Meg - 1979 – 1992

Nine National trials

English team 1983

The first of our Main Line of dogs and the inspiration for MBCC

Golcar Farm has always been a working farm, it is where I was born and I have spent many happy hours as a child wondering around the farm and, in later years, over the moors but never without my collies. I began training them for sheepwork at an early age and always loved the natural communication needed to create a working partnership.
I have always been involved in rescue, from bringing stray dogs home when I was a child to rehabilitating and training problem dogs in later years that needed rehoming. When Hazel Monk started her Border Collie Rescue in the 1980’s we joined forces, with Hazel rescuing and myself rehabilitating problem and aggressive dogs.
Originally the Border Collie & Sheepdog Training Centre we changed the name to Mainline Border Collie Centre in honour of my late great Meg (ISDS 115981). She started it all, she is the matriarch of my present line of dogs, my mainline of business is Border Collies and she comes from one of the main line of dogs, the great Wiston Cap line.

In her time Meg shepherded a flock of over a thousand sheep, we shared nine years of National sheepdog trialling and she took me to the dizzy heights of International honour when we competed in the English Team at the International Sheepdog Trials in 1983. We were part of that winning team and also brought home a trophy for an individual accolade. Throughout it all Meg slept on my bed, travelled with me wherever I went and was one of my children’s closest friends. But she was not an easy dog to train, she taught me the value of patience and she also encouraged me to swear! She was tireless and many a judge sat in fear of being trampled by stampeding sheep when a young Meg thought the word ‘stop’ meant ‘go faster’. Training her was like a roller coaster ride but worth every minute of it and the lessons she taught me will stay with me for ever. Meg came to me at only four weeks old, and at her peak she was one of the top trialling dogs in the UK and I was offered an extremely large sum of money for her to be exported to the USA. But you can’t put a price on loyalty and my Meg and I were not to be parted! She died at home with me in 1992 and her legacy lives on in the wonderful family she has left me. Her great grandson Pip appeared on many television programmes including Peak Practice, the rest of the team have had their share of the limelight including Hope in Dogs with Jobs. Skye is Meg’s granddaughter and like Meg she has spent her life helping me, working with me and sharing the ups and downs of life, she has helped me to train and rehabilitate many problems dogs and always amuses people with her look of complete disdain when I give her a command. Skye is the one who helped Herbie the Beardie get his act together for BBC2’s Natural World programme the Bloodhound and the Beardie and she is as determined to make wayward dogs behave as she is dedicated to keeping the flock of sheep in order.

For twenty years we lived in Nottinghamshire but moved back to run the family farm in the mid 1990’s. During the Foot and Mouth year we were hit very hard and spent almost a whole year with no income whatsoever but many were hit harder. That year brought sadness but it also brought nature to life, with the moors empty of human footfall the wildlife knew no fear and with no work there was time on hand to sit, observe and enjoy. Out of the sadness I could enjoy the fact that the natural cinema all around us costs nothing and it doesn’t stop for advertisements!

We have a flock of sheep on the farm and my daughter Vicki, who runs Country Rides, has six horses. My son Gary, Caroline - his partner, and my grandson, live on the Nottinghamshire/Lincolnshire borders and after his old collie died he took on a rescue Rottweiller. They run their own furniture company and we occasionally exchange dog food, dog sitting and baby sitting services for……furniture! Mainline is a family business and although Gary has his own business he is still included in an advisory capacity for major decisions and rarely escapes the joys(!) of banging in fence posts when he visits.

I can’t remember a time when we have had less than twenty dogs, our own homebreds plus rescues. I do not breed commercially, I breed only for replacements and although we are not an ‘official’ rescue we do seem to collect them. We take in dogs that have no chance of being rehomed, such as very old or infirm dogs. We also foster dogs that are suffering from kennel stress from Battersea Dog’s and Cat’s home retraining and rehabilitating ready for rehoming.

At present five dogs live in the house and Vicki’s sixteen year old Cap visits on a daily basis. The rest of our gang live in kennels with runs, and they all have exercise paddocks where they can – and do – run and around dig to their hearts content.  

We have progressed from having makeshift kennels to a nice block of kennels with individual runs, from working in all weathers to having an indoor training facility, from homebred family dogs to our extended family of rescues and none of it would have been possible without my team of dedicated, loyal hard working collies and the support of my family.
Barbara