My name is Annette and I live
in Hampshire with my long suffering husband Jim who accepts
the fact that he will always come last. We have 6 Spinone
(at the moment) a geriatric Great Dane and a Toy Poodle. We
live on a smallholding and also keep chickens and ducks. We’ve
recently built our house after living in a mobile home for
8 years, which as you can imagine was not easy with all the
dogs living in with us. Anyway it was all worth it when we
finally moved into our lovely new home.
I’ve been involved
with and loved dogs and animals for as far back as I can remember
and was always ‘rescuing’ waifs and strays and
bringing them home, much to the annoyance of my parents. For
the first few years of married life we didn’t have a
dog but as soon as we were in a house with a garden we bought
a beautiful white longcoat GSD from a lady called Francis
Hill of the famed Loboas affix. Francis became and still is
a very dear friend and has given me a huge amount of help
and advice over the years. I lived with and bred GSD’s
for around 15 years and got my kennel name ‘Netis’
which means ‘Trusted Friend’ in North American.
I bred White, Black and Sable Shepherds and bred the 2nd litter
in the country of Blues - the first litter being bred by Francis
herself. I didn’t think I would ever change breeds until
the fateful day when I saw a picture of a Spinone.
It was a couple of years later
after buying a Dog World Annual at Crufts that I saw an advertisement
from a Spinone breeder from Sussex. I phoned the number and
spoke to Gael Stenton (Gaesten) and she invited us to go and
meet her dogs and get more information on their needs etc.
When we walked into her kitchen a few days later and looked
into the faces of her beautiful Spins I knew I had to have
one and was totally hooked.
We ended up getting
an Orange Roan boy who we called Dillon and he was followed
about a year later with a Brown Roan girl who we called Fara.
That was 14 years ago.
This was the start of my addiction
of the wonderful world of Spinone
An addiction that I hope never
to cure!
"Grant
me the senility to forget the people I never liked
The good fortune to run into the ones I do
And the eyesight to know the difference"
