OUR HISTORY

In 1990 I was driving along a lane over a welsh mountain and spotted something at the roadside, it turned out to be a puppy, very small and black, my vet estimated about 5 weeks old. After advising the police and dog shelter and putting up adverts no owners came forward and I decided to keep this little cutie who was full of fleas and worms and after his first bath changed colour to being brindle. I named him Rowntree.

Rowntree grew and grew and didn’t stop until he was 30 inches at the shoulder!! It became obvious that he was a lurcher and I started looking at what his parents might have been. I showed rowntree at some lurcher /terrier shows but he hated it and messed around the whole time, however it was at one of these that he was approached by talent scouts to star in a welsh drama – his claim to fame, after 8 hours filming most of it next to a sedated stag he was in the drama for a total of 2 minutes – but was paid well for it!! Many people told me they thought he had Deerhound in him and so it happened that I made a point of trying to find out more about the breed.

I went to Crufts and met many friendly people all who wanted to talk about their fantastic hounds. One Lady Judith Grayley kept in touch by letter for quite a few years. I also attended a Deerhound/Wolfhound seminar in Weston – Super – Mare where Cecily Cox was a speaker and I was blown away by the gentle dignity of the Deerhounds I saw that day. Although I was desperate to have my own grey hairy hound I decided that it was not the right time as over the years Rowntree who was a “one woman dog” used to become withdrawn and unhappy and stay upstairs when I had doggy visitors of which there were many.

At the age of 14 in January 2004 Rowntree started to become unwell, all things seemed to deteriorate at the same time, arthritis set in and blood tests showed that his heart and liver were no longer working as they should, so with a heavy heart and many years of good memories I let him go. At this time I was certain that no other dog could replace Rowntree and told everyone that I would have a “dog free” period. 24 hours later I hadn’t wanted to go home from work and I found myself on the phone to Glenis at Kilbourne ………

Mac!!!! After an interview and meeting with Glenis, she agreed that I could be the proud new owner of Kilbourne Macallan. He whinged the entire 4 ½ hour car journey home and hasn’t really stopped since!! His nicknames range from Macallan the terrible, Whinge, to Mac a doodle do! He is the most entertaining dog with a huge personality and reminds me a lot of Rowntree with certain things he does.

It was whilst I was learning about the trouble that baby Deerhounds cause that I visited a local show as I was told that there may be some deerhound owners there. It was lovely to meet the Paiseys, Codds and Adams who were keen to get me to a show saying it would be good to “support the breed”. I rang Glenis and asked if she would mind if I took Mac to a show, she said have some fun – and I have!!! I asked Glenis and Mick for another dog and along came Rinda, she is the most loyal and loving bitch who is my shadow but is also very fat. She is known at home as Roodles or Mavis the fat fairy!!

Mac and Rinda have given me hours of fun, we enjoy our walks and are always off walking some where new. Mum and I love going to shows we have learnt such a lot and have met some lovely people – we are proud to be part of the “Welsh contingent”!