Nicola writes.......

From chilhood I always dreamed about owning a 'big grey shaggy dog'. I had read the book 'Finn the Wolfhound' by A.S. Milne and although it was never my favourite story, the dog captured my imagination. Eventually I decided my heart lay not with Wolfhounds but the Deerhound and they were everything I wanted in a dog, gentle, obedient to live with, athletic and fun. Glenn wanted us to wait until we had more space.

Lucy with Dinky the cat

Our first dog was Lucy A border Collie cross Lab. We had been married just 3 weeks when we got her, she was absolutely mad, she chewed up everything, including taking the skirting boards off, then plaster then the bricks out of a very substantial (ex) wall. No amount of walks could wear her out, but she was faithful, sweet natured and bags of fun. No one normal person would ever have put up with her, but we loved her for 14 years and still miss her now.

Lucy was 11 years when we got our first Deerhound Aggie of the Highlands, that was 1988. She came inadvertantly through the Exchange and Mart, we knew very little about the Kennel Club back then! When we lost Lucy 3 years later we decided we needed another Deerhound so we took ourself off to \Crufts on the 1st year it was at the NEC. there we saw many more Deerhounds than we could image and met a lot of lovely helpful owners, who eventually pointed us in the direction of Eve Jarrett (Braybrooke) . She had a litter of pups and we went to Wales to see them and ordered a dog puppy. Eve talked to us about showing and we thought it sounded fun and decided to have a go.

Our first show was the Houndshow at Stafford, we were the only entry in puppy dog and Anastasia Noble was the judge. We were advised what to do by a very calm and helpful lady aat the ringside who turned out to be Norah Hartley. We showed Aggie there too and she also won a first. It turned out she was a nice quality bitch but hated the show ring and after being spoilt for the last 3 years of her life she was not about to perform to order, so we gave up.

By this time we had looked at what we liked in the ring and approached Glenis Peach for a foundation bitch to show and breed from. We were very lucky to have Kilbourne Vanity the daughter of the very beautiful Ch Kilbourne Ruby and Ch Hyndsight Fedora. and a sister to Ch Kilbourne Velvet. We had some success with her, although with a more expect hander I am sure she could have done more. She was my absolute favourite dog of all times and we adored each other. She was digified and graceful, a real lady.

As well as Deerhounds we have had a variety of 'pets' over the years. Glenn has had quite a selction of reptiles, various rats mice and cats the list goes on but now after losing our beloved Parson Jack Russell terrier Rab we have a border terrier bitch from the Dandyhow line. She is known as Pip as is as bright as a button.

The team at Bailey's hair design	The midland gang