TINTAGEL WINDS LABRADORS

TWL HISTORY :

I fell into Labradors by pure accident and have never tried to climb out. In the summer of 1957 when I was 13 and my knowledge of dogs was limited to problematical strays adopted from Rescue Centers and pedigree dachshunds who considered my mother as God but to whom we children were a superfluous nuisance : I met and fell eternally in love with the one and only true love of my life. Invited on a cruise around the coast of England by a colleague of my father, the atmosphere was difficult for various reasons but I was only aware of the 6 year old black labrador who became an instant friend. In 1975 I decided that the time was right to get a labrador as a family pet and not knowing where to find the black dog I wanted : I ended up getting a yellow bitch called Honey. At five months' old Honey started limping badly on a back leg and we heard the words Hip Dysplasia for the first time. In fact she had absolutely no coxo-femoral cavity at all and both hips were severely luxated. We were told that she'd have to be put to sleep before getting to twelve months. Amid my children's tears and our sadness, we decided to get another yellow bitch as soon as possible so that, when the time came to put Honey to sleep, there would be loss but not a void.

The starting team :
Multi-Ch. Ballyduff Sunflower-Felicity Leith-Ross-Ch. Kupros Lucifer

This time around I was learning fast and knew that the number of champions in the pedigree was less important than the work the breeder was doing on hereditary defect eradication. I contacted the Kennel Club in London and thereafter one or two of the major breed-clubs in the U.K.. My short-list of potential kennels was down to six and my choice was finally Ballyduff. I liked the low-key understated way that Bridget Docking had of writing about her dogs, she was pleased with her dogs, not with herself. I discovered that I was going to have to wait around two years. Honey had meanwhile found a modus vivendi with her hips and in fact she was put to sleep at ten years' old having played the spinster aunt rôle to several litters of Tintagel Winds puppies. While waiting for the arrival of Ballyduff Sunflower (Stajantor's Honest John x Ballyduff Ballad) I was badgering Bridget for a black dog (I was hankering back to my first love), after all, with three kids and two dogs : what difference would one more dog make ? Although there was absolutely no question of breeding or desire to show : Bridget sent me off to Pete and Marion Hart who were going to use Ballyduff Squire on their Kupros My Lady. So Kupros Lucifer was born in November 1977, just one month after Ballyduff Sunflower and with their coming, the course of my life was changed. During the Long Wait I had been reading, looking and listening hard, forming small opinions and making big decisions. By November 1978 the affixe OF TINTAGEL WINDS was born and registered with the F.C.I. and I started showing my two imports. Going BOB under Mary Roslin-Williams at the all-important Paris Championship Show in June 1979 with Flower was a major landmark because we discovered that to make up a French Champion title (which was and still is the most difficult of all European titles to gain) a labrador has to qualify in Open Field Trials. We didn't belong to the shooting fraternity, we didn't own a gun and I cried over dead hedgehogs in the road (I still do). Back to phone Bridget who said that we had no place in Labradors if we weren't prepared to work them. W.H. Smith on the Rue de Rivoli in Paris got me a copy of Moxon's book on training. How easy it all seemed and we attacked training with great zeal. November 1979 saw me shivering with excitement on the dutch/belgian border, having driven all through the night to participate in my first trial (Lucifer's first trial, first shot game too). At 8.30 we were called into line. At 8.45 we were eliminated. Years and years later at a Trial in Belgium, some friendly soul asked me whether I'd ever heard the story of the english lady who was pulled into the lake in the tow of her unsteady dog... I know just what it means to be a legend in your own lifetime !

When it all started, labradors had been used as shooting dogs in France since the beginning of the century but the ordinary man in the street didn't know what a labrador was. When I bred my first litter in december 1979, there were around 500 pedigree labradors born in France. In 1998 there were 12'000. If that doesn't sound a lot to american readers : France is a very small country. My first litter produced eight dogs and two bitches neither of whom I kept (one had a faulty mouth at eight weeks, which corrected itself with the change of teeth, too late for keeping. The other had a head I thought too doggy for a bitch). From my second litter, born in 1980, I initially kept all six bitches, selling them off as they grew and I was able to choose with more assurance. I ended up with Rhapsody and Reverie. I saw that the combining of Lucifer and Flower produced me two distinct types. My knowledge of different lines was improving and I decided that we needed a dog to continue on the right road. I was lucky to be allowed to buy in Sandylands Rip Van Winkle (Sandylands My Rainbow x Sandylands Busy Liz) born in April 1980. He was a year old when we brought him home and he made his presence felt very quickly. Mated to Rhapsody and to Reverie this produced two litters with long-term influence on the European Labrador scene. Many of the breeders well-known today in Holland, Belgium, Switzerland and France started off with the fruit of this combination. U Know Who and Union Jack from Reverie and from Rhapsody the famous 'V' litter from which six of the eleven puppies ended up as champions.

