As I recall my first fascination with GSD’s was when I was a small child and I found a photograph of my father with his GSD, Lassie sitting beside him. In those days they were referred to as Alsations. My mother would tell stories about Lassie and how intelligent she was. From then on I was hooked.

As an adult, I have always had GSD’s as pets and know the character and breed as well as most. My first show experience was when I was living in Zambia in the seventies. A friend had imported some animals from the UK which were very well bred and I bought a dog, Bassy and loaned a bitch, Beauty. The first litter produced my first show bitch, Tara. I did very well in the ring with her and she went on to produce some lovely puppies which happily have left their stamp on the Zambian GSD lines.

After our return to the UK in 1980, we decided that we did not have the time to devote to Shepherds that they need, at first and we had a small breed, Cavalier King Charles Spaniels. When we moved to this house, I bought my oldest male shepherd Kurt ( Bona Masserati Bora) at eight weeks old. He was and still is a lovely dog but as he grew up it was evident that he would not make it in the ring, although he did well in middle of the road shows. I had him hip scored and he has a total of 5 so I expect he'll be around a long time.

I next bought a bitch Sassy (Bolkenbridge Hope), dam Bolkenbridge Glory, sire Middross Panto. I was very pleased with her and her hips scored 16 but as she grew she had an ear problem. Her ears were up but pulled to the centre of her head.
I had a litter from Sassy to the import Eyko von Grenzlandgluck. It was a good litter of quality pups so I retained a dog that stood out, Brodie and ran him on. As he developed, he only had one testicle, the other was there but never dropped. Apart from that he is a lovely dog but I was now onto pet number three with nothing to show. I eventually let Sassy go to a middle aged couple with no children who had Shepherds before. It was very hard to do and it took a lot of soul searching but I was sure she had a good home where she would be loved and I still had her son. We still have Kurt and Brodie. They have both now been castrated and are very happy couch potatoes who rule the roost.

Anyway, back to the show thing. We saw an advertisement for a quarantine born litter, expensive, must be mad. Danny has always been good to me with my dog needs ( note from editor - Danny is a saint) and we went to see the pups. ) We bought a bitch, Kia (Raffaye Ieda at Absela), dam Hella von der Rotenmatter, sire Igel von Wollenhaupt. She was not the one I wanted as she was an ugly duckling but she was an excellent mover and I have never regretted buying her. Her hip score is 16. When Kia was four and a half months old, I became even madder and purchased her litter sister, Aura (Raffaye Ivana), hips 11. Both bitches have won at championship and open shows and their brother is Champion Raffaye Igel at Shotans. Their sire, in Germany has also sired SG1 Junghund Siegerine, Laura vom Feuermelder, SG33 Dec von Batu, V21 Brando von Baccara at the 2000 Sieger show.