Our Beardies

We seem to be evolving as a minor league farm team of Strathearn Bearded Collies Reg'd. It is a role we are proud to play. Tom and the late Ann Dixon have been developing some excellent lines and we have enjoyed watching them evolve over the past thirteen years.

We decided we wanted to get back "into dogs" in the early 1990's. We have given up owning dogs in the late 70's because we felt that our lifestyle and career demands were not conducive to properly caring for animals. By the 90's we were ready to do it right.

We took a fair amount of time researching breeds and we finally settled on Bearded Collies. We loved the strong, happy and exuberant personality of the breed. We also liked the way they were shown in conformation - more natural than most. We went to shows and looked at what the breeders were developing. Bea Sawka of Classical Bearded Collies was especially helpful in educating us about Beardies.

The hunt was put on hold for in 1994 when we were given an OES pup that some friends had purchased from a pet store and who was too much for them to handle. We will have more about him on another page but suffice it to say he developed into a wonderful pet and after 9 months we were back on the hunt for our first beardie.

We met Tom and Ann at a couple of shows. We loved their dogs. It was mentioned that they had just bred one of their girls to Bea's Harrison (who we had met before he was "famous"). We told them we would like to get a pup that had show potential. They asked why we wanted a beardie. We told them we were looking for a lower maintenance dog. After seeing a confused look on their faces, we explained that we were comparing to an Old English Sheepdog.

A tentative deal was made and we also started to fall in love with Amy who, at 6 months old, was being shown along with her brother Baker (Strathearn's Gentle Knight) that day.

Thus, we got into beardies!

Amy later came to live with us and about 2 years after that her daughter Roxie. Laura is the pick of the Roxie/Logan litter in early 2005. We lost Amy in March of 2009 but she lives on in her progeny. See the pages for Logan, Amy, Roxie and Laura for more of their stories.