy from us, we will tell you exactly which dogs are in the pedigree, what their health results are, what they have shown in competition, and why we made the specific pairing that produced the litter you are inquiring about. That transparency is not incidental to how we operate. It is how we operate.
Lineage Matters. So Does the Breeder Behind It.
If the depth of pedigree and the intentionality of this program appeal to you, the next step is to tell us about your family.
Join Our Waitlist →