We had a lot of fun showing Jess but didn’t win anything because we didn’t know what we were doing. As Tony’s handling and my grooming skills improved so did Jess’s results. Spurred on by this in the summer of 1995, we decided to get another dog. I was now self-employed, having told my boss where to stick his job, at home most of the time and could look after the dogs. We went to see Lisa and Peter Burtenshaw, atleast they stayed in for us. We bought Josie (Pelido Just Another Dream) and discovered that she and Jess were half sisters, both sired by Pelido Forgotten Dreams. Josie had a lot of character, she came home with us and tried to dominate the whole household, including the cat, and sometimes succeeded.

We carried on showing, discovered Championship Shows, and our results carried on improving, albeit very slowly. However, Tony wasn’t happy, he felt outnumbered by the amount of females in the house and in need of some male company. So when Ann and Nick said that they were having another litter we went to see the puppies at three days old. Tony wanted a sable and white dog just like Jess’s brother Artie (Tentola Everlasting Dream), nothing else would do, I wanted a tricolour and didn’t really want a dog. As life is a comprise, we ended up with Merlin (Tentola Black Knight) our first tricolour. With Merlin we were very successful, he won countless Best Puppy’s, quite a few BOB’s from the Puppy class, was placed in or won the Group several times at open shows and qualified for Crufts. The pinnacle of his puppy career was when he won Reserve Best Puppy in Show under Andrew Brace at an all breeds open show. Unfortunately, we weren’t there because Josie decided to have a litter of puppies three days early.

Josie’s litter were sired by Cathenbrae Midnight Affair with Pelido because I was hoping for a tricolour bitch. Typically, Josie didn’t cooperate and produced six sable and whites. I have to admit we were absolutely petrified that day, we had read every book, asked everyone for advice, memorised the vet’s phone number. But when it happened Josie took over and everything was fine. She had five bitches and one dog, poor old Fred! She cleaned them, fed them and was great, we just sat on the side with our mouths open, feeling inadequate. We had been worried about her being a mum, but she was brilliant, at seven weeks she would still pin them down for a wash and brush up.

Merlin adored Josie, even when she was horrible to him. She was one of those dogs who could get away with murder and acted as though she could survive anything. When she stopped eating on 5^th November that year we assumed that she had picked up on Jess’s fear of fireworks and didn’t really think anything of it. Three days later when she still hadn’t eaten, we took her to the vet, just in case. When she collapsed after bringing up blood that night we rushed her to the emergency vet who said that he would carry out tests in the morning. We didn’t get much sleep that night.

The vet said that the test results would be back soon and we were not to worry as she had picked up a bit during the night. We went to see her every day but couldn’t take her home as she was on a drip. What we didn’t know until the results came back was that her liver had all but failed. We all held our breath as she bravely fought a battle she just couldn’t win. You realise how precious and fragile life is when a young fit healthy dog can go down hill so quickly. At 1pm on 14^th November 1997, ten days after her last meal, aged just two years, ten months and twelve days, Josie died.

They say time heals a broken heart and I suppose that’s true, but the world is a quieter and more boring place without her.

So we were left with her daughter, Zara (Jaysur Just in Time). She is about as cooperative as her mother was and we gave up showing her when she was about a year old. We haven’t had a repeat of the liver problems but Zara has had her own troubles. In 1998 we took her and Merlin to Ireland. We were showing Merlin on the Circuit and Zara came along for the ride. Because we were sharing a cottage, our dogs slept in the van. They are happier in their familiar van than a strange house. That was until Zara came into season, two months early. Merlin howled all night and none of us slept. Next day we found a vet and asked for his advice expecting to be sold a spray to kill the smell. Instead, he sold us hormone tablets to suspend her season. We were a bit surprised as he didn’t even want to see her. But in desperation we used them and it worked. When we got home, about four days later, I decided to stop interfering with nature and stopped giving Zara the tablets. Her season restarted and she carried on as normal. Between that August and the following March Zara had four more seasons and put us all through hell and back. She changed from being a happy healthy youngster to an unpredictable nightmare. Her rapid hormone changes took her on a rollercoaster of moods. I know many people would have put her to sleep at this point, but we couldn’t give up on her, especially when we felt responsible. In March 1999 we had her spayed. It took about three months for her to calm down, three years for her weight to come back down and I don’t want to discuss her coat. However, we now have our happy, healthy dog back and she found her calling, agility!

In between all of this, Jess and Merlin had a litter, I was still hoping for a tricolour bitch. Jess didn’t oblige either. Again we kept a sable and white bitch, Holly (Jaysur Daylite Dancer) who also didn’t like showing. This was not going according to plan. Holly went to live with a family who already had a rough collie and unfortunately came into season unexpectedly A mismating occured and nine weeks later I was delivering puppies. The daughter, Kir (Jaysur Half a Dollar), as in Kir Royal, quickly qualified for Crufts as a puppy and we have been pleased with her, even if she was a mistake. She was mated with Int. Ch. Ingledene Power of Love. This, planned, mating gave us our lovely Storm (Jaysur Storm Warning), we had produced a tricolour at last!

Just after Kir was six months old, we bought Roxy (Pelido Spicy Affair with Jaysur). She would have been more successful as a puppy if she had been more cooperative. We entered eight championship shows with her as a puppy and after she had two very inconvenient seasons and a bout of kennel cough, she went to three of them. The height of her puppy career was to come first in junior and novice at Bournmouth under Zena Thorn-Andrews. So she also had her day at Crufts. Her mating with Pelido Unfortgettable produced the glamorous Sophie (Jaysur Tailor Made). Sophie is a bit of a princess and has been on TV twice. Once was a live children's programme on a very early Sunday morning and the other time was when Sky News featured the 'Dog Walk of Fame'. Sophie represented Lassie when she won the nations favourite fictional dog character.

In 2008 we finaly found time for another litter and mated Storm with Ladnar Doctor Pepper. This gave us Mono (Jaysur Monsoon). We since found out that Mono is the spanish word for monkey, enough said!