ANDREW JONES – SHENMORE

My wife Jane and I have been showing and breeding the Shenmore parti-coloured Cocker spaniels since 1985, running only a small kennel which produces one or two litters a year. Our first champion, the blue, Sh. Ch. Shenmore Seeing Stars, gained her title in 1995, going on to win a total of ten challenge certificates and along the way being runner-up for Cocker of the Year 1995 to the great Sh. Ch. Canigou Cambrai. Her ten CC’s include one as a veteran, the only bitch to achieve this in recent memory. One of our proudest moments was winning the bitch challenge certificate (her first) at the Cocker Spaniel Club’s Centenary Championship show 2002 in a record total entry of over 500, with Sh. Ch. Caefardre Caprice at Shenmore, who went on to win four CC’s. She has recently produced a lovely litter to our own Shenmore Star Voyager. We are currently campaigning an orange bitch, Shenmore Sunflower. She was the top-winning puppy in the breed in 2002 and currently has won two challenge certificates.

Over the years we have also been successful at Crufts winning first prizes there in each of the last four years. We have also produced several reserve challenge certificate winners, including the black and white mother of Sunflower, Shenmore Snowdrop.

For some years now have been a committee member of the parent club, the Cocker Spaniel Club, where I currently help to organise the annual puppy and veteran challenge. I am also currently chairman of the West of England Cocker Spaniel Club and have helped to organise judging seminars for both clubs. Over the years I have also served on general canine society committees, often acting as treasurer or auditor as a result of my professional accountancy background.

I first judged in 1991 and in 2001, after judging several breed club open shows, judged for the first time at championship level, doing bitches at the Cocker Spaniel Club of Scotland.  I am shortly to judge at the championship show of the Dutch Spaniel Club and will next judge in England in 2006 (dogs at the Midland Cocker Spaniel Club).