After Eleanor was born, Amy and I began to train for Obedience. We ended up getting our CD (companion dog) and CDX (companion dog excellent) titles. We also went in the first NSW Endurance test, and passed.

Not long after this, I became single again. Eleanor and Amy and I lived happily by ourselves for some years, and went to various Vizsla events and social outings, including camping weekends.

When Amy was four, she had a litter of nine puppies to Sam (Ch Craboon Lucky Warrior CD ET). I kept one, and called her Shaula. Shaula (Vizamy Samyz Shaula CD) and I went to a number of shows with success, and also trained for obedience. When she was twelve months old she debuted in the Obedience ring at the Sapphire Coast show/trial weekend. And won both days! During that time we trialed four times for three wins and a pass.

Not long after this, I met my now husband, Bernie. Although the dogs were as big a part of my life as ever, competing with them took a back seat for a while. Bernie and I courted, married, and had a son, Connor. Shaula was to turn four years old just after Connor was born and I didn't want her to be too old when she had her first litter, so we decided to breed her. Her first litter was born when Connor was two weeks old. We didn't keep one of these (too busy with a new baby!), but we were so happy with them that we repeated the mating (to Huxley, Dual Ch Hanafor Huxley Murrell). Cedar (Vizamy Cedar) came from this second litter.

Now that Connor is a bigger the dogs and I have started doing dog activities again. Cedar earned some excellent show wins at Royal Show and Breed Specialty level, although I did not take her to her show championship, as in my limited time I preferred to train and compete in agility. Cedar, Shaula and I have had our share of success at this, although Shaula has retired from active competition. Agility is a lot of fun! I have learned a lot about agility over the last couple few years, and have taken many opportunities to learn more and more. For a time I was chief agility instructor at PICSI (Parramatta) and implemented a new progressive training programme which was hard work but very rewarding. I have also attended many seminars in other areas of dog behaviour and training.

Although we do doggy activities, most of the time the dogs are household pets, and part of the family. My husband, dogless when I met him, adores them (in fact Shaula has adopted him as 'her own') and the kids like playing with them and doing things with them.

Right now I am combining family and doggy life with doing a PhD in the field of social psychology at UWS, Sydney, and some tutoring to bring in a few extra dollars. Eleanor is in high school and Connor in primary school.

We now have a working Kelpie as well as the Vizslas (Xia), and a "foster failure" short-coated Border Collie (Pickle). Pickle came along as a part of our involvement in dog rescue. As there are not many Vizslas that need fostering, we have fostered and helped rehome several herding type dogs (Kelpies and Border Collies, mainly, and a couple of German Shepherd pups) that would have died without our help. Pickle was one of these.

In addition, we have a cat, two budgies, various tanksful of fish (mainly African Cichlids), two pet mice, and four horses.

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