Pictures: Melissa Wilson
Or just
"Quincy"
to you and me Perhaps the most amazing dog ever to have lived in South Africa, certainly my "one in a life-time" dog. Her achievements far too numerous to mention here ... her name says it all - 5 Champion titles.
Highlights so far have probably been:
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At the FCI Agility World Championships 1998 I saw an amazing little grey dog which could not possibly be a pure bred dog, or so I thought. Certainly nothing I had ever seen. I was told this was a Pyrenean Sheepdog. I fell in love with them there and then and knew I wanted a dog like that. The problem was that there were non in South Africa at the time. So I went on the hunt around the world to find a suitable puppy. It seemed to take for ever.
Then one day, at a local show, I saw an acquaintance of mine walking towards me with .... a Pyrenean puppy. I couldn't believe my eyes, and she couldn't believe the fact that I recognized the breed. We talked. She had imported the puppy from Austria. Having gone to Europe to pick up a completely different pup she had ordered, she was most disappointed when that breeder told her that puppy was no longer available. In frustration she decided to stay a few weeks in Europe and visit old friends. Among them were Monika and Christian Janes of the "de la Vallee du Mouton" kennel. And there was "Ivorine de la Vallee du Mouton", already several months old, as Monika and Christian had wanted to keep her for themselves. My friend fell in love with her and pleaded and argued with Monika and finally managed to persuade her to part with the pup.
I kept in touch for several months and wanted to hear about this breed that I was so desperate to get. The more I heard about "Ivorine", the more I kept saying that this was actually "my" dog. She was exactly what I had expected a Pyrenean to be. My friend on the other hand was not prepared for the little bundle of high energy that she had brought home. She was struggling with her temperament and with the never ending desire to work. When circumstances unexpectedly changed for her and she had to move house, I was lucky enough to convince her to part with "Quincy" and let me have her. By now Quincy was almost a year old and while on the one hand she was everything I had wanted, she brought a lot of serious baggage with her. Her almost pathological fear of people and men in particular took many years to get over. Only with the help of my good friend and trainer Beth Babbin could we turn Quincy around and make her the successful competition dog she has become.
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