Hi folks

Rick and Nancy Gray here, we are Dalrite Kennels from Western Australia.

Like many pedigree dog owners we have spoken to, we began in 1981 by buying two male Dalmatian pups as pets for the kids. We got our pups from Grace Cheetham of Fernleigh Dalmatians in Sydney. We had never bought a pedigree pup before and to be honest, I (being a Scotsman) was horrified at paying $150 for a dog. Then of course, we went back, paid another $150 and got the second one. We had no intention of showing dogs then, indeed if you had told me then that I would be running round the ring every week trying to win a ribbon or two, I would have told you that you were crazy, but never mind, the bug bites lots of people. Of the two pups, one (Fernleigh Marius or Pepper) had an accident and lost part of his tail, and the other (Fernleigh Mallory – Toby) went on to be a Champion with over 600 challenge points to his credit.

We came to Western Australia the same year and gradually got into showing more regularly until in 1985, we bought our current home in the Southern River Kennel Zone and things got really serious (the $150 dogs ended up as a large mortgage). The RAAF (my employer at the time) decided to send us back to Canberra and Sydney where we spent the next 5 years, champing at the bit to get home to WA. We gathered a few more dogs in Sydney before we left there between breeding our first litters and buying one here and there. The upshot was when we came home in 1990, we brought 8 Dalmatians with us. We still have 2 of the oldies left with us (Dalwei Ezara and Fernleigh Dyinda, 13 years and 12 years old respectively).

Nancy and I then fell in love with "that funny little dog that follows you into the ring at Group Specials" – a French Bulldog, of course, so Ken and Sandra Winter (Britbull British and French Bulldogs) put us in touch with Liz Davidson,Michael Rosser and Teddy Mileham in Sydney. The upshot was our first Frenchie – Quais Montmorency (Legs) – what a little bottler, did we have some fun with him! That was it, we were hooked on Frenchies – we got a bitch from Pat Pick of Kelmscott,  Ravanian Royal Rumour (Perkie) and our Frenchies have not looked back since. Our first Frenchie litter was a real nerve-racking affair – we mated a bitch called Ch Masjana Marcella to Ken and Sandra Winter’s Ch Britbull Magyla Goryla and had our first experience at caeserian births, I think we were more worried than the bitch.

About the same time, through the good auspices of Blackboy Labrador Kennels (Julie Cartwright and Glenice McClure), we got interested in Labrador Retrievers, showing and doing obedience with them. So, as you can see, we have a diverse interest in dogs in our kennels and at the same time, we also have a block of kennels on the property which we keep for boarding dogs.

We hope you enjoy our little foray into the mystifying world of Web sites. Please feel free to contact us with your comments.

Rick and Nancy Gray