Lesley & Allan were married in 1972 and lived in Auckland for 8 years before moving south to Christchurch.
Allan describes himself as a "passive dog lover" - he loves the dogs individually but collectively he often gets a bit overwhelmed. He's not really interested in dog shows, but makes an annual pilgrimage "just to make sure that nothing has changed" !!!
In Auckland, Lesley was on the Committee of the Dominion Welsh Corgi League and also the Auckland Working Dog Assn. She also became the Secretary of the Dog Owners Group, a body established to promote responsible dog ownership & fight repressive dog control regulations.
After moving south Lesley became more heavily involved in showing and administration of the sport. She held the positions of President, Secretary & Committee person at varying times for the South Island Welsh Corgi League and was a foundation Committee member and later President of the Canterbury Working Dog Assn.
In 1991 Allan & Lesley purchased a 10 acre small farmlet in the North Canterbury area of Ohoka, just north of Christchurch. Included in the house they built was a purpose designed dog room with indoor runs and also large outdoor grass runs.
In 1992 Karen McIntyre came to look after the dogs while Allan and Lesley spent Christmas in UK. She never went home. Now Karen is very much a part of Merthyr. Kaz was very much a "dog person" before becoming a Merthyr and had shown Rough Coat Collies since she was a teenager, before becoming a "Corgi Convert" in 1991 when she purchased "Ch Bards Lounge Lizard", a son of our Ch Cordach Chieftan (UK).
Lesley began judging and awarded CC's for the first time in 1984. In 1998 she became an All Breeds judge and has judged at Championship Shows throughout the world including the United Kingdom, Canada, Czech Republic, Portugal, Australia, Philippines, Thailand, Hong Kong, Finland, Malaysia, USA, Brazil, Argentina, Indonesia, Japan, South Africa and of course New Zealand.
It was a natural progression for Karen to also begin judging and she has been awarding challenges since 1999 and now is licenced to judge the Toy, Terrier, Hound, Working (Herding), & Utility Groups.
Karen works full time in the city & is a committee member of the Malvern Kennel Assn. She also gave 12 years service on the committee of the North Canterbury Kennel Assn. She is also a member of the NZKC Breeds Standards Sub Committee.
In 1998 Lesley retired from (paid!) employment, but in 2000 she was elected to the Executive Council of the New Zealand Kennel Club and spent 6 years working for the club ending up as President in 2006.. This also concluded a 24 year period where Lesley had given service on one or more NZKC committees.
She is very proud to have been President of the North Canterbury Kennel Assn and especially proud to be the current Patron of the Malvern Kennel Assn, a club that she was the Foundation President of.
For the past few years because of her involvement with judging and the NZKC, Lesley got to very few shows (& was not very happy about that). Although Karen does take the dogs to shows whenever she is able to, they do not unfortunately, get to as many as they should do (eg: Clinton only went to 13 shows in 2003, even less in 2004 and virtually none in 2005!).
