Our family has always been animal and wildlife enthusiasts, particularly Wild Dogs and Border Collies in later years. Our menagerie began when Gary started school and brought home 3 bantam chickens - Funky, Pauly and Tommy, whom of course had many progeny. The Hopkins' menagerie extended to white mice, dwarf bunnies, silkworms, hand reared cockatiels, guinea pigs, a tortoise, bearded dragons, a chameleon, corn snake, an adopted Wild Dog (hosted at the Anne van Dyk Wild dog and Cheetah Sanctuary), and tropical fish including axolotls and plecostomus, some of whom are still with us today, whilst the first three listed produced quite a few generations.
However, only Granny had dogs, three border collies: Pippa, Shaba and Sparky. In 2007 Granny moved to a retirement village and could not take her remaining 10 year old Border Collie with her, so our youngest son Ryan successfully negotiated with his dad Martin that we adopt Sparky. When Sparky crossed the Rainbow Bridge four years later we decided that we wanted our own Border Collie girl with whom we could breed.
Our quest for a reputable breeder led us to the "Venrons", Ron and Venessa Juckes, who introduced us to the world of dogs, and from whom be received our first Border Collie of our very own, Kylie. Having the dream of wanting to breed, we headed to the breed show ring to make Kylie up as a breed champion. A whole new world! Thanks to Ron and Venessa's help Kyle became a breed champion in May 2013. In the meantime we were fortunate enough to obtain our mate for Kylie from Venron. We named him Legolas, being Lord of the Rings fans, and inspired by his mother's name, Lass. Legolas became a Breed Champion in November 2013.
Kylie and Lego produced their first litter of 6 puppies in November 2013, bred by Ron and Venessa. We called them the Lord of the Rings litter, inspired by Legolas' name. The birth was a family affair, with Ryan catching, Lynne debagging and cutting the cords, and Martin waking the babies up, drying them and giving them appropriate Tolkien character's names. Ron and Venessa guided us through the first eight weeks, performed their puppy aptitude tests and assisted us with finding them good homes, as well as completing all the necessary paperwork .
Kylie had her second litter of 7 puppies in May 2015, the Septet litter, sired by Jet, Ron and Venessa's American import. We then decided to extend our pack and kept Shakira from this litter. It was then back to the Breed Show Ring, and with lots of patience and persistence, and the much needed guidance from the Venrons, and many hours of practice with Sue Marrs, Shakira became a champion in March 2017.
We then decided to register a kennel with KUSA and SASDA and LynCol was born! Our first LynCol litter, the Starter Pack out of Shakira and sired by Legolas was born on the 15th October 2017. We chose this name because it is both Shakira and Lyncol's first litter.
Although we are not a large kennel, we focus on the quality, soundness and health of our dogs and their puppies. Our dogs have exceptional blood lines from South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, Japan and the USA, and as you you can see from their profiles we have screened them for the common genetic disorders and flaws.
