Who We Are

We are Ty and Julie Rust from Stockton, CA. We have been breeding Portuguese Water dogs since 1997. In 1995 we bought our first house. Julie decided to renew her interest in competitive obedience that had been put on hold when her daughter was born. Julie went to a local dog show to find out what breed of dog we would like to have. Julie previously had owned Standard Poodle and Irish Water spaniels. She saw a male wavy Portuguese water dog in a lion clip and absolutely fell in love with it. We were able to buy the most energetic puppy from his first litter. We chose a male because they are better companions and Julie wanted to do competition obedience. We named our first Portuguese water dog "Quarry". Quarry was a great dog and he did it all – obedience, conformation and water work. Julie was able to owner-handle him to his AKC championship. Not long after we acquired Quarry we acquired his aunt "Lyla". Quarry and Julie became members of the San Francisco Giants BARK Team (Baseball Aquatic Retrieval Corps); and the following year "Lyla" and Ty made the team.

In 2000, hoping to start our own line, we bought our third Portuguese water dog, "Ruby", from Judy Siebert of Piedelai Kennel. We bred Ruby to "Primo", owned by Lana & Greg Woodburn. Primo throws nice mellow temperaments and beautiful white markings. He has a large head which is what Ruby needed improvement on. We were very happy with the results. The combination had beautiful puppies.

Around this time Ty decided he wanted a "Ruby/Primo" puppy. Julie was smart, and agreed on the condition that if Ty got a dog he would learn how to show him. Ty picked up on the sport very quickly and was able to finish "Diamond" out of the Bred by Exhibitor Class, and then found himself hooked on PWD's, and his other interests had to take a backseat to the dogs. Showing dogs is one of the few sports where amateurs compete with professionals. We enjoy the competition, and are thrilled when our dogs win over dogs being shown by Professional Handlers.

How we chose our kennel name:

When I bred my first litter I wanted to use Rustico as my kennel name. The person I got my breeding bitch from said no, it translates as "country bumpkin" in Portuguese. It didn't bother me because my last name is Rust, but my breeder wanted me to use Le'vado as my kennel name instead. At the time I didn't realize how close that was to another breeders kennel name. I chose to not go on with either the kennel name or the lineage from my first brood dog.

With my next brood bitch, Ruby, I started my kennel name Rustico. In talking to some fellow dog owners I was told to change the spelling so it would not literally translate as "country bumpkin". Thus was born RUSTYCO which incorporates even more of our names, because my husband's first name is Ty. So Rustyco means Rust, Ty & Co.