How The Angevin Connection Began

Written by Linda Shove

The following information was taken from a seris of articles printed in a newsletter "French Letters" printed by Linda Shove, Brian Swanney and Margaret Walker.

The following is the history of the Angevin Kennel and how it came to be, written by Linda Shove

I had shared family dogs (mostly bitzers) while I was growing up in England, but circumstances has prevented me from owning my own dogs until I emigrated to NZ with my husband David in 1972.

We acquired our first bitzer puppy within a fortnight of arriving in the country and had various successes and failures with an assortment of bitzers over the next three years. These culminated in a large black Lab/Kelpie croass who took to worrying sheep and had to be put down. Afetrwards I sat in the Vet's carpark in floods of tears feeling criminal (he was such a young vital dog, it seemed such a waste.) Desperate to shut me upi (and in a weak moment I'm sure he lived to regret!) Davidsaid "You can have any dog you like to replace him!!"

I'd always had a weakness for hairy dogs so I decided on an Old English Sheepdog. They were very hard to come by back then, but eventually "Sophie" arrived August 1975. By this time we had a house and section full of assorted animals, birds and fish most of which were breeding. So I knew we would want to breed from "Sophie" when she was older if she was good enough. The only way to find out if she was up to standard for breeding was to take her to some dog-shows. I was certain I would hate showing, but bravely fronted up to our first show when "Sophie"was # months old. To my great astonishment I loved it and became totally and irrevocably hooked on the show scene! (I think it appeals to the supresses gambler in me - you never know if the next show will be the one where your dog does really well!!.

A few months later I was sheltering from the rain in a bookshop and idly looking for photos of O.E.S. on dog books. I turned a page and saw a photo of an O.E.S. with two big, black beautiful hairy dogs. It was a totally mind blowing moment which altered my life for good. Although "Sophie" was a lovely dog I'd already been feeling that O.E.S. wasn't quite the right breed for me. One look at that photos of these two glorious black briards and I went weak at the knees and knew that I'd found exactly what I'd been subconsciously looking for. Poor David didn't really put up even a token resistance when I arrived home - he knew when he was beaten!

I was then faced with the fairly daunting task of finding myself a Briard puppy, a breed I'd never heard of and was fairly sure there were none in New Zealand.

The hunt is on!!