ABOUT US

INTRODUCTION TO US

We are Andy and Janet Briggs, and live in the north of England, in West Yorkshire.At the time of writing, we currently live with 9 dogs; that is 8 TM's and a terrier mix. I first came across the TM in 1996. We always had dogs, including teriers and border collies, but I was looking for another breed, preferably a rare breed. Having read many books on large breeds ( No pc or internet for me in those days) I finally shortlisted a handful of breeds, namely TM, Leonburger, Estrela Mountain Dog, Anatolian, etc.The final choice was between LEO and TM, but after visitng a farmhouse in the Derbyshire Peak district and meeting 3 TM's there, that was my mind made up; we were hooked.

INTRODUCTION TO OUR DOGS
I managed to get my first TM, a beautiful grey girl CHUBA in March 19997, from Richard Gardiner's HERONSVIEW kennel, and that was the start of a long love affair. Little did I relaise then, what an impact CHUBA would make on me, and indeed the breed. Initially she was going to be a pet, companion and guard dog; I had no aspirations to show her. However, I attended the TM Club show in Autumn 1997, mainly for a bit of fun and to see other TM's and puppies there. CHUBA did us proud, won a few trophies, and we realised driving home how much we had enjoyed the day out, and from then on entered the world of dog showing. In a way we were lucky to have CHUBA as our first TM. She was a very placid laid back girl who got on well with people and other dogs, and became the top winning TM bitch of all time in the UK. We lost her in June 2008 at the age of eleven and a half years of age. She will never be forgotten.

1998 saw us get 2 more pups, HANNAH and KIAH, again from Richard Gardiner. In 2000 we toook on a 12 month old boy KHAN who was up for re-homing, then the following year we got our 4th HERONSVIEW breeding in the guise of LEAH. In 2002, CHUBA had a litter of ten pups, from that litter we kept GUSTA and CHILA. In 2005 CHILA had 4 pups sired by DZONG PEN GANGKAR in Slovakia, from which we kept DORJE. Then in 2006 we kept a grey girl ELLA out of our E litter from LEAH.

As well as the TM's we had a gorgeous gold PMD x GSD girl TANYA, who sadly we lost in August 2008, just 6 weeks after loosing CHUBA. We also have a 14 year old terrier mix TOBY-JO, who stands at 14" and thinks he is cock of the north. He jumps on the male TM's to "dominate" them; they just laugh him off and put up with him.

LIVING WITH OUR TM'S
All the dogs sleep in the house during the night . I built quite a luxury kennel block a few years ago, however, none of the dogs use them or are ever seperated (except the boys from the girls for 3 weeks when the girls are in season for three weeks in the Autumn). They have free access to the barn, kennel block and office throughout the day. The advantage of the large barn is that even if we have heavy rain, they have somewhere to stretch their legs and relieve themselves.

During the day the dogs have free access from inside the barn and office to a large roofed and fenced "forecourt" area. This gives them the opportuntiy of being outside in the fresh air, whilst still having protection from whatever the weather throws at us; shelter from rain and snow and shade from the sun.
They also have a large fenced paddock of 1;/2 acre, and a further large field for the daily walks.

FEEDING OUR TM'S
We feed them once per day, around 5-6pm, then the whole pack come into the house for the evening until about 9pm. Those that do not sleep in the house during the night spend the rest of the evening until bedtime with Andy in the office, following a play out in the paddock depending on the weather.

We feed what we consider a very healthy natural diet to our TM's. Generally, they are fed once per day, with mainly minced chicken and tripe (raw uncooked), along with essential greens consisting of carrotts, peas, and maybe a few natural tripe biscuits. Once or twice per week we add pasta and rice to the meat diet. It is a fact that dogs are not carnivores, but omnivores, so it is important to add greens to thier diet. Wild dogs, and indeed wolves, would not be restricted to just meat after hunting or scavenging. They would first of all rip open the softer parts of the kill, the stomach, and eat the contents, consisting of herbage which the victim had previously been grazing on.We can still see this today, when out walking the dogs. Just notice how they regualrly chew on grass and sod to aid their digestion. My supplier at the time of writing for our meat is ANGLIAN MEAT PRODUCTS, based in Norfolk. They trade under the name of PRIZECHOICE and I will place a link on my links page if anyone wishes to contact them.

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