At this site I also want to tell something about me and my family which consists of my husband, my 26 year old daughter "Vanessa" who is acting - much to my pleasure - as vet-assistant, my 21 year old daughter "Anja" and our 2 Collie-males. We are living at the rim of the lovely city Stuttgart in Germany next a nice valley surrounded from wood and fields where I walk my dogs three times daily.
Left side Vanessa with her Corgie-female "Noppes" and right Anja - our daughters
I love animals since I can remember and in my childhood I had several critters like mice, guinea-pigs, hamster, fish, frogs, turtles and even a cat but the dog I so much longed for was not allowed by my parents. So my friend and I found dogs of other people which we too for walks to walks. One day suddenly there came a Collie without any owner in sight. It was a beautiful sable male and I was impressed at once. We found his adress and brought him home and were allowed to take him with us during our daily walks and so he became for a short time our companian. His name was "Barry" and I will always remember his wonderful character and beauty. From that day on I wished to own one day such a Collie. Time went by and when I was 15 years old my 17 years old sister was allowed to buy a dog for herself. I asked so much for a Collie but her decision was a Boxer and so DINA came in our family. She was a lovely and easy to handle female and I had a lot of fun with her but in my heart still the Collie was the favourite breed.
Over 10 years later when I was married and my first daughter was born I was able to have a own family-dog but had still not the possibility to buy a well-bred Collie puppy because lack of money. So we choose a 12 week old Shepherd-Mix female named "Lady".
So I had to wait several years more to fullfil my dream but in 1996 finally I got my Collie. My husband would have prefered a German Shepherd but this time I stood firm and he agreed with the Collie if it would be a tricolour male and so we travelled to France to visit family Hartgé and their Collies where tricolour puppies were born 6 weeks ago and two of them were still for sale from witch we choose our "Merlin" who turned out to become as beautiful and intelligent with natural dignity as "Barry" was and even more. Sure I had read a lot about dogs but now it was time for me to listen and read all about my favourite breed what I got between my fingers and still I do so.
After a short time I was such impressed of my Collie and the easy way to handle him that I thought a second one would be a good idea. Unfortunately my husband did not agree and it took me a lot of time to convine him and get my little sable boy. In the meantime I knew what type of Collie I prefered and searched for the breeder of my new baby very carefully and found him rather far away from us at the "Collies of Kassiopeia" . Ina was very nice, helpful and friendly and we had a lot of correspondence by letter and email until the puppies were born and during the first 9 weeks of their life (and still today). When Wayne was 3 weeks old we made the trip and visited the first time the breeder and our puppy and were introduced to the whole Collie-family. It was a wonderful day for me with lots of impressions. When Wayne was 9 weeks old we brought him home and he adopted us at once with his kisses. The first time was rather hard for the little boy because our Merlin was not pleased about him but in the meantime they are a very good father-son-team and of course I'm more than happy with my two "Dreamboys".
