How my GSD life began,

My life in the German shepherd world began 10 years ago nearly now when I started working part time for Tina ( Iolanda) just 3 days a week, she was as crazy for these dogs as I am now and at her peak had around 30 dogs to care for,they soon became a big part of my life to,. She would love to go off to shows and I would stay at the kennels and look after the place while she went off for the day ,I never really got into the showing so I was quite happy to stay while she went off for the day .

After about 6 months I became almost full time there as the other lady left , over the years I learnt more and more about breeding and the paper work side of registering of pups etc and as Tina was getting older she passed all of those sort of duties to me which I didn’t mind, the dogs by this point were a large part of my life and Tina became part of our family to as she only had a nephew who was in Italy who she didn’t see that often, she became a very good friend to me although some days I would be pulling my hair out, anyone that knew Tina would understand haha.

In September 2018 Tina went off to Italy to the Italian Sieger show where sadly she had a heart attack and passed away which then that left me living in the bungalow looking after the dogs 24hrs a day 7 days a week, and this is where my fight to keep the dogs began as Tina had not left any plans in place for the dogs care etc, the only plans she left were the solicitors were the executors so it was down to them to make the right decisions. In 2020 the kennels were sold to the present owner who sadly saw this as a money maker and not for the love of the dogs so 4 Years on and after a lot of stress , courts, eviction notices, police and solicitors  through mediation I finally got to buy the dogs but for legal reasons I can not say how much I had to pay but the deal was I had 2 weeks to get out of the bungalow and build kennels somewhere which thanks to some very good friends we did at a temporary location in Thorney where a friend lent us some land which we made our home for just over a year.

While we were at Thorney I was always looking for a permanent place to set up the kennels and continue breeding etc and a place came up back near Wisbech which was perfect for us so in October 2023 we moved and the dogs had new kennels and 40ft runs on them so if they want to be out all day they can and they love it although with all this rain at the min they are a bit soggy but still happy.

Unfortunately though someone decided to go to the local council to report us being on agricultural land ( we are in the middle of nowhere) and before we could get back up and running we had to deal with either an enforcement order which would mean we would have to move again or to submit a planning application and move the kennels to a different part of the land , this hasn’t come cheap and it was going to cost between 3k and 4k but thanks again to a lot of fantastic people that have supported me through all this we managed to raise enough to put in the planning application so now we are just waiting for the result .
My goal is to get the kennels back up to the standard they should be and to carry on the breed that Tina spent 40 plus years getting and to get some Iolanda dogs back into the show ring, sadly the last 4 years have been very stressful and the dogs didn’t deserve any of this so time to get the kennels back up where they should be. When Tina passed away I brought the trade mark Iolanda so I could protect it and to ensure that I could carry on the name and also I now own the affix with the kennel club so the name can carry on through breeding.

Over this time since Tina died a lot of people think that she left me money or property but I can confirm nothing was left to me everything went to her nephew who unfortunately liked to drink a lot lets say and how I was told from his daughter that I wasn’t free to do as I wish in Iolanda house as they pay the bills etc but that’s another story, I feel once everything is sorted I might just write a book as I have plenty of stories haha.