Bernergarde Dog I.D. No. 54087

We got Elkie almost by accident, two weeks after Geilo mated her mother, we mated him to our own girl, Jorka(Staubach Forever and Always), unfortunately, Jorka lost her litter of five.  To say that we were disappointed is an understatement.  Ian was talking to Elkie's breeders and asked if all the puppies had homes, they said that if we wanted one of the girls, they were keeping one but we could have the other one.  We went to visit the litter when they were seven weeks old and had no hesitation in saying that we would take her, the following week we went back up to Scotland to collect her and bring her home. 

She developed slowly and was bum high throughout with a very curly coat.  There was only one show that we could take her to try and qualify her for Crufts 2008 and that was LKA. We entered her, but then at the last minute something came up and we couldn't go. We took her along to a few open shows to gain some experience  and the first Champ show we took her to was the Northern Club Show, in March, she was ten months old.  She behaved impeccably, but was placed 5th out of five.  We then took her across to Belgium, at the end of March where she was again 5th out of five. As we were going to Norway to the N.B.S.K. Club Show in May we  entered her and I remember saying to Ian I didn't know why we were bothering. However between the end of  March and the beginning of May, she suddenly started to blossom.  

We duly took her with us to the Norwegian Club show in May 2008.  As the puppy class is 6-9 months in Norway she had to be shown in Junior.  There were 11 in the Class, she was the 2nd youngest at 11 months and to our delight she won the Class!  Since then she has won the Junior Class at Blackpool, South Wales and National Working breeds and was second at East of England.  She was then fourth at Leeds.  Since then she has won the Junior Class at the Bernese Mountain Dog Club of Scotland's 21st Anniversary Club Show, (her litter brother won the Junior male class too) Paington and the Welsh Kennel Club.  We have several more shows coming up at SKC, Birmingham, Darlington and Driffield before the G.B. Club show at the end of September. Unfortunatly two weeks before the G.B. Club Show Elkie started to shed her coat, she was to have little coat too when we went to Laussane in Switzerland in October. Having no coat did not stop Elkie having a great holiday in the Bernese Oberland, she had a great time riding on the train and walking in the mountains.

In April 2009 we showed Elkie at the Bernese Mountain Dog Club of France Club Show, the venue was south of Paris, she did very well and was placed third in her very large class, see our results page for more information and news of her show success. Following this, in May we again went to the Norwegian Club Show and had another great time there. .

In May 2009 Elkie was assessed as a Therapy Dog for the UK charity Pets As Therapy, she successfully completed the test and a few weeks later we had notification from the charity that Elkie had been approved as a therapy dog. We will be starting to take Elkie to the same school as Madi where we are sure she will be a real star and settle in very quickly and hopefully become as good a therapy dog as Madi who is outstanding.