About The Author

My husband Peter and I bought our first mastiff in 1980 very soon after we married. Like most first time buyers we were looking only for pet quality, and our first boy, Bass, was sadly minus half his tail. He was the first born and his Mom mistakenly thought his tail was a handle. Although we didn't realise it at the time - Bass was difficult. For the first six months we had him none of us got much sleep. He cried and howled and threw himself at his bedroom door week in and week out. The only place he was content to be left alone was in the car. After six months we started a planned rebuilding of our home and moved, with Bass into a caravan - he loved it, and we all slept! After the rebuilding was finished we had stairs he could negotiate, and he slept in our bedroom till the day he died.

Like most addicts we soon realised that one wasn't really a round number and we bought a bitch who had one litter from which we kept another bitch, and this started our love affair with mastiff girls. We have often had a boy around the place but over all we prefer to keep bitches.

We have attended shows since our early days in mastiffs, but never really campaigned any of our dogs - we prefer spectating to showing. I eventually decided I probably knew sufficient about the breed to start judging, and from the very start I have loved it. Even to this day, and many years down the road, I still feel privileged that people will spend a lot of money and travel many miles to get my opinion of their dog. I get a thrill out of being allowed to touch and handle so many different mastiffs, study them, and for a few seconds, communicate with them and get to know them. When I am judging a dog for those few precious moments it is just me and the mastiff I am going over, nothing else exists. It never fails to surprise me that so often those that I have admired from ringside fail to figure in my final decision, whereas dogs that I have barely noticed as a spectator give up hidden wonderful secrets when I get to touch them.

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