How it all began . . . Born and reared a townie myself, access to livestock has never been forthcoming. I have been constantly chasing a desire spanning 30 years to spend more and more time learning to read my dogs and learn their language on livestock. But I didn't grow up on a farm or, or indeed have a kindly relative close by to show me how to handle dogs, or horses, or to teach me how to whistle, or how to work a border collie. For me the opportunity to be around sheep and livestock was only a fleeting few weeks in school holidays. The chance to run through cow barns layered with straw, to see a lone ewe sheltering from a fierce snow storm and me just 9 or 10 years old watching, all alone, in total wonder as she produced a new born lamb right there, by a stonewall on a hillside, in front of my own eyes. I remember the very first time I held a new born lamb! But always, always, I had to come home. . . . So I was essentially born a townie. My own parents where born in North London moving out to Hertford before my birth. But perhaps I inherited a little bit if the love of sheepdogs, horses and livestock from past generations. My maternal grandmother and her family hail from Ireland, from a small village called Carlingford, on the edge of Carlingford Loch, County Louth. Mixed livestock flocks of cattle and sheep where kept along with keeping employment in another trade. My grandfather and his father were from Northumberland, also a livestock farming family with a second trade to support them. (Or perhaps I was a throwback as uncle Billy used to tell me. (Thanks!) Around 35 years ago a golden and white bitch pup arrived. Bred by a local sheep farmer in Hertfordshire. This was 1977 and I was just 5 years old. The pup was an unpapered little lady, unpopular with the farmer because of her colour. We all agreed to call her Honey. Two adult tri colour males followed. Sam and then Dublin. Both were up for homing before coming to us. As a teenager, the horses were an interesting one for me. I liked them. Mum took me riding at 5 years but I hated the teacher so I refused to go back. Too much pressure. By the time I was 11 years old I grew keen again and loved it. I would ride in wind rain and shine. I competed a bit on borrowed ponies and did OK. Then I did week a long training clinic and won the dressage and came second in the cross country. Having ponies on loan was the next thing, a relatively easy task to achieve with a bit of pushing. But owning my own was a hard battle. I fought hard and won. Since then I have been bitten, kicked, stamped on, squashed, bucked off, thrown off and bolted away with and I never regretted a minute of it. In the late 1980s whilst training as a veterinary nurse I became interested in border collie health and the only time there hasn't been a collie in my life is a few years prior to 1997 whilst away at college or in rented city accommodation. I missed having them so much I vowed that as soon as I got my first house I was going to have a Border Collie again. In 1997 I was back to being in a position to keep a dog again after renting. Sam would stay with me on occasions. It was lovely having collie company again. I then heard of an older tri bitch up for homing. She was just what I wanted. Hence she came home. I hated her name Cider so I promptly changed it to Shannon. Sadly our time together was short. She died just 2 weeks later. Listless and not eating in the morning and by the same afternoon ataxic. I rushed her in for an emergency exploratory and she was found to be riddled with small tumours. The kindest thing was to let her go. It was New Years Eve 1997. The worst one I will ever remember. In the new year weeks of 1998 that followed her loss I heard of a 5 year old male available. I was still grieving Shannon so I knew I had to be careful with my emotions when I went to see him and not be too hasty. He was a sturdy black and white male with four previous homes and somewhat misunderstood by others with regard to his behaviour but I loved him. And so Joe arrived. He and I were inseparable. I was still a townie and I wanted something to do to keep his mind active. My desire to learn to work a dog on sheep was still strong but not attainable in our area, so it was agility that we discovered. Joe and I trained through 1998 and began competing spring 1999. Joe won me into Novice and took me to many DINS Pedigree Finals. A great dog, but he was blighted with periodic lameness so it was a real job keeping him sound. Not knowing the history behind any of our dogs at this stage gave me a desire to know more. So in the early months of 1999 a search brought me to a brand new pup. A real cracker. Mahogany black so not the true