About Us

It was the early 1960’s when Tartanside Collies began a very small and limited breeding program in New York City.  The eastern seaboard was a hotbed of Collie activity, and many of the premiere kennels of the day were still active.  Benched shows and kennel hopping afforded extraordinary opportunities for learning, and later for building a solid foundation.

Dog shows afforded a wonderful opportunity to note the consistency of virtues that each of the “great” families had to offer.  A study of the pedigrees of some of these individuals served as life lessons in selection, breeding formulas, and criteria.  Dog magazines the likes of the “old” DOG NEWS, offered articles by some of the most astute and brilliant breeder/writers in Collie history – Oren Kem, Fred Kem, W.R. Van Dyck and Stephen J. Field.  All of this helped set the stage and offer the lessons in creating excellence for the forthcoming generations of Tartanside Collies.

The first winner came with the purchase of Ch. Glen Hill Emperors Double Up, she from the first litter sired by Ch. Glen Hill Full Dress.  She finished at the Collie Club of Northern New Jersey Specialty in 1966.  In her second litter she produced Ch. Tartanside Double Talk.

Balance and symmetry were lessons deeply ingrained, and they became benchmarks as the breeding program began to take shape.  Seeking dogs with beautiful overall picture and balance, dogs who were long and light headed with an elegant carriage, and dogs whose head detail and expression were as close to the standard as possible, a decision to find a balance between CH. Glen Hill Full Dress and Bellbrookes Master Pilot began to take shape.  One of the initial breedings in this direction was the breeding of Tartanside Tiara to Ch. Hi Vu the Invader.  This was a ¾ brother and sister breeding, doubling up on the two aforementioned dogs.   This combination produced two champions – namely the tricolor bitch, Ch. Westgates Trace O’ Tartanside and the mahogany sable male Ch. Tartanside the Gladiator.

The Gladiator would serve as the cornerstone of the family and subsequent generations for the next 35 years would be linebred to him.  Our breeding philosophy is based on the old standard of “breed the best to the best and select for the best” but within that frame work, we consider “the best” to encompass both the mental and physical soundness of the dog along with its aesthetic beauty.

The Gladiator made his first mark in 1973 when he was Best of Breed at the Collie Club of America held in Anaheim, California. He repeated the win in 1974 in Pittsburgh, Pa. During this period, he was also beginning to make his mark as a sire.  In one of his first litters for us, he produced Ch. Tartanside Japada Jasmine, who was RB her first time out at the Collie Club of America (73) and her sister Ch. Tartanside Rosecrest Rani.  Gladiator was retired from active competition in 1975, the year that Tartanside received the BREEDER OF THE YEAR award for the second time from the Collie Club of America.  He returned to the ring for one last appearance, and that was at the Collie Club of America in 1978.  Entered in the veterans class, Gladiator topped a quality packed class, and then went on to take all comers by winning his third Best of Breed at the Collie Club of America.