Contact or follow us ……..
Maise, Nymeria and Chisum are intelligent, calm, loving and highly biddable English Shepherds. They are great fun to be around, and a real joy to take for a walk or a rumble.
Resources: Breed info (Shepherd's Way); Choosing a puppy (English Shepherd Club).
Download Application Form: PDF format, Microsoft Word (.doc) file, or OpenDocument Text (.odt) file.
This is Maise’s forth litter. The owners of Maisie and Chisum's 2019, 2018 & 2017 litters report that this match-up has produced intelligent, loving, biddable pups that are very well balanced, and quite uniform in both temperament and build, as reported on our Facebook page. Her puppies are excellent working, sport and companion dogs. A videos of Lilly (from our 2018 litter) is below.
This will be Nymeria’s second litter. Her puppies are well suited as companion dogs, sport and therapy work. They are well balanced temperamentally and like to interact verbally. We are very excited about the upcoming 2020 litters.
Adorable Nymeria at 9 Weeks
She is seen here at 9 weeks old playing with Chisum and Maisie, and is already holding her own as a new member of the pack.
Where are we?
We are located in the rolling hills of Hunterdon County, NJ 08801. This amazing view of our barn on our small farm was taken by a friend. We have a horse, chickens, 2 barn cats and around 20 head of sheep.
Our Dogs
ChiSum (Quigley Jr.)
Chisum (Quigley Jr.) is an excellent example of an English Shepherd - a handsome and well balanced shaded sable who is 6 years old. Intelligent and athletic (fast runner and strong swimmer) with natural herding ability, he is fearless and self-assured with all types of livestock, calm with other dogs, and all around lover of the family. He settles well at night but remains ready to spring into action. An ideal farm dog and family pet.
Chisum is 23 1/2 inches tall and weighs about 66 lbs, and is big boned. Bred by Julia Downs (Under the Rainbow), his bloodlines are Butcher, Partlow, Dalby, and Atchley.
Date of birth: 2-09-2013
Registration: ESCR, UKC, IESR
Hip screen: OFA: Good
MDR1: Normal
CEA: Normal (Clear) 03/2019
OFA Elbows - Normal
OFA Eye Certification Registry (CAER) - Clear/Normal 3/16/18
Degenerative Myelopathy (DM) - Clear/Normal 11/30/17
Nymeria
Nymeria is super smart, very loving, and sensitive, but not timid or fearful. She can be trained to do almost anything and exhibits a keen interest in herding. She loves people and children, but not so much other dogs. Her guardian instincts are less strong as our other dogs. Instead of fearsome barking she prefers to talk. She loves to play and has formed a strong bond with Lilly. She is a fast and agile runner, and has a calm personality. A real sweetheart.
She is 20 inches tall and weighs about 49 lbs, and is medium boned. Her bloodline is Blacksheep.
Date of birth: 10-10-2017
Registration: ESCR, UKC
Hip screen: OFA: Good
OFA Elbows - Normal
MDR1: Normal (Clear) Oct. 14, 2019
Collie Eye Anomaly: Normal (Clear) Oct. 14, 2019
Degenerative Myelopathy: Normal (Clear) Oct. 14, 2019
Hyperuricosuria: Normal (Clear) Oct. 14, 2019
Progressive Retinal Atrophy, Progressive Rod-Cone Degeneration: Normal (Clear) Oct. 14, 2019
Lilly
Lilly very much takes after her dad - calm, bold, adventurous, not phased by anything, and like her dad loves to swim. At 10 months old, she was tested on sheep and showed a keen interest in herding, with strong natural ability. She demonstrated exceptional restraint and exhibited excellent distance recall. Like her mum, she is a total love bug and gets along well with people, children and other dogs. Her guardian instincts are on full display when birds perch on the picket fence. A real goofball!
She is 20 1/2 inches tall and weighs about 53 lbs, and is big boned. Her bloodlines are Butcher, Partlow, and du-Prairie. DNA tests are by parentage.
