17 month old Shoebutton's Forest Tucker at Montgomery KC 2006 taking second in his 12-18 MONTH Puppy Class!

   The kennel name 'shoebutton' came from a 30 year passion of collecting antique teddy bears, known for their shoe and boot button eyes! Those big roundish eyes gave the bear his soul.

If eyes are the windows to the soul,
the Norwich need no curtains. 

Norwich Terriers are truely joyful beings riding around in a small furry body who are devoted companions and friends.
I am a better person from having them in my life.

   I bred my first litter 33 years ago in a different life and era. Showing horses was my focus at the time. I remember stumpling upon the scruffly little bundles of joy on a horse buying trip to Erskine Bedord's farm. In two years I ended up owning three Norwich which were prized horse show dogs and known by everyone on the circuit. I bred a litter and kept two forever dogs. We were parted ,one in divorce, and the other in old age. I became dogless for many years.

   1998 opened up a whole new life for me with the purchase of a Norwich (finally after waiting a year) which started the second round of the feisty terriers being in my life. This time I became serious about showing and breeding, striving to get the best dogs I could find and breed.    

   With the help of Nonie Reynders (Highwood Norwich) I have been very happy with my breeding progress, now working with my third generation dogs. It is a slow process to show, breed and put performance titles on dogs. I do it first for myself, feeding my passion for the hobby; and second to show the world I have pretty, happy, healthy dogs that can win in competitive breed classes as well as perform well in agility competition.

 I love to train each dog I can for agility, whether or not they ever compete. Although it takes a lot of time and effort to learn agility skills, it provides such a bonding with each dog. I am still a novice handler, but have started four dogs now and competed with one.
The development of mental and physical skills for both of us is such an added incentive! 
I guess the interest in jumping courses competitively is a hang over from my 'horsey' background of 20 years.