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Manda started her interest in training dogs at the age of six on various friends' dogs before, aged 9, she got her first dog, a Border Terrier dog called Rusty. She enjoyed the thrill of teaching this little dog obedience, agility and new tricks and it wasn't long before Rusty was jumping through hoops, walking the plank, begging, speaking on command, rolling over and a hundred and one other tricks. Always wanting to achieve more with her dog and then to compete Manda began by putting on displays, first for her friends and family but soon progressing to wider audiences such as school and the Brownies, before entering as many classes possible at local dog shows. Manda had always wanted a German Shepherd Dog and aged 18 bought a 4 1/2 month pup out of the local paper. Sian (Sharn) was a keen and willing bitch with a strong retrieve drive and Manda's interest increased as she realised the extra potential of this working breed. She joined a local GSD training club and took delight in training her dog to do all the obedience exercises and become the best there. . It was about this time that she then got involved in the training of nosework and consequently the 'dog sport' of Working Trials . This gave her the opportunity to train a lot of more diverse exercises, such as tracking, searching, sendaways, and agility with control to name just a few. She qualified Sian to CDEX and UD Open levels and realised that to seriously compete at the top level you need to start early with a dog of strong working ability and drive. It was about this time that she started to receive requests for assistance and instruction from other dog owners and began at first to instruct handlers on an individual basis and then formed a class. After retiring Sian Manda set about finding a dog to compete at the top level with. She had seen some of the top dogs working PD (Patrol Dog) stake and this had fired her imagination. As the name suggests Patrol Dog stake requires the dog to chase "criminals", find hidden people, defend the handler when attacked and also defend themselves when attacked!
Merlin was a brilliant little dog and he achieved every qualification possible (CDEX, UDEX, WDEX, TDEX and PDEX). He won one Ticket and the highlight of his career was coming Runner-up at the 1996 Kennel Club Championships. Despite suffering from hip dysplasia and arthritis, Merlin continued to work up until 1998 when he finally took early retirement. Merlin died in November 2007 aged 16 yrs and 4.5 months.
Jake took over where Merlin had left off and qualified Excellent in all stakes and became a 'Working Trials Champion' i.e. a double 'Ticket' winner. He also competed at the Kennel Club Championships twice in 2000 and 2004. Jake was a fantastic dog, extremely athletic and a very consistent all round PD competition dog, the Recall being his downfall, costing him several other Tickets. Sadly Jake died in May 2008 aged 13.5 years.
Manda's hopes now lie with the new one 'Storm', another blue merle Border Collie dog, now 3 years old and already qualified CDEX UDEX WDEX PDEX and is now working both TD and PD Ticket. He's looking to be the best yet!
The dog training courses have been running continually for approximately 17 years and in that time over 1,000 dogs have passed through Manda's hands. go to Home |
Manda's chosen dog was Merlin a blue merle Border Collie dog with strong guarding
instincts. 
Manda's
next dog, WTCH Jetfire Jake of Ashlindt CDEX UDEX WDEX TDEX PDEX (who she had taken on aged 21 months) was a big black
and white Border Collie dog. 