The Story So Far - First there was one, now there are five.
Our first Beardie was a brown boy owned by Jenny. His name was Oliver and he was rescued as a three-year-old with the help of Althea Richardson. We believe his date of birth was 4th July 1989. He was bred by Angela Wilde of Cirencester. We think his registered name is Alenga's Accord. His father was Caramac Crackerjack and his mother Alenga's Dusky Dream. He had lived in several homes before coming to Jenny. We believe that as a puppy he was shown in puppy classes and qualified for Crufts. As we have never had his papers, we have never shown him. Oliver always hated anyone taking his photograph. At times he appears quite grumpy but is really a big softie. Ollie suffered a stroke and died in the summer of 2001. We will always remember him.
In November 1995 Jenny wrote to Barbara Partridge enquiring about purchasing a beardie puppy. Barbara suggested that we visited the Bearded Collie Championship Show in Coventry the following month. At this point fate took a hand and we were introduced to Denise Atkins who had been up all night the night before delivering a litter. After much arm-twisting Jenny persuaded Denise to let us see the puppies at two weeks old. From this litter, the last sired by Champion Lore Lord, Denise was kind enough to let us have our beautiful slate boy, Spencer - Labooshar Lord Spencer.
In the summer of '98, we were considering our future in the breed and we both felt that we wanted to breed a litter of our own. Again fate took a hand and in the exercising field at the Leeds Championship Show, Anne Wilding asked if we would be interested in a puppy from her planned litter. We told her that we wanted a slate girl with lovely dark brown eyes and a white collar. You can guess - on the 18th September '98, there was one bitch as we described - Jasmine. To give her her proper name, Bendale Sweet Jasmine. Her mother, Champion Bendale Love Me Do and her father Otterswish O'Connor.
The puppies were born on the 16th April 2001. Spencer was the father and Jasmine the mother. Jasmine went into labour six days before the due date and produced eight black and white puppies. From this litter we have kept Oscar, a dark slate boy, and Isla, a medium slate bitch.
Callie was born on 04/04/04. Her mother is our Isla - Kittistone Lady of the Night and her father Tolly - Ch.Diotima Sea Wolf at Ramsgrove owned by Wendy Hines and bred by Stephen and Marian Appleby. This was to be our Wolf litter with all the puppies having names associated with wolves. She has a sister Kittistone Huff and Puff!
Following the success of Callie's earlier litter we repeated the mating and on 14th December 2006 we delivered our Sea litter. From this litter we kept Kittistone Sea Lord aka Wilbur and named after both his father and grandfather. His pet name arose as Jenny was reading a series of Wilbur Smith novels at the time.