Our beardie story

My wife and I bought our first dog, a bobtail or old English sheepdog, when we were 22. Sadly we were forced to put him to sleep at the age of 10 months because he started attacking us due to inbreeding.

We were so inexperienced in choosing a dog and the people who had sold us this dog were treating them purely as merchandise. They could offer up to 30 different breeds !!

A few months later I saw an ad in the newspaper announcing border collies for sale. I knew this breed of dog from watching the BBC series “ One man and his dog”, so we decided to have a look. To see is to buy, when your looking at 3 puppies of about 3 months old, huddled up together in a horse stable and I was the lucky one because I got to choose! For the next 12 years Pineau lived happily with us.

During this time our 2 daughters - Charlotte and Julie - were born and they both had a lovely time with our border collie. So much so, that when Pineau was asleep, they would play with their dolls next to him in his basket, and every morning he would get a good morning kiss from them, which was more then I got, their very own father!

When Pineau died it felt like a part of ourselves had been ripped out. The girls cried every morning. One of them refused to eat and the other just stood in the corner facing the wall and kept on crying.

A week later we bought a West Highland white terrier, Cleo, and the smiles on the girls faces had returned. Little did we know the trouble we would be facing ahead !

When Cleo reached the age of 4, she developed colitis. We obtained the advice of 4 different vets and a University professor. We even went to an animal hospital in The Netherlands but the Dutch veterinarians could not help, because they shared the opinion of their Belgian colleagues.

Knowing that Cleo wouldn’t live long, we considered buying a second dog to avoid the heartbreaking situation we had experienced before.

One fine day my wife took the girls and Cleo for a walk in the woods where they unexpectedly bumped into an old school friend, Annick, and unbelievable but true: Annick’s 2 dogs she was walking were... you’ve guessed right: bearded collies! Named Gringo and Lucky.

Once back home my family told me about the meeting and that’s when it all began: why don’t we buy a bearded collie? That soon turned into the question of the day.

Annick knew about a rehoming of a bearded collie, Lizzy, aged 4.

We tried the rehoming but unfortunately it didn’t work out because our cat, Mousty, kept attacking Lizzy to defend it’s territory. Lizzy returned to her owners where she still lives today.

Even though the idea of buying a bearded collie appealed to me, I needed to be convinced, because I was worried about the extra amount of grooming attention a dog with such a fur needs compared to a border collie and a West Highland white terrier. I even dragged a wet rag through the garden to simulate a wet bearded collie and brought it inside the house to let it dry...  To this day we’re still laughing about it!

All the beardies we came in contact with, Lizzy, Gringo and Lucky came from the same breeder, Erik.

We met Erik and Carine in January 2004 on a Sunday at home with all their beardies. A brand new world opened up for us and all my doubts vanished in an instant. 

On February 27th 2004 our lovely beardie boy Toby - Announce me as Devotion - was born in a litter of 7 pups.

Eight weeks later we proudly introduced him to Cleo and they became great friends.

The health of Cleo, suffering a very severe stage of colitis at the time, reached an incurable level when Toby was about the age of two.

I decided to put Cleo, aged 8, to sleep because she was slowly dying. Together with our veterinarian we stopped the suffering. My youngest daughter Julie remained with us the whole time. Our veterinarian did a wonderful job explaining to her why this was necessary. She was so brave for staying and watching it all happen. But again the sadness returned.

Without the leader of the pack Toby felt lost. A month later you could see that all the joy and fun had left this young dog, he would stand in the middle of the garden howling for Cleo to come out and play. It was so heartbreaking to watch.

We quickly decided to give Toby and ourselves a new puppy. Right ! A West Highland white terrier. After an intensive search on the internet, we found a breeder not far from our home, Mary-Leen and Dirk. Again we were lucky to find such honest breeders just like Erik.

In August 2006 Pebbles - Fairytale of Westerlyhills - became Toby’s new companion. Both dogs are so healthy which results into lots of playtime! It’s truly a joy to watch them.

We already have the desire to let them be accompanied by their own puppies, of course all in due time and with good sense.

The most important lesson for me is that one should never rush into purchasing a puppy. Take no chances, look before you leap.

That our story.

Peter - Anne - Charlotte - Julie

When Toby first met Pebbles.