Since I was about 6-7 years of age my mother Lorraine Marchant has shown and bred Borzois very successfully, infact i'm proud to say that there are to my knowledge Starborough Borzois all round the world.
To my mothers disappointment I was never remotely interested in showing, I was far too involved with my horses!
When I finally fled the nest I missed the companionship of my canine friends, so when my son was born I felt it was important that he grew up around dogs. At this stage he was crawling amongst the Borzois when we went to visit "nanny & grandad" and the two whippets.
I dearly wanted a Borzoi but unfortunatley the size of my home and work commitments prevented this, so I rescued a whippet of about 7yrs old who I imaginatively named "Whip", there are a few photos of him and Tom on the photo blog page.
Whip unfortunatley suffered from epilespy and at Christmas 2004 they became so severe I had to make the choice to end his suffering. That was it for me NO more............
But 18 months later I was twiddling my thumbs again! I spoke to mum and told her I was intending to get a Whippet puppy this time.
Mum had already imported Fira at this time and told me about the Silkens, but I just felt it would be a "poor" version of a Borzoi and was having none of it.
Please follow this link so you can not get confused, Silken Windhounds are NOT Borzois or Whippets they simply are Silken Windhounds.
After much persuasion mum finally wore me down and I agreed to have one of Firas puppies who were born on 2nd July 2006.
In early September I bought Indie home and have never looked back!
As I said previously I wanted this to be about Silkens in the home, I have never shown so can not pretend to know the first thing about it, what I do know however is how wonderful Silkens are in the home, with family, old and young alike, with other animals, infact Indie is scared of cats having been stalked by one when she was about 12wks old.
So having stated "I don't like showing" I took Indie to a companion/novelty show in June 2007. I entered her in three classes mainly i have to say to keep my son quiet!
Prettiest Bitch.......................... 1st place
Best child handler 5-16yrs.....................1st place
Best In Show .............................. 1st PLACE.
As yet Silkens are not KC regonised, the only country they are recognised in is Slovenia, so when reading this don't think you can get one and go out to champ shows because you can't.
But what you can do is have fun, whilst getting our Silkens out and about and seen.
Agility, flyball, obedience, racing.
There are several short videos on youtube that show Silkens at their best, playing, coursing and flyball training. Just type in the heading "Silken Windhound" and you will find them. Sorry couldn't get the link to work!
This is of utmost importance to me, at the time of writing this there are only 5 in the UK and one of the ways to get them known is to let people see them, don't force them down their throats because believe me you don't have to!
Indie has been coming to work with me ever since I got her and people just fall in love with her, you can't help it, it's like a drug! I have recently joined the Silken Windhound group and have found this tight knit communtiy, friendly, helpful and extremely knowledgable. If you have any questions feel free to contact me, if you want more technical answers, then in my experience any one of the Silken community will welcome you with open arms and happily pass on any advice or knowledge they have.
The conclusion is:
If you want a smaller sighthound, who is intelligent, far less aloof than the Borzoi, couch potato, dynamo, bidable, stubborn, funny, likes their creature comforts, good with children, then without a shadow of a doubt the SILKEN WINDHOUND IS FOR YOU!!
Michelle Marchant.