Date of birth: 6-10-2018
Registration: ESCR, UKC
Hip screen: OFA: too young to test
MDR1: Normal (Celar) by hereditary
CEA: Clear/Normal by hereditary
OFA Elbows - not tested
OFA Eye Certification Registry (CAER) - Clear/Normal
Degenerative Myelopathy (DM) - Clear/Normal
Maisie
Maisie is tricolor with a soft wavy coat who is 4 years old. A total love bug, with a joyful personality, who loves to play fetch. She knows her toys by name. She is like glue when out for a walk except when treeing squirrels, which she does with gusto. Maisie has demonstrated a strong natural herding ability with sheep and is very athletic. As a mum she is attentive. Maisie is a good companion dog, who settles well at night and is also a good all round farm and family dog.
Maisie is 21" tall and weighs about 47 lbs, and is medium boned. Her bloodlines are du-Prairie and Dersom’s Sparkplug.
Date of birth: 6-09-2015
Registration: ESCR, UKC
Hip screen: OFA: Good
OFA Elbows - Normal
MDR1: Normal (Clear)
CEA: Normal (Clear) 03/2019
OFA Eye Certification Registry (CAER) - Clear/Normal 7/12/17
Degenerative Myelopathy (DM) - Clear/Normal 11/30/17
Our Process for Placing and Raising Puppies
The process starts with completing an application form available above in different formats.
Once received we will contact you to arrange a phone conversation to discuss your home situation and the type of dog (temperament) you are looking for. The more detail the better. Generally, the two types of home situations fall into working and pet (companion).
You cannot explicitly pick a puppy on looks. In the application, you can specify the sex of the dog and preferred coat color. However, we do not place our puppies on coat color or looks but rather on temperament, more on that later. It should be understood that when born the pups are little sausages. Do not fall in love with a sausage. They have no personality and the coat color can change significantly in just a few weeks, and at one year old may be very different from the puppy at 8 weeks of age. Temperament is the most important factor in successfully placing an ES pup in their forever home. Nobody has ever returned a pup to us. We are very good at placing the pups and matching them up to their new home. It’s important to trust the process.
To better increase the chance of a puppy you may want to be flexible on the sex and color of the dog. With ESs you need to throw away what you think you know about the differences between the sexes. There is virtually no difference. ES male dogs are not really like male dogs of other breeds. ESs are cerebral dogs. You may think a female dog is a better companion but you would likely be wrong. Sure female ESs are very loving, but a male is just if not more loving and many times more obedient and easier to train.
We assess a puppy's temperament and personality in several ways. First, the whole pack, Chisum and the aunties included, are involved in raising and are in constant contact with the puppies. This makes us somewhat unique among breeders. We look to see how they play and their interaction with each other and adult dogs. Second, at around five weeks they are taken on extended walks as a pack, where we get to see their interaction with the environment, farm animals, etc. Third, we conduct a structured test at 7 weeks called the Volhard Puppy Aptitude Test. Based on this collective information and your application we begin the process of finalizing puppy placement.
We are experienced with shipping puppies to far-flung places. We provide a handbook on raising your pup, dietary and wellness recommendations, plus you have ongoing access to a wealth of knowledge and support from our own facebook group plus many others.
A Relaxed Mum
Maisie sharing a moment with a her pup. We think he will have the same beautiful glossy coat as his mum.
Old heritage breed
English Shepherds are descended from the shepherd lines of England and the Southern parts of Scotland. They are a very old heritage breed that has not changed much, as paintings from the mid-1800s show. These dogs were selectively bred for the primary purpose of herding in an upright, loose-eyed style. They are also versatile in hunting and guarding of livestock and children. In the USA they became popular as an all-purpose farm collie, being loyal, level-headed, and VERY intelligent. As the number of small farms decreased, this breed declined in numbers but is today gaining in popularity, being recognized as a great companion and family dog, and a dog that excels at agility sports. They are the quintessential all-around American dog.
English Shepherd believed to have been owned by Queen Victoria, Fern c1870-76 painted by Carl Schmidt.
As you can see, the English Shepherd has not changed much since they were a bred in England some 100 plus years ago. While the breed in the UK no longer exists, they remain a rare heritage breed here in the US. It's possible, and I'm spectulating here, that perhaps the English Shepherd was bred out, or was bred into becoming the Border Collie, which replaced - possible by the fashion of the time - the "shepherd"dog.
If these two puppies don't look just like Maisie and Chisum, painted by Sir Arthur J. Elsley