Canen Border Collies

Canen Dawn and Canen Spring are owned by Jaap Kremer who lives in Holland. Below Jaap tells us more about his two border collies, Dawn and Spring. The photos on this page were taken by Nico and Annie Tijssen unless stated otherwise.

Dawn is our first Border Collie. We bought her from Shirley through Serge van der Zweep, so we sort of ordered her. We planned to do some sheep herding with her, but we had no fields and no sheep! So I went to a children's farm and suggested that we herd their sheep as a regular activity for the visitors. It gave us the opportunity to learn and helped them increase their amount of visitors. So that's how it all started.

Dawn is a very sweet and gentle dog. She got her licence for trialling when she was two years of age. We learned a lot from each other and on trials she did alright. We even managed to win some prizes now and again.

Spring is our second Border Collie. We also got her from Shirley but this time we went to Wales ourselves to collect her. Spring is a first generation descendant from Roy, owned by Serge van der Zweep and Gyl, one of Shirley's bitches. She is extremely energetic with a lot of talent and passion. She's not at all like Dawn, so it took us some time to get used to her speed (in thinking and running) and manoeuvrability.

The first year was a hard one and it was difficult to train her. On my first attempt to get her trial licence I was told the dog handled me instead of the other way around. So the next day, on our own field with our own sheep, with no one watching us, she and I had "a heart to heart talk". That did it: she works marvellously, is very fast and is very obedient. She has a unique natural balance, is very careful and adjusts to the sheep. Fences or ditches are no problem for her; she is never afraid of anything. I trial with her, do farmwork and now and again she herds a flock of 600 sheep. On trials she performs wonderfully and we are on our way to participating in the highest ranks here in Holland.

Spring's Pedigree is as follows:
Roy (famous world trialing dog owned by S. van der Zweep) x Gyl (dam of Canen Spangle and Canen Titch) [download an image of Spring's full pedigree].

Spring was awarded a hip score of A.

News!!

December 2006 - Spring and Jaap won the 2006 Heteren Open in Holland (on the field of Serge van der Zweep). This two day Open class trial is an important trial at national level. For the official results please visit the Dutch Sheep Dog Society webpages.

Later in December 2006 - Spring and Jaap also unofficially won the two day Christmas trial in Heteren, again on the field of Serge van der Zweep. The Christmas trial is held annually and is only for the novice class. Unfortunately they could not be awarded the prize because they had already won the Open two weeks before. Since Spring was no longer a novice they simply took part hors concours.