Mrs. Bole's Era  

My Grandmother, Roberta Holden Bole pictured above, brought the first Cardigans into the United States in 1932. Her dogs lived here where we live now. Mrs. Bole saw her first Cardigans one afternoon when she was visiting an old friend, Minnow Jones, in South Wales. They were walking in the hills and saw some Cardigans working a farmer’s five sheep and two cows. My Grandmother (photo right) was charmed by those funny little dogs and as it was the fashion in those days to find a new breed and to bring it home, she decided to bring some Cardigans. She went to the farmer whom she had seen with the dogs, and he put her in touch with R.W. Jones of Pentre-Isa in Tregaron, a fortuitous introduction as Mr. Jones was one of the important early breeders of Cardigans. Through subsequent transatlantic correspondence, Mrs. Bole bought two dogs, Cassie and Cadno (photo left).

Mr. Jones had obtained Cassie from her breeder, Mr. Morgan, and she had already had five litters for Mr. Jones. Cassie had produced, among others, Y Brython, Skylark, Ch. Brenig Brilliant, Brenig Beauty , and Yngharad. She was six years old when my Grandmother bought her. Born in October of 1931, the dog, Cadno, was a puppy out of Skylark by Tit o’r Bryn. I don’t think my Grandmother knew about his coat as she was very surprised when he stepped out of his crate that June day on the docks in Boston. No matter how the dogs looked, she found herself won over by their wonderfully adaptive and intelligent personalities so, of course, she bought some more.

The most important of the 17 eventual imports were Brenig Beauty, Blodwen, Llaethferch, Tregaron Tim, and Tip. Along with Cassie, and of course Cadno, these are the dogs of Mrs. Bole’s whose blood still runs in almost every line of American Cardigans today. These dogs can be found behind every CWCCA Specialty winner including those imported dogs who have won and trace their pedigrees back to litters born to Brenig Beauty and Cassie before they came to the United States.

The first litter of Cardigans in the United States was whelped on May 28, 1933, to Cassie sired by Cadno even though Cassie (photo left) was not registered and would not be for another two years.  There were five puppies, three dogs and two bitches. The second litter was Cadno to Brenig Beauty , a litter of three, two dogs and a bitch, Megan, who became the first American champion. Cassie’s litter produced a dog named Pal who eventually became the sire of one of the early champions, a red dog named Ch. FFiddll. When bred to Sparkler, Pal produced a bitch called Wynne. She was the dam of three champions, Ch. Black Cricket, Ch. Mionce, and Ch. Swansea Bychan.. Both Swansea Bychan and Mionce were early group placers.

In 1935, there were two litters, Cadno to Brenig Beauty and which produced a dog named Black Cowl, and Tip to Megan which produced a single dog called Mochan. Both Black Cowl and Mochan did some nice winning, but neither one finished. I do want to say, though, that it was hard to finish a dog in those days. Though most of the ‘30’s, there was no Specials class so to win any points, class dogs had to beat Megan or Robinscroft Bandit.. In some shows they were even shown with mixed classes and only one set of points. Then with the scarcity of the breed, efforts had to be made to get an entry. My Grandmother and a woman named Mrs. Harriet Price who lived in Connecticut, worked together to arrange good entries at certain shows. Mrs. Price had Robinscroft Kennels and was an experienced dog woman. She got her first bitch, Blodwen, from my Grandmother , and she bred her to Tip to produce Robinscroft Bandit, the first champion dog. Bandit was given to my Grandmother as a stud puppy and was always shown by her. These two ladies traveled back and forth from Ohio to Connecticut to support entries. Remember that there were no turnpikes or expressways back then. I know that my Grandmother had Bob Eville and Anton Brokvist to do the driving and the showing of the dogs. Billy Kendrick told me that he remembered my Grandmother sitting at ringside, readily available to extol the virtues of her beloved breed. One year, 1941, I think, my grandmother was unable to attend the Specialty at Northern Westchester so she sent Bob and Anton in two cars with thirteen dogs. No crates in those days either.

