There is a moment, somewhere in the middle of a dog show in a foreign country, when everything you hoped for either holds or it doesn't.
For me, that moment came on October 7th, 2018, in Bastia Umbra, Italy, at one of the most competitive Lagotto Romagnolo specialty shows in the world. I had sent my dog — a brown roan female from the kennel of Monica Benelli, officially named Il Granaio Dei Malatesta Yelina Salas, known to everyone in our family as Mocha — to compete in the Italian show circuit under the handling of Artur Bullari. I was watching from across the Atlantic.
Mocha gaiting in the Italian ring. Handled by Artur Bullari. Photo: Simone Luca Photography.
The day before, she had placed 5th from a field of 56 Lagotto. Against the finest examples of the breed that Italy — the breed's country of origin — had to offer. That result alone told me something. But on October 7th, in a class of 34 female Lagotto, she won Best of Sex.
I am not sure I had fully prepared myself for what that felt like.
Why Italy
Before I explain what happened next, it's worth explaining why a breeder from Lynden, Washington would send a dog to compete in Italian show rings in the first place.
The Lagotto Romagnolo is an Italian breed. It has been bred in the Romagna region for centuries, originally as a water retriever and later — as the marshes were drained — as a truffle dog. The FCI conformation standards, the deepest and most experienced judges, and the largest competitive fields are all in Europe, and most of all in Italy. An Italian champion title earned in those rings, against those fields, means something specific: that multiple experienced judges have evaluated a dog against the breed standard and found her to be among the best. It is not a marketing credential. It is a documented, verifiable record of where a dog stands among the finest examples of her breed.
When I built Northwest Lagotto, I made a commitment to source dogs from the best lines I could find and to verify that quality in ways that went beyond my own assessment. The show ring — much as I respect Puppy Culture and health testing and temperament work — is one of the few places where a dog's conformation is evaluated by people with no personal stake in the outcome, against direct competition, under transparent rules. That mattered to me.
Mocha was our foundation dog. We wanted to know, not guess, what we had.
The Fall Campaign, 2018
The Italian show circuit. A world away from Lynden, Washington.
Mocha began her European campaign in September 2018 and showed across Italy and Slovenia through February 2019.
The early results came quickly. In late September, competing in Italy, she won her first CAC and CACIB titles — the international championship qualifications recognized by the FCI. The CAC (Certificat d'Aptitude au Championnat) is the top award available to a dog at a national championship show. The CACIB (Certificat d'Aptitude au Championnat International de Beauté) is its international equivalent. Accumulate enough of them, under enough different judges, and a dog earns her championship title. Mocha began collecting them from her first outings.
First European outings. CAC and CACIB titles won immediately, confirming that her preparation and conformation met FCI international championship standard from the opening show.
The most competitive Lagotto specialty in Italy. On day one, 5th from a field of 56 — against the finest examples of the breed in the country of origin. On day two, Best of Sex from a class of 34 females. The moment that confirmed everything.
Best of Breed on both days — judged the finest representative of the entire breed at each show, male or female. Two days running, in a foreign country, from a kennel in Washington state.
Best of Breed at an all-breed international show — then into the Group ring, where the Best of Breed winner from every sporting, working, herding, and utility breed competes. Third in Group. One of the three finest working dogs at the entire show. Against professionals who make their living in these rings. Broadcast on Italian national television.
IGDM Yelina Salas placing Third in Working Group at an all-breed FCI International show in Genova, Italy, November 2018. Handled by Artur Bullari. Broadcast on Italian national television.
Judges examining Mocha during the Group placement at the FCI International Show. The hands-on inspection of conformation, coat, and temperament — the standard that earned her placement against every working breed in the ring that day.
I have the video. I have watched it more times than I can count.
— Mark Nelson, Northwest Lagotto
Mocha with handler Artur Bullari after her Third in Group placement. The ribbons tell part of the story. The expression tells the rest.
Lugo di Romagna
If Bastia Umbra is the most competitive Lagotto specialty in Italy, Lugo di Romagna is the most historically significant. The breed's roots are in Romagna. This is the ground the Lagotto comes from. A specialty show in Lugo is as close as this breed gets to a homecoming.
