Sylvia C. Owen collection of Puli scrapbooks, 1948-1963

Sylvia C. Owen, known as “Mrs. Puli,” established Skysyl Kennels (Lyme, New Hampshire) in 1947. It was only one year earlier that Owen had met her first Puli, when husband Schuyler brought home Juli II, a Hungarian stock dog originally imported by the Department of Agriculture for a experimental breeding program recently cancelled. The breed had arrived in the America in the 30s but interest was grounded in its function as a working sheepdog until Owen popularized its participation in confirmation. As a genetics and art major, Owen had a refined eye for type and balance and understanding of breeding principles from her time in Paris in the 1920s and 1930s breeding Wire Fox Terriers. She was showed polo ponies professionally.

The first Skysyl litter was whelped in 1949 out of Julie II by German import Dorgo von Barengrund. Wrote Owen, “Our desire to promote the Puli, and to place Juli’s puppies in good homes were the reasons she was bred. It never occurred to us that Skysyl was destined to become one of the best known strains in the country.”

The best known of the nine offspring Ch. Skysyl Apeter Pan was one of the earliest Puli to achieve fame in the show ring as the first male to place in the Working Group. Skysyl Kennels took the breed six times at Westminster between 1952 and 1961, developing a national reputation that climaxed in 1969, when Ch. Skysyl Question Being It became the first Best in Show winner of the breed. In 1972, Ch. Skysyl That’s it became the second, and Ch. Skysyl Harvey J. Wallbanger the fourth in 1974. The latter was campaigned throughout the country, and attracted many new fans and attention to the breed. Skysyl became a prominent stock source for breeding programs across the United States.

Owen was a key figure in the formation of the Puli Club of America in 1951 and an enormous advocate for the breed, often extending open invitations to potential breeders and fanciers. She penned the Puli column for the AKC Gazette from 1952 to 1964 and authored the well-known breed book The Complete Puli (1976).