The Story Of
RegalWhite Swiss Shepherds
RegalWhite Swiss Shepherds (formerly Orchard Grove Shepherds) is run by myself Kevin Whittock
and my wife Steph.
Breeding these wonderful dogs is something we do for the love of the breed and not for financial gain.
Unlike many breeders our dogs are predominantly pets and we only breed an occasional litter, once retired from our breeding programme our dogs remain with us until they make their way over the Rainbow Bridge.
Our story began when I, Kevin will go back to 1964 when I was gifted a brood bitch considered too old to breed, since then I have seldom been without one or more of these magnificent animals, I have owned and worked with German Shepherd dogs throughout my life. This includes 15 years spent as a dog handler in the South African Police Force. During that time I not only trained and actively worked with the dogs, but for a number of years was responsible for vetting and selecting dogs which the public wished to donate to the Force.
Shortly after my family and I immigrated to New Zealand at the end of 2004, I happened upon the website of the White Shepherd Dog Club of New Zealand, saw photos of a litter of pups (and their Mum) in Putaruru, and that was me hooked.
With the arrival of our first white Shepherd Taska in mid 2009, Steph's interest in these lovely dogs grew, she became more actively involved, she joined a dog club and trained Taska in obedience.
In the middle of 2010 we were fortunate to be able to purchase a small lifestyle section in the North Waikato, this was the start of RegalWhite Swiss Shepherds and the beginning of my life-long dream to breed the Shepherd dog.
Until Taska joined our family, all my Shepherds had been "coloured" dogs. I have never been able to comprehend the bias shown towards the whites by so-called German Shepherd Dog breeders and various Kennel Clubs, it is my hope that Steph and I, in some way will be able to contribute towards not only the improvement of these beautiful dogs by careful, selective breeding, but also see them receive the recognition that they deserve as full-blooded members of this wonderful breed.
In order to try and achieve our goal of improving the breed in New Zealand we have imported two more bitches as well as frozen semen from Italy and South Africa. The reason for this being the fact that we realised early on in our breeding programme that the gene pool for White Swiss Shepherd dogs in New Zealand is quite limited. In order to give our imports the recognition that they deserve, we joined the New Zealand Kennel Club, now known as Dogs New Zealand under the kennel name RegalWhite Swiss Shepherds.
All our breeding stock have been hip and elbow scored as well as having had a DNA profile evaluation completed in order to test for any of the health issues associated with the Shepherd breed in general.
With these imports and our breeding programme over the past twelve years we have attempted to expand the genetic pool and improve the breed in New Zealand.
Our aim is to continue striving towards our goal with further selective breeding in the future.