Why that breed?

[Annette4]

We did everything you're not meant to do.....impulsively go and look for a puppy for a childs (mine) birthday having done no research on the breed besides knowing it would be the size we wanted. We brought him home there and then too.

As it turns out he's the best dog EVER

My parents had a rough collie when I was little (well they had her first) and she was amazing, mum had a sheltie when she was younger too. I'm not sure I'd have another though...no dog could ever replace Lucy.

 

[PucciNPoni]

My minpins chose me (I had three of them, just one left now - bless...she's goin on 16).

Chester, the border terrier, I did some research re suitability on www.petplanet.co.uk. There's an online survey that you can fill out to help you select a breed based on your lifestyle, how much training/exercise/grooming etc you can commit to doing. It came up with a few things like spitz, munsterlander, cairns... and border terrier was one of these. I've always been a sucker for a terrier and I'd never really heard of BTs before in the US. But my shortlist was BT and Cairn and I started hunting and phoning breeders all thru the UK. I got on to a waitlist for a BT and that's my boy.

As for the poodle...I became a groomer after getting the BT (in fact, it was him that sort of got me on the idea as I was stripping him anyway, and thought I could "do this for a living"). So now that I'm grooming professionally, and do the odd grooming comp, I need/wanted something to take to groomign comps. Borders are great, but they don't have the flash appeal as a coated breed. So shortlist American Cockers, Poodles. This poodle came offered to me by a breeder who'd retained him for a variety of reasons and he is perfect for us!

 

[Ravenwood]

Apparently my dad used to have gundogs (springers & labs) and ran a gundog club but that was before I was born. I only vaguely remember his last Springer Ginny. Then we had a couple of Scottish Rough Coated Collies, a couple of GSD's, my first very own dog given to me was a Norwegian Buhund (friends bred and showed them but she didn't make the grade), a couple of JRT's - not very keen on those!

My first own dog as a grown up was Badger, next door's blue bloodied black lab got caught by the local farmer's Huntaway! Badger was just the most loving and intelligent dog and he was the one that got me into the shooting game.

Unfortunately Badger died at just 8 and a few days later a friend gave me Toby. He turned out to be an excellent gundog and then I got Flyn as you can't really work just one dog on a large commercial shoot.

We have just got the little BC because that's what my son had yearned for - not sure why or where this notion came from - so I guess we are about to start another steep learning curve!

I have been taking keen note of the Agililty BC's on here and maybe one day I will try that with Rosie

 

[Jackpotsstud]

My mum remembers her Grandad breeding Clumber Spaniels when she was little and being taken to visit them. When we saw a litter advertised in H&H 10 years ago, it was inevitable we would be coming home with one. Tanner was a fantastic dog who died at only 7years old due to Lymphoma. After much searching for another working Clumber spaniel bitch we managed to find one las August and Buffy is fantastic. Woud never be without a Clumber spaniel now.

 

[GinaB]

My family always kept gundogs, either labs or springers. Uncle M prefers working with labs so we have Tinadog (black lab) and Midget (yellow lab) both cracking dogs that I adore but I am trying to persuade M to try something different for our next gundog but so far it has been a resounding no! Lol

Beastie (min schnauzer) was a breed chosen by my parents. I had asked for my 'own' dog for years (labs live with M) and they said yes onthe basis I got a mini schnauzer. She is a royal pain in the arse and I wouldn't change her for the world

 

[Cyrus]

I met my first siberian when I was 8 years old and knew then that I had to have one in my life, Cyrus didnt come along till I was 21 we wanted to get into working them as a team so along came Diablo, we thought it would always be siberians in our lives until we met this guy

Arctictreks Dark as night for Kegluneq aka Thunder

Because of him I spent two years researching malamutes, handling them at rallies etc and getting to know the breed more and at the end of that I brought his grandaughter home and now know a malamute will always feature in our lives, in fact I will admit if we had met a malamute before the siberian we may never have had a sibe.

Our future is definately more malamutes with the addition of a GSD, if I was to add something else I would love a wire haired Vizzy

 

[suzysparkle]

Erm, started with one Siberian Husky. We now have 9 of them and the number will certainly grow. Then one day we went out for a paper and came back with a Collie puppy!! We wanted one dog that we could let off the lead after all!! Fortunately he lives with the pack and runs in harness too.
Our dogs take up most of our free time. Other than that I have a Horse and my husband does a fair bit of cycling. From September to March we are out at least 4 times a week running them in harness and also when it's cool enough in Summer. We were up early this morning running them. We do lots of rallies as well and have quite a nice collection of trophies from this.
It's a way of life for us. It dictates pretty much everything we do but we wouldn't have it any other way. I do however get frustrated at people who buy them with no clue of what they are like and so many end up in welfare. There is also a lot of very thoughtless breeding done. I guess like many other breeds though.