The begining

Hello, I am Suzanne Porter and I am new to the Lhasa Apso breed. I had wanted either a Lhasa or a Shi Tzu for many years but as I had a young family and worked full time, I didn't have the time to commit to looking after a pet, especially one with such grooming needs!

A change in domestic circumstances meant that I was now free start searching for my first puppy and as it turned out, I saw the Lhasa first and I was smitten. The search was on to find my very first Lhasa. The plan was for one, then I thought that it would be nice to have two for reasons of company, so began my search for good and responsible breeders. My initial search found a local - ish breeder in the Vaderlands kennel whom I contacted with an enquiry as to whether they had or were planning a litter in the near future. As luck would have it, plans were in place to breed a litter and I asked if I could go along and see their dogs, as per all the recommendations I had read about choosing a puppy.

My initial plan was to have a light coloured, preferably white or cream coloured Lhasa but I didn't really give a thought to that when approaching the first breeder and when I saw their dogs, I was in love! Gorgeous light gold colours and such lovely temperaments and expressions.

I was duly questioned to make sure I was a suitable guardian for one of these lovely babies and once the breeders were happy that I would provide a loving home for their precious pup, plans were put in place for them to contact me when their bitch was confirmed as being pregnant.

In the meantime, I had been looking round for a second Lhasa pup to keep company with my first one, this time focussing on white or very light coloured coated dogs. This brought me to Kutani and again, I was smitten. My interest in the breed as a whole, rather than just for my own planned puppies, was whetted when I read some of the histories of these beautiful dogs and I 'googled' many breeders in my quest for quality dogs with responsible breeders.

Not very long after I had approached my Vaderlands breeders, I was contacted to see if I was interested in an older bitch which they had kept from a previous litter as a future show prospect but, perfect in every other way, she had grown too big for the breed standard. At first I said no as I really wanted a baby to rear from the start, but I had seen this puppy and couldn't stop thinking about the offer, so I called them back and said that if they still had her when the new puppies were born, I would like to take her as well as the puppy, which would make my planned two.

To cut a long story short, I took the older bitch, who was 6 months old and so began my life as a Lhasa owner! The pup had been called Frankie by the breeder but I decided to feminise that a bit and called her Francesca, shortened to Chess.

I collected her on 21st August 2010 and this was my lovely Chess on that day.