1984 saw the family breakup and my second divorce. Dogs are an expensive and timeconsuming hobby. In addition, I was told I had generalized cancer. I started to get the dogs placed. Gordon Sousa acquired Vanny who, having been World Champion, French, International and European champion went on to become a champion in the U.S. and a well-known and influential sire. By the time it was discovered that I did not have cancer : I had said good-bye to all the dogs except four and was considerably reducing my life-style in keeping with my new financial status. But an addict stays an addict, and before long Wetherlam Blackberry had joined us (Wetherlam Storm of Lawnwoods x Wetherlam Siskin) and later his half-brother Warringah's Banjo Patterson. Blackberry became my very best friend. He didn't care for the show-ring but made it to International Champion. He was so utterly typical of everything one loves in our breed and with a wicked sense of humour as a plus factor. He produced the soundest and nicest type of distinguished but unspectacular offspring several of whom became champions in the ring, Field Trial champions and even Dual champions (Cherry Brandy of Tintagel Winds daughter of Blackberry and Ch. Abide With Me of T.W., she being the daughter of Utmost Delight of T.W. and Kupros Lucifer. Utmost Delight was Sandylands Rip Van Winkle and Ballyduff Sunflower).

It is quite impossible to grade the different dogs according to their direct or indirect influence on what the Tintagel Winds kennel turned out to become. Some became better known than others because of their charisma but these were not necessarily the most important long-term influence and each had a part to play that was important in relation to the others. From the start I realised that I'd have to acquire dogs because the availability of dogs for stud in France was about zero. So I opted to conserve my bitch line, very occasionally getting in an outside bitch, or half-outside as was Pêche des Vergers de la Tour, a daughter of Lucifer, and without doubt the most remarkable bitch I've ever been lucky enough to have. Gwen Broadly made her BOB in Denmark at the Jubilee Show in 1984. Despite 1984 being the Terrible Year : that Show stands out as one of the most happy events in my life. Her grand-daughter, great and great-great grand-daughters are here with me today. An outcross bitch who made an impact was Rocheby Fay of T.W. who came from Marion Hopkinson in 1988. She was a remarkable brood-bitch and though her show carreer was short-lived : she was a wonderful producer and her daughter by Carromer's Charlie Chalk in our latest champion : Just Orphan Annie of Tintagel Winds.

Some of the real plus +++ of being a breeder : the wonderful international family that you belong to, the contacts with other breeders from the whole world. Seeing the puppy in which you believed become the dog you just hoped he might be. Above all hearing the run-of-the-mill client say to me "He's even more marvellous than I expected" and they're NOT talking of show wins but day-to-day cohabitation.

The pitfalls : finding too late that you've no time for the smaller loves in your life because you've been taken over completely. No hot food : the phone rings EVERY time you sit down to eat. Having to give away the ones you love because they're not producing what you want. Finding you misjudged a client and that he should never have been allowed a puppy but you can't do a damned thing about it.

The idea of a Mentor put into words is more american than european. I suppose Bridget Docking could have been called my Mentor but her untimely death put an end to the possibility of learning any more from her long experience and patient help. I think anyone seriously wanting to breed for quality needs to find a guiding hand. My own experience is that a few people in France really set out to understand what the word Breeding really means. I suppose I tend to try to paint a pretty horrendous picture for would-be breeders - a variation of the dreadful stories I invent for would-be clients. I say to myself that if they still want a puppy/still want to breed when I've described... Parvo hitting the whole puppy kennel while you cope with kennel cough as well. Your new import turns out to have rotten hips, a client takes you to court to get his money back because the dog is a year old and hasn't yet won a BOB, three clients going abroad/getting divorced/having a baby want you to rehome their uncontrollable uneducated hooligans, your favourite bitch ate rat-poison in the neighbours' yard and your young hopeful's teeth have gone wrong... if they're still in the game when you've got that far... they've probably got potential.

