This is my story of why only a curly was THE dog for my family. I don't know if any of you have read the story of the dog Swansea Jack, he was a dog who was breed by a friend of my grandfather, in the books you read about him he is just classed as a retriever, he was an open coated curly, or as my grandfather called it loose coated. He saved many lives on the Swansea docks in the 1930s and a memorial stands on Swansea foreshore of this dog. People from Swansea also call themselves Swansea Jacks, and Swansea city football supporters call themselves the Jack army after this dog.
My grandfather also breed Curlies, my Dad tells me one in five dogs in Swansea was a Curly up until the early 1960s.
I was born in 1969, my mother sent my Dad out to get a present for my brother and sister to lessen the blow of having a new baby in the house. He returned home with a black Curly PUPPY. As my Dad tells it he went to a farm which breed Curlies, he was shown into a large barn there were 5 litters of Curly puppies there with their mothers, my Dad told the breeder he just wanted a pup for the kids, but it had to be a dog and had to be black. The breeder picked up a pup and offered him to my Dad, you can have this one for ?4.75 he said he had a few white hairs on his chest, my Dad accepted him and the breeder gave my Dad 25P back for good luck
He came home and my mother was not very happy she now had a new baby plus a 7 week old pup to look after. At 5 months old "Jack" as he was named was given to my Dads friend to look after when we all had to move out of our house for major building work to be done, only my Dad stayed at home. Jack managed to escape and within 3 hours had managed to make his way home, after that he stayed in the house with my father. A tin or bag of dog food was never bought for Jack, my Dad was a fruit and vegetable wholesaler so Jack helped himself to what he wanted, there was a butcher around the corner who Jack would also visit on a daily basis he would often return home with a sheep's head or whatever the butcher had which was not suitable for human consumption, he alsomade trips to the baker next door to the butcher. His favorite time was the weekend, my Dad bred shire horses and Welsh cobs, every weekend Jack was the first in the car to go and do what needed to be done with the horses, one day my father had caught 3 of the mares and foals to move them to another field, Jack put one of the halters in his mouth my Dad thought, right lets see if you can do it, he did and from then Jack was used to help move the horses. My mum says she never needed a fire guard to keep me out of harms way when 1 was a baby and a toddler if the open fire was lit he would lay in front of it and not let us children near it.1 was 5 when I started school Jack always accompanied my Mum in taking and picking me up from school, by the time I was 7 the other Mums would be taking, their children to school, but I was lucky Jack would take me to school, Mum would then send him back to pick me up after school had finished
In the winter of 1976 we woke up one morning to heavy snow, my Dad had put his mares and foals in a new set of fields he had just bought, the problem was they were 18 miles away, he was panicking, they were so far away for him to feed them in the awful weather, he telephoned a few of his friends and they decided to get as far as they could by car and would have to walk the rest of the way to bring the mares closer to home so they could be fed and looked after on a daily basis, they set off, Jack wanted to go my Dad said "not today son", that, what my dad called him SON. But there was no chance he was staying behind. They managed to get to the mares, everyone had 2 mares and foals each, Jack whined for about the first mile and a half my Dad got worried so he stopped to see what the problem was. When they stopped Jack picked up Bonnies halter and off he went, he led that mare all the way home. He was one fabulous dog who sadly died aged 13 years. When he died I think a part of us died with him. It took my Mum and Dad another 4 years before they had another dog, but by now they could not find a curly anywhere, we did eventually he was from the Gladys Phillips of the Gladrags line.
Sorry it was a bit long
Melanie