. He was just demolishing a pink sugar mouse here. Charlie was a lapdog! Well, he thought he was a lapdog!We didn't intend to have English Setters. Tim "didn't like them much", and wanted an Irish Setter because he'd grown up next door to one and loved her. Melanie had always wanted one, although when she met Tim she'd owned and showed Charlie [Leabsaar Merle], a gorgeous Great Dane - despite his name fawn, with a black mask, and very much a big baby!. He was just demolishing a pink sugar mouse here. Charlie was a lapdog! Well, he thought he was a lapdog!
So we went to the Hampshire Gundog show - a small "open" show in the south of England, to look at gundogs in general. At the time, we had thought of the Irish Red and White Setter - the old breed was just starting a revival. But, when we looked around, the Red and Whites didn't seem of wonderful quality, and the Irish were not what Tim remembered, somehow more two dimensional than he grew up next door to. And we fell for the English. Specifically for those from the Tattersett kennel.
Which is where Jessie [Tattersett Dance in Time] came from. A beautiful bitch, light orange, almost lemon, and just exactly the same as her litter sister who stayed at Tattersett with Fran Grimsdell, and had a hugely successful show career.
The picture is Jessie at 14, with her very own chocolate birthday cake! She adored chocolate cake. It was all she would eat just before her first litter came! Chocolate cake was a birthday ritual for Jessie - she always knew it was hers!
Jessie was gorgeous. Melanie always wanted to breed, show, and judge, and Jessie was ideal as our foundation bitch. First we were joined by Pippa [Tattersett Miss Pippa]. 
Ooh Pippa was lovely. But she never made the show ring. Bless her, her jaw was damaged, and she made us a wonderful friend, a lovely pet, but not a show dog. We're daft about our dogs, of course, so we never chose to sell her on! She is "supervising" Sandy, one of Ginnie's kittens!
Not long after Pippa joined us, Alex was born! And Jessie had her first litter of eight gorgeous puppies. It was horrible finding the right homes for them. The people who phoned were usuallu totally unsuitable, and it took ages to find the right people for the pups. We take puppy homes very seriously, always insisting on having first refusal on a dog, however old, if the owner can't cope. In that litter were two beautiful puppies. Edward [Show 
, and Matilda [Meadowood Dolly Daydream]. Matilda is looking at Ginnie, our rescued cat and two of her kittens. Matilda just adored the kittens!
Edward [Show Champion Meadowood Toim Popple] lives with Brian and Ann Hall, in Hertfordshire. We had him back from his first home and met Brian and Ann soon afterwards. And we became firm friends at once. He was a superb dog, friendly, warm, outgoing, and just gorgeous. A lovely Blue boy with the sweetest eyes! And he must be good quality, because he was the first dog Brian and Ann had ever shown. And he became a Show Champion. He has had a little influence on the 
breed, having been used sparingly at stud, and we hope it's a good influence
Matilda died in 1998, of a brain tumour. She was a wonderful friend, and could grin at you, when she wanted to, and on command as well (if she felt like it). She was the first of our dogs to hold your hand with her mouth, just gently, as though you were made of eggshells. She was a soft orange, and a complete riot!
I guess this potted history will always be out of "order", chronologically! Funny, really - life sometimes seems to be "out of order", too. Still, while we are tracing Matilda, she had a brilliant start to her show career, which faded once she shed her first coat. But she was a wonderful friend, and she had a litter of puppies from which we kept two, Billy [Meadowood Wisecracker] on the left, and who also appears in the Dorling Kindersley Eyewitness Guide to the Dog as a beautiful centrefold(!), and Penny [Meadowood Polly Garter] on the right sharing a bed with Ginnie, our rescued cat
. If they had enjoyed being shown, we think Billy might well have become a Show Champion. Slightly too high a tail set, but that was his only fault. Both Billy and Penny are sweet natured Blue and Tan tricolours. Matilda nearly died after that litter. We phoned the vet with her collapsed under the dining table with milk fever. He wasn't interested until Melanie had the good sense to burst into tears on the phone, and Tim rushed her over to him. Probably, we think, he doesn't like people who breed dogs. We changed our vet at once.
