Judith Gieskens
Author of the book

 De Nova Scotia Duck Tolling Retriever,
image of an extraordinary breed

I was born in 1960 and as long as I can remember we have had dogs at home.
The first dog I can remember, was a Scottish Shepherd's dog, which we got when she was already a year old. I was 2 years old then. We have always had a lot of pets.

After I left home I got my first dog in 1984, a crossbreed Friese Staby. A bitch, my Floortje. With this pup I first came in contact with the local dog club. With her I first trained 2 years of obedience. Back then they still trained on basis of punishment with disobedience, nowadays we train with reward for good behaviour, and ignoring bad behaviour.
Around 1986 I started training agility. This was heaven for her. No more corrections, just having fun playing. After my Floortje died in 1992 from a heart attack, I got my first purebred.

This was my Golden Retriever bitch Dusty. Dusty became 10 years old. I have done years of obedience with her until she got her GG1 certificate. After that we continued with agility. When I trained with her on professional level, we discovered she had arthritis and wear in her elbow, which was the end of her agility career. In may 2003 she passed away because her heart got too bad.


foto Angelique Verhuls
When Dusty became 2½ years old, I wanted to have an additional dog. I had read an article in "Onze hond" about a breed that seemed the ideal dog to me at the time. All I remembered about the name, was the part Nova. Based on that word we started looking and discovered the breed in the Winner catalogue. I then contacted Annemiek Nuijten-Vink and we immediately got along. Of course I first visited her to have a look what these dogs look like in person. A picture is, after all, just a picture. I can remember very well when I first walked down her garden path. I immediately fell in love. A dog not too big, but still full of potential, because I wanted to do things with this dog as well. After an extremely pleasant and educative afternoon with Annemiek, it was decided that I would get a bitch from her dog Ruby.

This became my Joy (Allience de la Vie Bracken's Joy). An incredibly sweet, well socialised, touching and naughty pup. I first did 3 obedience courses with Joy, and after that we did agility. Joy is an incredibly smart dog, and eager to learn. Just like most Tollers she is happy with a lot of attention, and training with her is of course lots of that.
When Joy became 2 years old I thought: I want another Toller! I decided to get a male this time. Both my bitches were sterilized, so this was no problem. I ended up with Gea Bos and Lars Møller in Denmark with their kennel Toller's Delight. She had a bitch (Chevy) which I adored, and I wanted a puppy from her. Half a year later Chevy gave birth to a nest of 10 pups! Nine bitches and only one male.

My Toller's Delight Cherny Diavolo eventually appeared to only have one testicle. My dream to use him as a breed male went up in smoke. My options now were keeping Diavolo and don't go breeding, or find him a good home and start over. Gea and Lars offered me a new dog, no charge. I thought about this for a long time. With the help of Tinus Kamer (from the kennel Under the Red Sky) we found a really good home for Diavolo with people, who I still regularly keep in touch with. Diavolo is now called Jack.

 
One month later Cicerly (a daughter of Chevy) with Gea and Lars gave birth to a beautiful nest of pups which contained 5 males. Tinus Kamer and Gea helped me with the tough choice of deciding which male to get. Eventually I made up my mind and a shortly after, Gea took my Toller's Delight Indiana Jones to Holland for me, because she was coming here anyway. Indy was well built, had a beautiful head and a promising fur. With Indy I obviously trained obedience again, but also intensive ring training. Unfortunately Indy was not to get old. When he was 2 years old, he became seriously ill and did not survive it.
    foto: Chris Eelman I did not give up hope. Recently we got another dog, who really cheers up things in the house. Her name is Alliance de la Vie Wildfowler Jewel, born on june 5th 2004 with Annemiek Nuijten-Vink in Roosendaal. With her I hope to start my kennel. It's a wonderful dog to have. She's intelligent, sweet and pretty, a combination not quite common…
When I took Diavolo to his new owner, I wanted to write something about him for them. This ended up to be quite an elaborate story. At that moment it came to me, I could write an entire book about it. And then I started researching some things. I contacted various breeders, and they were very enthusiastic. The result is I now have a 3rd edition ready for print.