“Roy” always used to say “The worst thing to happen to a puppy is to be born best in the litter”… how true a sentence that is! He meant of course that the likelihood of being kept as best puppy meant a life in a kennel and more often than not, that would be the case. No matter how well that kennel may be run or how luxurious, at the end of the day, it is STILL a kennel dog!
On retirement from breeding/showing, where possible Roy and Marjorie tried to home the hounds out to give them the chance to live out their retirement years in a pet home being spoilt rotten, not all but where suitable to do so.
Our kennels were not posh or luxurious but were clean, functional and comfortable. The dogs came into the house for periods at least twice weekly and had a lot of human contact and interaction, consequently due to being quite well orientated they would adapt to living in a pet home, in the majority of attempts this was successful.
The adults lived in groups of two’s or three’s generally and let up in relays throughout the morning into the garden surrounding the house and the house itself. The ones that didn’t would have there turn the next day to come in the house. Afternoon would be free running in the field. They all knew which order they would come out in and great excitement of anticipation on their part, they race out like rockets… no time to worry about cruciate ligaments, that thought just didn’t exist and more to the point, a coursing hound should be able to go from stand still to flat out in seconds in order to chase and catch that prey. Hardly ever a pulled muscle or a lame dog, pretty bombproof and robust hounds and very sure footed.
Road walking would be done with 3 to 4 hounds in one go once or twice weekly.[Wouldn’t try that now with today’s traffic!]
All adults except for pregnant bitches were fed once daily, late in the day or eve depending on time of year. Their diet consisted of raw fresh tripe straight from the abattoir, un washed, still with grasses etc. then minced and frozen, along with Vitalin complete diet, sometimes a cooked pigs head, offal etc as a treat. No additives or supplements except for pregnant bitches or special needs. They had good routine and were interested in life and happy hounds with spirit and most importantly received plenty of loving, even despite numbers and kennel life.
Puppy pens were at the top end next to the house, they had fairly big runs of concrete, pups to run on were kept sitting on their haunches pretty much for first 4 months, coming in the house every day for socialization and then progressing into the garden for short bursts of freedom and gradually building up. All grew sound of foot and limb and I’d be hard pushed to think of any that didn’t!
I have often been asked, why were the Erindales so good on health. Well frankly I didn’t realize they were in my early years with them and I suppose took it for granted, it wasn’t till later I appreciated the fact that overall and in general, they were blessed with good health and long lives. This doesn’t mean to say we didn’t have our tragedies and problems, of course we did, but when you consider there were a lot of breedings to come out of this kennel, then you compare the number of problems against the numbers bred, you can conclude that in general, the health record was very credible. Hardly any whelping problems and only two caesarians.[Up to when I left].
The tragedies apart from O’Leary was his mother Sanctuary Loreen, she died from gastric torsion on 18th Jan 1976…this is my most awful experience and the hardest to bear as it happened in the night so she had suffered and alone. That was horrendous! She was Roy’s favorite and they had a very special rapport between them. That was the only case of torsion at the kennel. Eileen of Sunningdale was lost during a caesarian operation on 8th August 1975. That was devastating to say the least. Ch E .Princess was lost from leukemia on 5th April 1977….no words can express that loss and Ch E. Bernice aborted at 6 ½ wks then went into renal failure and put down 25th March 1978 so these are pretty serious tragedies and very HARD losses. One major health problem was Rhinitus which reared it’s head initially as an alien problem, that was a mega issue to deal with but we concluded there were inherent factors to this and so bred away from it accordingly, no secret was made of it and we did manage to steer away from it as best as could. A terrible scourge that was indeed.
I think the original foundation lines that Erindale started with were of good strong breeding with a lot of Inner Strength to them overall and the combinations bred, worked well for the most part.
Also in general the hounds bred grew up slowly and took a long while to develop and were not forced or over heavy, it seemed the ones that took longer - lasted longer and “Stayed” living the longest and healthiest lives. I left mid 1980 to have my first son but returned to visit occasionally and keep in touch with things. Marjorie and Roy retired mid 80’s and then sold up to move to a bungalow in the neighboring village of Lyminge, then Roy died leaving Marjorie who I see quite often, [she’s now almost 87yrs] where we always talk about the old days with the hounds etc. The Erindale’s live on today and have left their stamp and go down in the history books and I am very proud and privileged to have shared those years working and living so closely alongside them and to share some of my story here with you about them.
Lynne Charlier
Marjorie Saunders and Lynn Charlier
Erindale Lady Sacha and Santuary Lugard