My journey so far...
I started in the kennelling industry at the age of 16, working part time in a kennels local to the college where I was doing equine studies in Staffordshire. Aged 19 I moved to Shropshire where I had a job on an eventing yard.
A year later I met my now late husband Richard, he was a farmer and after 5 years together in 2004 we finally moved to Stoneybridge farm where we built our house, set amongst 200acres of his families land. It wasn’t long after moving that we got engaged and became pregnant with our daughter Daisy to be followed by Archie 15 months later, it was at this time we decided to diversify into something else not just farming. After a few years working in the equine industry I knew I wanted to go back into kennelling so with no plans or guidance only me saying how I wanted the layout of the kennels and council regs to follow we somehow built a fantastic kennel block we officially opened July 2009 and have never looked back!
I feel I approach looking after peoples dogs the way I look after my own. With the love and care I would want someone to give my dogs. I’ve managed to build a good reputation in what is a difficult industry.
Our love of dogs.
When Richard & I met we both had a dog, myself a handsome springer spaniel called Jack my pride and joy, Richard a beautiful English pointer named Sooner. An interesting name, by all accounts she’d ‘sooner’ be by the fire than outside!
It was at this point my love for pointers started. Leica was soon purchased, a lovely pointer bitch from which we bred Erin. I then turned my attention to showing.
From local shows to Crufts much fun and success has been had over the years with more pointers that followed on from Erin, my darling Hilary been one of the most notable pointers we had the pleasure of and her half sister Thelma a lovely homebred bitch who in 2016 did me so proud in winning Best Puppy in Breed at Crufts a wonderful moment.
Showing wasn’t the only hobby with our dogs. Richard was a keen shooting man so we also kept cockers and labradors, many days we spent beating over the years..happy times!
And so, along with all of these wonderful dogs we had over the years, many lovely litters were produced that have gone to be amazing family pets or working dogs, dogs and bloodlines I’m proud of.
Present day.
After sadly losing Richard in 2021 I decided to scale down and prioritise the boarding kennels. I had a full time staff member for a while to allow me to take stock of everything and as always I come back to the simple fact that dogs are my life, and what I do well so I have taken back over the day to day running of the kennels and have a new part time member of staff to assist me.
I’m loving having my mojo back and I’m looking forward to the future in my kennels and all the lovely sometimes crazy fun dogs that come my way.
Next year I’m hoping to re-vamp the kennels with double glazed units been added instead of the standard galvanised gates, this is for the comfort of the dogs for temperature control and noise reduction and the addition of a walking field, this will be fenced with 6ft high security fencing so no dogs escape! But can have the benefit of free running on grass.
I still have several dogs of my own from Odin the most beautiful German Shepard, Spindle my absolute joy of a labrador and the Dachshunds..little terrors!
I have also continued with my sheep only 45 ewes but that’s enough! Nothing beats lambing always a time on the farm that makes me smile. And of course a horse, Beautiful Blue sits in his field with his little Shetland friend Teddy watching all the comings and goings on the farm
Oh and not to forget to mention the peacocks, a little obsession I have that always seems to be a talking point when customers spot them!