Latins are less sportsmanlike than anglo-saxons : at least it would appear so. Bridget said to me "whether you win or lose, NOTHING in your demeanour should show the difference, you keep smiling." It is true that winners who leap in the air with a Tarzan-like cry and fists clenched on uplifted arms annoy me as much as the chap placed second or third who refuses to shake hands with the winner. At some time or another we've all been robbed of a victory and also had a placing we didn't deserve. It's all part of the game.

I suppose excitement comes from seeing everything RIGHT. First the general outline, then the movement and you move in to look at expression. If you know the dog or it's your own then you can evaluate character and intelligence as well. Then it's a dog oozing just everything you want and you can't wait to get your hands on it literally and figuratively.

Fads ? certainly fashions which tend to send people to excesses. Our breed standard leaves a lot of scope for interpretation and so the way one pictures the ideal labrador is bound to conjure up very different images depending on the use of the dog. It's a pity that the word MEDIUM is often confused with MEDIOCRE. Soundness is the ability to do the job with ease for which it was fashioned. I have no idea whether the percentage of unsound dogs is greater than heretofore, I rather suspect that it must be. People who don't work their dogs can tolerate unsoundness by pumping a dog full of medication and still show him and use him at stud. Of course unsoundness is also poor temperament by it shyness, hyper-activity or aggressiveness. These traits show up faster in a real working dog who needs to be biddable, calm and intelligent in order to accomplish what is expected of him. The bulk of productivity in Labradors having moved over the years from the shooting people to whom money was no incentive to the commercial breeder whose main aim is making a living, then it seems that behind what's visually acceptable - there is a lot the true breeder, who won't hoodwink himself, must disapprove.

Maybe the major challenges in other countries are not entirely the same as those in France where I live. Which is what makes the ILD forum of such interest. I would say that there are two major challenges : keeping the lab a WORKING dog, whatever the work he may do. Only this way will we produce the whole dog, both physically and mentally. One may not like the shooting scene for many reasons but if the labrador can't do the job for which his body and his brain were built : then he's no labrador, whatever he may appear to be on the review pages of the magazines. The second challenge is to get the general public pet-owners to understand the real nature of the labrador. Why do so many labs end up in Rescue Homes ? Because the owner fails to realize that a boisterious, intelligent and healthy labrador without education and firmness is a hooligan and totally unliveable with. And it's NOT the dog's fault. And it's OUR job to teach the potential owners.

A challenge we're going to have very shortly which will have to be dealt with on a case by case basis is what do we throw out when DNA testing becomes current for PRA etc. How far are we going to go in the name of purification and is a dramatic reduction in the available (healthy ?) gene pool going to bring us a whole lot of new problems ? Temperement and intelligence can't be quantified officially; you can't X-ray a dog for kindness and yet this is one of the most important features of the labrador. Most of the new breeders over here are more intrested in producing a champion than in verifying that the dog has the potential to transmit for the future what's really important to the breed.

A bitch who proves to be a rotten mother would never be retained. But I think one can tell in advance by observing her behaviour with other bitches' puppies. A rotten producer you only discover later on and I have certainly given away to pet homes bitches who transmitted faults, however beautiful and however much loved. Back to Bridget : don't keep dead wood, only retain what is better than what you've had. Generally a bad mother of good puppies will pass on her 'badness' and puppies very definitely need both sound inherited qualities and a mother who teaches them behaviour patterns in the vital first six weeks of life. A bad mother is definitely not bred a second time.

I generally prefer visiting bitches NOT to stay : the ideal is that they should be brought twice within 48 hours after progesterone levels have been verified. All matings are 'handled' by one or two people and the dog and bitch are never left alone together. This enables us to have a 90% success rate and no scared maidens or exhausted studs. As our dogs never wear any kind of collar at home but that some kind of 'handle' may be useful : we keep one thick leather collar used for the stud and one smaller one for the bitch. Initially this was simply for conveniance. However, the dogs caught on so fast that if you say "where's the bitch" they'll go and get the collars and sit at the gate, both collars in their mouth, listening for the car... this is not just amusing but enables us to condition the stud, whether the bitch is appealing to him or not and a green mare or a white mouse - providing the collars are available - would be mated without difficulty ! Of course we rarely have a bitch arriving alone as may happen when distances are very great.

