Handling at the Mission Circuit...
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Kagee Border Collies started in 1999, when I first started showing dogs. I started off with Labrador Retrievers, attending specialty shows the majority of my summer weekends as a teenager. I was interested in learning from other breeders in my area to expand my knowledge on conformation and starting a breeding program. It wasn't long before I met my mentor, Jeanne Hagen-Santiago of Celestria Border Collies. I learned she happened to live less than a mile from my house, and so my border collie education began. With Jeanne's help, I started off with a firm foundation of border collie structure and pedigree education. It was a true mentor/student relationship, which is so imperative to starting off into the world of dogs! I remember going over to her house to help with litter evaluations when I was only but a teenager! We would take photos to study their traits as the weeks progressed, and l learned the finer points of raising a litter. Jeanne hauled me along with her to dog shows, and being from a non-dog show family, I was ever so thankful! We would also sit at her computer for hours playing on Breedmate (yes, that's what we all used prior to Anadune!). Back then, there were no genetic tests
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available for the eye diseases of CEA, CL, and TNS. Jeanne spent a lot of time with me going over databases, showing the current known carriers of the breed. We talked dogs all day and night, and I can never thank her enough for introducing me to border collies.
I spent the next few years handling Border Collies for others, and helping our with the Border Collie Club of Northern California specialty club, including running shows, events, meetings, and duties of an officer of the club. I spent many years handling, co-owning border collies, showing in junior showmanship, helping run the club, working at breed promotion events, and learned, learned, learned! All of my experiences working around border collies for all of those years without one of my own
I spent the next few years handling Border Collies for others, and helping our with the Border Collie Club of Northern California specialty club, including running shows, events, meetings, and duties of an officer of the club. I spent many years handling, co-owning border collies, showing in junior showmanship, helping run the club, working at breed promotion events, and learned, learned, learned! All of my experiences working around border collies for all of those years without one of my own
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helped me make a firm foundation of what I wanted to do when it was time to start my own breeding program off.
In 2008 I made the journey up to Idaho to meet Carol Green and the Noteworthy Border Collies, and to pick up my new baby boy "Presston". He is my absolute heart dog, and brings my tremendous joy. He was the first border collie that was truly 100% my own. I enjoyed all of our times in the ring, and now he enjoys all of our times laying on the couch watching TV. In 2009 I made the trip back up to Idaho to pick |
With dear friends at a dog show, I must have been 15 here!
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up "Penny", my gold bundle of joy from Carol once again. Penny has been a wonderful asset, and my first bitch I will end up breeding. Over the last few years we have continued showing dogs, learning, traveling, and started 2012 off with, quite by accident, raising our very first litter under the Kagee prefix. When that first puppy was born, I could not help but start to cry. My dreams of raising border collies in my own breeding program were finally coming true. Hopefully in the future as the years pass, this page will feature the great foundation dogs of our program, that have contributed so much to what our program would come to be known for. Until then, we will continue forward!
