Aust Ch Qenoir Stand Aside For Me (NZ Imp)
Questadore Kennels was established in 2005 as a joint adventure between my parents and myself. It definetly had been a long journey with emdless phone calls, email and loads of patience waiting for the right pup to begin our journey with this wonderful breed......We had been on multiple waiting lists and had beed dissapointed time after time after time......
i grew up with dogs and learnt a lot of life lessons through them.....because of them I have gained valuable experiance in the areas of obedience training, grooming, handling difficult dogs, conformation showing and the amazing gift assist new life coming into the world.....this is only just touching the tip of the iceberg. what I have learnt has been invaluable and Ive been able to build on my knowledge.
I trained as a Reg Nurse and Midwife so I have been able to transfer that information into the care of our dogs and care of our girls through pregnancy, deliver and ongoing care after.
I began obedience training at an early age with our German Shepphard. We then had several other breeds that I was totally involved with. In the later years my parents had Rottweilers of which I loved training and showing them. They'd had a couple of litters of which I was involved in the safe delivery of each pup.
On my own I continued with obedience training and showing of my Rottweiler - unfortunately he died at an early age. This led me to a wonderful journey with Golden Retrievers. I continued with my love of obedience and showing.....I had also bred Three litters.
In time my health had determined to where I was no longer able to exercise my Dogs as they need or I want. So this led me to searching breeds to find a smaller dog but didn't want a lap dog or one that was 'needy'. So after much searching i found the perfect dog for me!
Sheenuh, Renoir Stand aside For Me (Imp NZ) was our foundation bitch.....she was a bit of a culture shock after the Coldies....she was the extreme of what westies could be. Mum and I entered the show ring with our baby.......we began our extremely huge learning curve...grooming being the greatest. Mum and I spent hours together talking about ways to improve her coat and where we need to pull more. Her coat was far from perfect but we were both so proud of our girl. She finally gained her Aust Champ title at the age of 3 years. We had bough in other dogs of which some weren't what we wanted to continue with.
Over the years, we have had a few litters which has been a generational ladder to where we are today. Over the years, we have had a bit of success with the showing, not any huge winning dogs and some we've not had any success in the ring at all.....this never put me off, in fact it made me even more determined to achieve with the grooming/presentation and in the ring. So we continued to strive for what we would be proud to show in the ring, a dog that is conformationally sound and correct and to have enough knowledge to groom to where we could be proud of how we presented our dogs.
I've had fourty plus years of showing dogs including the later over 16 years of showing and learning about the westies. It has only been in the last couple of years that I finally have a dog that is doing amazingly well in the ring....and the best part about it is that I bred him.
Unfortunately mums health deteriated to where she was no longer able to continue with our beautiful breed. so both mum and dad went back to the chihuahas. Mum still followed with great interst with what I was doing both in and out of the ring.
Through-out the years my understanding of grooming has developed and still evolving. There has been a lot of trial and error, patches missing in coat, too much, not enough and much more 'different' styles that I have taken my dogs in the ring with. I have always walked into the ring feeling extremely proud of my dogs and how they were presented, despite not being correct. Inthe early years I had learnt my grooming soley from a bood 'Westies From Head To Tail' by Ruth Faherty. In time, From the frist three years Ive gained valuable support, education and friendship from some wonderful people of whom I am extremely greatful for. I'll go further into grooming history and tools more in-depth later on.
Despite having achieved very little over many years, I remained determined and persisted with my dream to have the opportunity to have bred and owned a dog that would achieve well in the ring. So I continued on my journey, never giving up........................................