Penny & Muz Brooks

I had always been a dog lover as a child but my dad wasn’t such a fan so had to be satisfied with playing with our friends Boxer Lizzy.

Lots of nagging after Lizzy passed away and eventually Dad gave in and we got Cindy (a miniature Long haired Dachshund) who was 6 or 7 months old and had grown too big for the show ring. I used to try to spend the whole time of the A&P Show in Gisborne watching the Dog Show until I got dragged away to see other things.

I had always wanted a Lassie - and as a child, my mother admitted to me a while ago that she used to lie and tell me Lassie had finished on TV because I had a tendency to cry all the way through it.

In 1981, my friend brought a Collie and it started my journey to get my own one and I finally purchased my show puppy not long after this. With lots of support from some fantastic mentors we started showing and as they say the rest is history.

Muz and I had taken a keen interest in Beardies when we saw our first one that was a Brown colour - and obviously I still love that colour. We seriously considered getting a Beardie back in 1988 but everyone kept telling us they were crazy and we would never cope with their antics. Eventually we gave in and were lucky enough to get the beautiful Charlie Brown.

Their antics do keep us laughing and eventually they took over our house and lives.

We moved to Australia in 2000 and took with us Charlie and Koopa (Beardies) and Mickie (Rough) and Osca (Beardie) joined us later. Only having the 1 litter in Aussie of both breeds, we were proud to produce such fantastic litters. We returned to NZ in 2014 bringing all our dogs, Koopa, BJ, Toni & Lotte (beardies) back with us. Sadly we didn’t have any collies left due to my shoulder injury and not being able to groom them any longer.

We have enjoyed many successes with our dogs including Best in Show at the 8th National Collie Show in Australia and Multi Best in Shows and Specialty Best in Shows in Aussie and NZ. 3 x Top 8 Working at Sydney Royal - and Group wins at other Royals. Our last show in Aussie was Sydney Royal where BJ & Toni took BOB & RBOB (BJ again top 8 in Group) and at the Specialty at the Royal Toni BIS & BJ Res BIS. A special way to leave Aussie.

We don’t breed a lot, only when we want a new puppy to show ourselves but pride ourselves on the health testing and quality of the puppies we have produced.

Black Hawk was our choice of food in Australia and we had fed it for many years there before returning to NZ.

We can’t fault the Black Hawk Original Fish & Potato for producing beautiful coats and very healthy dogs. Considering our dogs are pets as much as show dogs and love the beach, rivers and paddocks around us their coats are still amazing, thanks to Black Hawk.

Penny & Muz Brooks

Lyntree Collies