Today is 24th August 1999. Billy's kidneys failed gradually, and it culminated in a crisis two weeks ago, where the vet came and put him on a drip at home. He was too ill to go to the hospital. The drip rallied him, but today he couldn't eat. We asked the vet to come, and he died on Melanie's lap just before 10am, UK time. He didn't suffer, just became tired and thin. Today was the day to make the right decision. We made it. He is gone. I am sad.
Jessie was out of sorts after her first litter. We didn't know why. but a decent while later we mated her again, with two results: A lovely litter of beautiful puppies, including Lizzie [Meadowood Mists of Time], and Jessie returned to cheerful health. We decied that her hormones must have been out of balance - it had been as though she had permanent PMT! This litter put her right, or at least switched things back to normal again. Jessie lived out her years with us, and died at fifteen and a quarter, a good age.
And Lizzie gave us Alfie [Meadowood Magnus]. Edward was Alfie's sire. He's gorgeous, is Alfie. Large, Blue, soppy, slightly stupid, doesn't understand it of another dog growls at him in the woods, and just a big puppy all round. This is a typical pose - in the garden, looking slightly bewildered!fs
Lizzie alternated with Matilda as Tim's favourite. She was always Melanie's. And she was the first of the dogs to die. One morning she was having difficulty peeing, so we took her to the vet suspecting cystitis. She proved to be riddled with cancer. It's odd. We had made our peace about the others, yes even Matilda, whose later death was sudden, but we hadn't even thought of Lizzie as being unwell. She was the dog who was always running back from a mile away! You never saw her go, just saw her coming back at a full gallop, almost until the day she died.
. Here, Lizzie is with her babies, and Alex is having a chat!
Apart from Lizzie, who is buried in the garden, the other three who have died have been cremated. Yes, we're daft enough to care what happens to them, and we have the ashes above Lizzie's grave, in the garden, too.
So we have a cemetary in our back garden; Jessie, Pippa, Matilda and Lizzie. We still have our friends Billy, Penny, and Alfie in the house with us, and they have their cats, Ginnie, Cherry and Bramble. And the cats are in charge, and think that they are dogs!
We spent several years actively showing our dogs, and breeding only when we wanted another puppy ourselves. It was an odd pursuit, traipsing from one end of the country to the other with a Volvo full of dogs, bags, lunch and clutter, and seeing a marquee, ramshackle benching, a show ring, and beinmg at the mercy of some of the judges, at least one of whom was so "out of it" that he stopped judging the class halfway through, and started to pick his winner before judging all the entries!
Then, in 1991, the recession hit us, and money became too tight to carry on showing. 
We went at a stroke form the well paid jobs with company cars and all fuel paid for by Tim's employer to a period of less than spectacular employment. 1991 was not a good year for many people. So we decided to stop. Not before Melanie had been invited to judge two or three small shows, and even Tim invited to judge one. He's proud that his Best of Breed went on to win Best in Show.
The main thing that our dogs have done for us is to provide endless fun, and friends. A wonderful reason, the best reason, probably the only reason for having them at all. And no child should grow up without animals as friends
We're still keeping the Meadowood Affix. One day we will rejoin the show scene, probably with English Setters again.
Regrettably, in March 2003, we are down to one dog left. Penny. Almost 14, and doddery, incontinent, but happy. The back garden is full of either bodies or ashes from cremations.
We can't end without a couple of shots of all the dogs, with the family!
Well, obviously Tim, Alex and Melanie make up the back row!
Then Alfie, Matilda (looking at Tim), Penny(looking at Matilda), Billy, Pippa (snuggling with Melanie), Lizzie, and Jessie as the bored film star in the foreground!
A tribute to ZeusWho died on 14 November 1999
The English Setter Association
PRO Dogs - the UK Charity which campaings for dogs, and also includes PAT - Pets as Therapy - registering pets for hospital and home visits for the unwell, or just those who need a friend
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