Our History

    Hi! We're Bill & Cindy Volk and we've been into purebred dogs since 1972 when we got our first Old English Sheepdog. Even though the name of the breed begins with "Old", the Old English Sheepdog is actually not that old. We learned that one of the foundation breeds of this dog was something called the "Bearded Collie", but way back in 1972 there were very few Bearded Collies in the United States. In fact, when we finally saw our first Beardie (in 1974) there were only 56 registered Beardies in the United States and they had just received "colony" status by the AKC. Which means that even though they were a very old breed, they were not recognized by the AKC.

    After our first litter we began to show our Old English Sheepdog, Lady Perriwinkle.  In 1975 we took her to the Atlantic City NJ Kennel Club show, in part because the show featured the very first "Bearded Collie Specialty" in America. Imagine our disappointment when only 5 Bearded Collies showed up. Shortly after that the Bearded Collie was recognized by the AKC and when the Working Group was split up a few years later, the Bearded Collie joined the Old English Sheepdog in the new Herding Group.

    It wasn't long after we started showing our OES that we had our daughter, Lucinda. Once she was older, we began taking her along to the shows, but it became a major undertking. It took a lot of time to gather all the child's as well as the dog equipment needed for all day at the show.  We decided to put showing on the back burner rather than divide ourselves between  dog shows and family. We decided to wait for the "right time" to get back into showing.

Maybe we should have gotten in on the ground floor of this breed way back then. But we didn't. We stayed with the Old English and had some wonderful dogs all living to an old age except our last. When TC Baxter died at only 10 and a half years old, it broke our hearts. In 1997 we purchased our first Beardie, Ollie.  We were so impressed with the breed that about two and a half years later we decided to find another Beardie. Our search led us to Kamelott Kennels and a wonderful breeder, Toby Biller. There we found our beautiful girl Abbey, who after an illustrious show career became Ch. Kamelott's Lady Abbey. We all had a great time watching her grow and getting back into showing. Abbey had a wonderful Christmas litter. whelped on December 26, 2004. Five beautiful girls! ! ! 

     We kept one pup out of Abbeys litter, our Cuthbert's Christmas Rose (a.k.a. Rosie) and Cindy is now continuing with the Cuthbert Kennels show career. Bill helps, but no longer shows dogs like he was doing, above. His hobby (well ... obsession really) is hot air ballooning. Please click on the photo of the balloon at the left (showing him doing a "splash-n-dash maneuver in the Rio Grande River during the 2005 Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta) to go to his ballooning website.

Cuthbert Kennels - c/o Bill & Cindy Volk, 73 West Main St., Cummington, MA 01026   

Phone: 800-286-5401 or 413-634-2174 or 413-634-5401      

E-Mail: billvolk@westmass.com