I suppose there's no such thing as an ideal kennel. This old farm had three distinct buildings built on three sides of a square so that just naturally it made one main house + 1 kennel for housing adult dogs at night who are running free in four separate grass runs (1,200 m2 each) during the day. The third building was entirely 'custom built' to house a dog kitchen, maternity section, stockage for equipment and food and upstaires a large bedroom and bathroom for kennel help who take meals in the main house but live separately. These are usually youngsters from agricultural colleges so need a bit of mothering. Puppies are born and maintained for three weeks in the house kitchen and although the whelping could easily be done in the dog kitchen opposite : I still prefer the close contact, having them under my eyes 24 hrs a day and sleeping on the sofa five yards away from the whelping box may not sound very professional but has saved many a life when a 34kg bitch gets out to drink at 3 a.m. and gets back in to puppies weighing 350gms. It's definitely NOT the ideal set-up but I haven't found a more suitable one. In fact I got rid of my third husband because he hated the idea that his food was prepared in a kitchen where there were puppies... but it just happened that I bought the house for the dogs and he arrived much later. I do feel that having a (non dog) husband is totally incompatible with breeding dogs. Either I give up breeding or I give up husbands. I have decided to give up husbands.

Socializing puppies who leave at two months is no problem because we get a lot of visitors and the kennel help changes fairly often so that they are able to vary their experiances. More difficult are those being run on as future hopefuls. Getting them into town means 30 kms in the car and time is always a factor, particularly when I am without help for fairly long periods and so cannot find time to wander round town with a bunch of curious bitches. This is a difficult point for me.

Here in France you have to sell ALL your puppies with a pedigree : even those who have a visible problem that will eliminate them from being bred. It is illegal to make a contract denying the client the right to do what they wish with the dog and so the breeder has no rights whatever once a puppy or older dog is sold. Which is a handicap because I feel very strongly that if one sells a dog half price because of some particular problem, one should morally and legally, have the rights to say "this dog is not for breeding". Which is why, when I give away a bitch at six, or earlier if she is not up to scratch as the brood bitch; I retain the papers (illegally) until she has been sterilized.

When I was going through difficult times I did place a a number of   bitches I simply couldn't keep with the right to ONE litter. This has given me a very negative image of human nature, as 75%  'get lost' for various reasons, all of them dishonest. It is not co-ownership because the bitch belongs to the family to whom I sell her, but a written contract stipulates that between two and a half and three and a half years old she will have one litter at my kennel and that after six weeks she will return to her owners. I no longer care to do this as the hassle of trying to get the bitches back is too great.

I feel strongly that a labrador should do something useful with his time. He doesn't necessarily need to be a shooting dog but, given the choice, it's what a true labrador likes doing best. A true labrador can be trained to do almost anything except guard work.This puting the lab to work safeguards his potential and the Devil, as everyone knows, finds work for idle paws.

A once in a lifetime dog... ?  I suppose that it's only at the end of one's own life that one can look back and say : "THAT was THE DOG". But I look down at Charlie (Carromer's Charlie Chalk) sleeping at/on my feet and it seems to me that he is indeed the dog of a lifetime. My gratitude towards Mervyn and Carol Reynolds is limitless. Not only is he a multiple Show Champion and Top Dog All Breeds in France 1993 and 1994 plus Top Labrador in France from 1993 thru 1999 but also a Field Trial Champion and the most remarkable  prepotent sire whose progeny counts both Field Trial and Show Champions across several continents. He's the kind of dog everybody dreams about and I'm just lucky enough to live in his house.

We share this space with Foulby Tittle Tattle (Lindall Morse x Cuanbank Irish Lilly at Foulby) also with Othamcourt Rue of Colinwood, Carpenny Catch Pole and some rather nice girls of whom we're proud.

We've made up well over fifty Show Champion titles, for several  of which Field Trial work in difficult conditions (NOT just a 'qualifier' but in open competition with the 'we only work' dogs who come from pure Field lines and are built for great speed). Also, of which we are the most proud : Dual Champions. But all those anonymous healthy dogs bringing pleasure to their owners in a variety of jobs, bring us the most satisfaction. We work a lot with the Guide Dogs, no titles to be won here but great pride in our small contribution.

It's been a wonderfull life, I've been lucky enough to have owned and bred some exceptional dogs and bitches and my dearest wish is that the dogs are proud of me and that I may have contributed something to the breed in a small way. Tintagel Winds dogs are now spread over forty-three different countries and this makes for an extraordinarily interesting life. The labrador people I've met, whether when showing, judging or simply visiting, have all, without exception, extended such a wonderful welcome that one wonders whether there wouldn't be fewer wars if there were more real labrador people.

Felicity Leith-Ross

January 2000

Back