Our kennel name, Teversal, comes from a tiny hamlet in Nottinghamshire , England where we lived with our Dobermann, Keltie. Teversal has been around for quite a long time and there is a lovely Norman church there.
Perhaps more importantly this is the area where D H Lawrence lived and wrote his books early in the 20 th century. In fact the cottage where we lived was reputedly the Gamekeeper's Cottage which is mentioned in the book Lady Chatterley's Lover. It was indeed a Gamekeeper's cottage complete with cold pantry where the game was hung and outside there were a couple of kennels, now overgrown with blackberries, where he would have kept a couple of dogs.
Originally from Sheffield , England we got our first dog, Goldie (Dobermann) when we lived in the small town of Bundaberg in Queensland , Australia . Goldie was an intelligent if somewhat highly strung girl and she benefited from some very good training at the local dog school. This training was our first experience of training a dog and we were incredibly lucky to find ourselves at a school that used positive training methods in days when methods such as the K ö hler method were in use.
Leaving Australia we returned to England and lived near Teversal where Keltie joined us.
Philip's work brought us to South Africa in 1981 and our first dog here was a “rescue” from a home where her mother was fighting with her. Abby was a big Rottweiler and at 18 months had never been on a lead – quite a challenge! Nevertheless we undertook training with her at a local Rottweiler Club and from there went on to establish Teversal Kennels breeding, showing and training Rotties. To date we have bred 14 litters of Rottweilers and imported 5 Rottweilers, all from Germany .
Marion became first of all a KUSA recognised judge for Dobermanns and Rottweilers and then a Specialist Judge for Rottweilers. Currently she is the Convenor of the Breed Sub-Committee of the Rottweiler Council and has been part of a Task Team looking into the system used for grading hips in South Africa .
Bernese Mountain Dogs entered our lives in 1988 and we re-established a breed that was dying out in South Africa . Since then have imported 12 Bernese from the UK , Switzerland , Australia and the Netherlands and twenty-three litters later we believe we have made a significant contribution to the breed here.
Our philosophy has been to keep our gene pool as wide as possible and this is one of the reasons we have imported so many dogs from overseas. We have been very fortunate in finding breeders who have been willing to help us and sent puppies to us that potentially would improve our lines here. In recent years we have been especially grateful to Nicole Lennon ( Zanzebern , Australia ) and Karla Zurhaar, (van't Rijkenspark, the Netherlands ) both of these ladies going “that extra mile” to try and send us quality puppies. Stormie (Ch Zanzebern Victuri) and Tinka (Qatinka van't Rijkenspark) are both sound dogs being hips and elbows clear.
Our first two puppies came from Switzerland and these were Ch Fürst von der Scheidegg and Ch Dolli vom Schwyzerhof. In 1989 we imported Ch Glanzberg's Franzi (Rikki), also coming here as a small puppy. Rikki went on to become our foundation bitch and lived a long and happy life with us. F ü rstie sadly died when he was only 6.5 years but his very special genes were passed on throughout South Africa .
Our home is in the Hartbeespoort area and our property covers about 6 hectares of natural bushveld. Our current family includes seven Bernese and four Rottweilers with our most recent Bernese import, Winterberg Poppy van't Rijkenspark, arriving from the Netherlands on the 8 th July 2005 .
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