In January 2019, Mocha competed at the Lugo specialty over three consecutive days, under three different judges.
Thirty-seven Lagotto competing in the breed's home city, under a judge whose career is spent evaluating this breed.
Three days, three judges, three top-three finishes. Handled throughout by Artur Bullari, with Monica Benelli and Marco Damiani present. In the heartland of the breed.
I want to be clear about what this means, because I think it is sometimes lost on buyers who are new to the dog show world. These were not small local shows. These were judges who spend their careers evaluating Lagotto. They have seen hundreds of dogs. They are not impressed by pretty faces or gentle dispositions — they are looking at structure, movement, coat texture, proportion, the specific physical characteristics that the breed standard defines as ideal. Mocha placed in the top three under all three of them, in the breed's home city.
The Homecoming
In February 2019, Mocha won both days at international shows in Arezzo — 1 ECC, CAC, CACIB, and Best of Breed on February 9th and 10th, from fields of 12 and 19. Then she came home.
Arezzo, Italy — where Mocha closed her European campaign. Best of Breed on both days.
I remember the drive back from Seattle. She settled in immediately, as if she'd never been away. She remembered where everything was, recognized everyone, and within hours was doing what she has always done best — being exactly herself. She is, at heart, a simple, fun-loving farm girl who loves her people and her downtime. That hasn't changed.
She came home with her Italian Championship. Her Slovenian Championship. A record of CAC and CACIB wins across the continent. A Third in Group placement on national television. And she had been invited to compete at two shows she never attended.
The most prestigious dog show in the world. We chose to begin her breeding career instead.
The most prestigious all-breed show in the United States. She was ready, the families waiting for puppies were ready, and the show ring had already told us everything we needed to know.
The US Chapter
In early 2020, Mocha was shown in the United States for a period of approximately six weeks. At the end of 2020, she was ranked #10 among all Lagotto Romagnolo in the United States — in a year when COVID disrupted the show calendar for every dog in every breed.
What This Means for the Puppies
I am sometimes asked why the show record matters to a family looking for a companion dog. It's a fair question. Most of the puppies we place will never enter a show ring. What does Mocha's Third in Group placement in Italy have to do with the dog that will grow up in someone's home in Seattle or Portland or Los Angeles?
The answer is this: conformation is structure, and structure is function. A dog with correct conformation has joints that move the way they were designed to move, a coat that behaves as the standard intends, proportions that allow a working dog to do its work without strain. When judges evaluated Mocha as one of the three finest working dogs at a show broadcast on Italian television, they were confirming that her physical structure is as close to ideal as this breed produces. That matters not just aesthetically, but physically, for the life of the dog.
And temperament is heritable. The calm, curious, deeply affectionate quality that Mocha brought into our home, that the families who received her puppies describe in the dogs they live with today — that came from somewhere. It came from Monica Benelli's decades of careful selection at Il Granaio Dei Malatesta, and it was confirmed in the show ring, and it is present in the litters that come from this programme now. The full account of how Mocha's lines carried forward across three generations — from her Italian career to the dogs we breed today — is documented separately.
Mocha is the reason we do this work the way we do it. She is the standard.
She was retired from our breeding programme five years ago. She lives with good friends just down the road from us in Lynden, doing exactly what she has always done. The show ring is behind her. The legacy isn't.
The Northwest Lagotto Breeding Programme
Every dog we breed descends from champion lines verified in competitive rings — not by our assessment alone, but by experienced judges who had no personal interest in the outcome. Mocha's campaign in Italy established the standard this programme is built on.
We import bloodlines, health-test every breeding animal, and breed only when we have the right pairing. If you want to understand exactly where our current and upcoming litters come from — their lineage, their health results, the reasoning behind each pairing — we will tell you everything.
Mocha’s Legacy Lives in Every Puppy We Place.
The bloodlines and standards she established define our program. If her story resonates with what you’re looking for in a breeder, the next step is simple.
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