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Most of you are more interested in dogs’ pedigrees than in mine, so I'll get through mine as quickly as possible.

My childhood was nothing if not lively. In my teens there were swimming meets to compete in or perhaps a colt to break. In my younger years animals swarmed through our house most of the time. There was the dinner engagement my aunt wouldn't keep because she had heard through the grapevine that one of my snakes was loose in the house. One of my most vivid memories is of my father standing in the hall clad in a bath towel. In his outstretched hand was a large and vigorous snapping turtle. His accusing glance fell on me. “Who put this creature in the bathtub?” Sheepishly I took the animal by his horny tail and let him return to the mud of the lake where I hoped he would be more appreciated. Don’t let this incident lead you to believe that my parents were unsympathetic with my reptilic tastes. Both of them had as many animals in their youthful lives as I did, and the major tragedy of my father’s life took place when he looked into the pink bassinette for the promised “wonderful surprise". Imagine his disappointment when he saw, not a monkey, but a baby sister.

I was three when my interest in English Shepherds began. Our Peter was a black and tan with white trim. a beautiful dog and probably the only English Shepherd ever to have entered in a dog show. He won first place (as I knew he would) in the largest class of the show—the “mongrel class". I was 17 when Peter died. Since it was this dog that sold me my first ESCOA registered English Shepherd, I shall mention some of his most outstanding characteristics. Perhaps the most unusual was his sense of responsibility. If a child was unable to swim, Peter knew it and would never cease his vigilance. Dad used to take my little sister, Kate, in a boat before she could swim, and the worried Peter would swim after them. When Kate learned to swim, Peter had the judgement to cease following the boat. With no training to guide him, he took over the care of any and all pets we owned. Our guinea pigs, turtles, kittens, and white rats could roam the house at will under the watchful eye of Peter. Even when they escaped their cages at night, he never lost a one—much to our delight and Mother's distress. Unfortunately, Peter died before the two youngest of my three sisters were born, and many an escaped hamster has died in the basement as a consequence.

I was married five years ago, the spring I graduated from college, and almost immediately afterwards my husband and I started to build ourselves a house twenty miles outside of St. Paul. My husband is an electrical engineer and a careful planner and workman. We moved into the house long before it was finished and started a breeding and training kennels with Golden Retrievers. We have one good male left, and he has proven himself in obedience and retriever trials.

One day in June of 1950 when I was paging through “Dog World", I came across the breed standard for the English Shepherd. The chance to breed and train dogs of a strictly working breed was just what I wanted, and in June of 1951 we bought our first English Shepherds from Mr. Stodghill.

The worth of a dog is proved by the work he does, and Heidi started proving herself at four months. No dog should be intensively trained for trial work at that age, but I couldn’t keep her from watching me work the other obedience dogs, and soon she started imitating the trained dogs. She knew what “heel” meant before she had a collar around her neck, and every time I gave her a chance, she would try to crowd between my leg and the dog I was working at the time.

I ran a small obedience class in the summer of 1951 for a group of boys and girls who were interested in training their dogs. In the fall we put on a trial, and I worked the pup as an exhibition. There were over fifty people in the audience, and Heidi made a friend of every one of them.

I did not begin training this dog in earnest until she was almost six months old. Then I worked with her for five or ten minutes a day for two weeks. At the end of that time, she was ready for her first real trial. I entered her in the sanctioned (not licensed) trial of the Twin Cities Obedience Training Club. She took the cup for second place in a class of fourteen, all of them older dogs. The noise of a big city and the confusion of a room full of people and dogs were new to Heidi, but she knew her job and got a score of 186 out of the possible 200 points.

The summer of ’52 was a busy one. The Cedar-Hill Training Club was made up entirely of adults, and they and their dogs did very well. But of special interest to English Shepherd breeders is Mr. Search's Watson of Jamesburg. He came here late in the summer of ’52 for obedience training. During his stay, Watson was a busy dog. I used him in a training demonstration when he had been here a little over a month. He sired a fine litter of pups out of Heidi of Cedar-Hill, six perfectly marked black and tans, one with a touch of white.

But the biggest event transpired on the afternoon of January 11th. The first ESCOA Obedience Test took place at Highland Kennels on a frozen hill overlooking May’s Lake. Watson of Jamesburg and Heidi of Cedar-Hill were judged by Miss Eleanor Burr, an ESCOA judge from St. Paul. Both dogs were awarded ribbons for qualifying scores, Watson 194; Heidi 191. Juniper Queen of Jamesburg was too young to compete, but she is now a year old and has her preliminary obedience work. This summer she has spent with Art Corey and his cows, and she had the privilege of accompanying him to Tennessee.

Cedar-Hill’s latest addition is Zipper of Cedar-Hill. He is with a very competent and experienced trainer, Mr. Charles Brochman. Mr. Brochman knows the value of well-bred stock, and he wants his registered hogs and cattle closed in the modern way. Zipper is the dog for the job. I If you wish to buy a dog from working parents, or if you wish to train the dog you have, let us help you.