Both Mrs. Price and Mrs. Bole worried about the fact that so very few of the people to whom they sold puppies were willing to show them. Really, without the efforts of these two ladies, Cardigans would never have been shown in the ‘30’s. They had their setbacks. Cardigans were invited to the Morris and Essex in 1936 so they made it their first Specialty. The next year, the Specialty was at the Western Reserve show in Ohio. In 1938, they planned to go back to the Morris and Essex, but they were not invited to show there in 1938. So upsetting and insulting was this perceived snub that they held no Specialty in 1938 at all. Puppy sales were easy as the dogs quickly acquired the reputation as intelligent, endearing creatures even if they weren’t the best looking breed. In 1937, Mrs. Bole sold a cardigan to a Canadian lady, a Mrs. Helen Durie of Toronto, who wished to replace a dog she had taken in as a stray. Her vet had identified it as a Cardigan Corgi so when that dog was killed, she came to Cleveland and said her dog had looked just like Bandit. She went home with a new puppy. Percy Roberts imported Corache Boy and later sent him to Mrs. Bole. In 1940, Mrs. Henning Nelms of Houston, TX, bought a red bitch puppy . That dog was her Taffy. In the archives is a picture of Mary Nelms with Taffy.  (photo right)

Eugene Warren (photo left) was an early fancier who owned Mocha and then Mocha yr Ail. His most famous dog was Ch. Rhudd II . In the archives is a picture, from 1939, of Mr. Warren sleeping in a chair with Rhuddy on his lap. Mr. Warren was a great friend of E.K. Lopeman, Marcia’s father and may have been the impetus that made Mr. Lopeman buy Brownie of Kencia from my Grandmother. Marcia told me that she never could understand why her father bought Brownie, but when he bred her to Ch. Robin, Marcia went to look at the litter. Her eye was immediately drawn to the dog puppy who would become her famous Ch. Kencia’s Rocket.

Dr. Charles Peterson of Roanoke, VA., had some of Mrs. Bole’s Cardigans and had bred some litters. Margaret Douglas showed his dogs for him. And he gave her a bitch named Jess. Margaret finished Jess and then bred her to Rocket to produce her Ch. Swansea Jon, and it is through mainly through those two dogs, Rocket and Jon, that the blood of my Grandmother’s dogs is with us today. It is interesting to note that both those dogs and Ch. Mionce go back to that early group of imports and to the dogs and bitches from the first few litters born between 1933 and 1938. Mionce was owned by Mr. and Mrs. E.M. Harrington. Mrs. Harrington went to England and returned with Hannaford Lloyd. Mr. Harrington was the CWCCA columnist for the AKC Gazette. Mrs. Peter Jay was Mrs. Bole’s niece and owned and showed Ch. Robin and later Ch. Pitcher of Windmill Hill, a grandson of Robin.

It was that small group of people who carried the breed through the war years with Mrs. Bole. The Specialties had been suspended in 1941 and they resumed in 1948, but shortly after the 1949 Specialty, Mrs. Bole suffered a debilitating stroke and she died in October of 1950. With her death, the center of the Cardigan world moved eastward as the Ohio people fell away without the support of Mrs. Bole’s 30 dog kennel. Her last litter was born in July of 1948 from Black Cricket by Harrbrett Tegwyn, a son of Ch. Mionce. The Cardigan of my childhood, Little Brown Jug, came from that litter.

A significant development of the 1940’s was the establishment of the breed on the West Coast. While there had earlier been an occasional Cardigan, it was not until Gen Anderson and then Marguerite Farley got their dogs and started to show and breed, that the breed really became established. After my Grandmother’s stroke and death, most of her dogs went to the Lopemans, but some went to Gen Anderson, notably, Black Cricket. Gen also took Rhudd II after Mr. Warren’s death and eventually, Hannaford Lloyd.

One thing that has always struck me as odd is that my Grandmother bred between 50 and 60 litters from 1933 to 1948 and Mrs. Price and Dr. Peterson also bred quite a few, but never did any one of them produce a merle. Mrs. Jay, who had Robin, had one puppy with a blue eye, but we do not know if it was a merle eye or the other sort of blue eye or wall eye that we have in other Cardigan colors. If various merle colors were as numerous as Lloyd Thomas suggests, why did they not appear here? My Grandmother was not fussy about colors and I know she bought a bitch whose dam was red and the dam of that red had been a merle, but the bitch sent to my Grandmother turned out to be a poor specimen and went straight to a pet home. It is the fact that my grandmother never got merles that makes me think that Mr. Thomas did not thoroughly research Cardigan colors.

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