dark raven black. A nice looking boy too. KC papered and I loved and met both his parents. I would have liked ISDS lines but back then couldn't find what I truly liked in our region at that time. But this pup fitted the bill, all English breeding and very nice ISDS lines close behind him. Enter Leo. He was fantastic to train, albeit quite strong but he was wonderful to live with, very balanced in nature, very clean in the house and a big kind heart. It was not long before Joe turned out to be so physically unsound that I chose to retire him at just 8 years old. Leo was ready to compete and he was everything I could have wished for. He won me into Senior with multiple Novices wins. He won an Intermediate, and qualified for more DINS finals instead of Joe. Leo was passported to attended the World Championship Agility tryouts. We didn't do too bad, but we didn't do good enough to go and it was all down to me. My heart was just not it anymore. If my heart was not in it then, then there was to be another blow. A terrible accident happened in 2003 which kept Leo out for a full year. He had ran into a gate sideways at full speed. It was awful. The first vet thought he had a partial cruciate rupture and I was told to return him home with some painkillers and come back 7 days later. My gut feeling was telling me it was a hip joint out. But who was I?!. Certainly not a Vet. So seven days later we returned. He was re examined by a second vet and found to have a disloclated hip. Never, never again will I distrust my own gut feeling!! Well, he had his hip replaced manually with brute strength under GA but it only just went in. It was nearly a referral case to have a toggle put in place. It took 6 months rehab to get him sound and another six months to build up the muscle and get him fit. But I would take no shortcuts. The good hip score that he had was not necessarily going to be enough to hold everything in place. Certainly not until the muscle had strengthened. Especially as 7 days of a dislocated leg had made the hip muscles really lax. He got there in the end. But I will always feel he missed the best competitive years of his life. In his old age he has remained sound and full of bounce and I will never regret taking plenty of time to rehabilitate him. Since 1998 I have trained 6 dogs for competitive agility. I have competed successfully and placed in Grade 3, 4, 5 and combined 6/7. One of my dogs has won 2 combined 6/7 agility classes, in side by side rings on the same day. In 2003 I registered the affix KAELEON with the KC in my sole owner ship and under it I produced my first 4 litters. The affix KAELEON being a combination of letters from my first and middle name (Louise) and also includes the name Leo in it. I began training our dogs on sheep during 2005. Far too late in my lifetime. I should have been doing it years ago so I certainly have some serious catching up to do. Physical health on my part has been a let down in the last few years, and in truth my heart is not really in competing anymore. I have shown with some success since 2001 and have a homebred female with a CC and RCC. But my desire is to spend as much time working and training my dogs on sheep. Learning to understand the psychology of what I have produced in my dogs is paramount over everything else. In March 2011 I came home from Crufts minus one of my females after offering my good friends Margaret and Steve Gore (Dancaroo) in Conwy Valley to take her home for a few months and see how they liked her. They did. They liked her a lot. Margaret and Steve had already purchased 2 bitches from me and I trusted them unreservedly with this third lady. I told them to go and have a bit of fun with her for the summer which they duly did. They also went Best In Show At Anglesey All Breeds General Open Show. So a partnership was soon born with this girl and a new litter was planned from her for Autumn 2011 with their help. So using their homebred boy, out of a dam from my breeding, came litter number 5. It was at this time in late 2011 that it seemed the right thing to make some changes to the ownership of my affix. Thus, in Autumn 2011 the affix ownership of KAELEON changed. It still belongs to myself, but now also belongs to Margaret and Teresa Turner (my mother). It just seemed such a natural progression to make. Between us we always have lots of news to share. I prefer to choose lines from those that have had quite a few generations of their breeding. I find they tend to know what they have. The Border Collie is wonderful breed with hundreds of years of history behind. I only hope that between us we can do the right thing by it. Karen x KAELEON Karen Gaylard, Margaret Gore and Teresa Turner