The acquisition of our family’s first Greyhound (a German bred grandson of the American import Hewly Harry Tucker) in the late 1970s marked the beginning of a growing passion for this beautiful breed as well as the entry into the „world of Sighthounds “.
My sisters and I started showing our Greyhounds afterwards and participated quite successfully at Junior Handling competitions internationally. We soon got our first home-bred champions at the small kennel of the Knauber family, celebrating its 40th anniversary already. One of our best-known Greyhounds should be Int. Multi-Ch. Happy Hunter’s Coco Chanel, who went Specialty Best in Show over 223 entries at one of the world’s biggest Greyhound Club Show ever, held in Paris by the French Greyhound Club in the early 1990s.
I feel quite lucky to have grown up in a family passionate about Sighthounds and being mentored by some great personalities of the scene. I couldn’t be more glad to get connected with Dagmar Kenis-Pordham (Solstrand Greyhounds & Irish Wolfhounds) during several stays in England from teenage age on. Until today there still is a strong connection. Further names like Frans Gerritsen (Velocity Greyhounds in the Netherlands) as well as the immortal Dr. Gôran Bodegard from Sweden and Mr. Frank Sabella from the US need to be mentioned on my journey to become a FCI judge.
Since the early 1990ies my interest and later professional background into marketing and communication brought me to the editorial team of the German Sighthound Magazine printing more than 4.000 copies every month. Until 2018 I have been a show committee member organizing the internationally renowned Sighthound Festival Donaueschingen. I still remember the record entry of over 1.700, coming from more than 25 countries at my very last event, including exhibitors from South America and Australia.
After starting my judge’s education for Greyhounds and Whippets, at the time as youngest breed judge of the German Sighthound Association in 1997, I am actually a FCI judge approved for more than 20 breeds (all sighthounds and related breeds of FCI group V) with judges’ appointments in more than 20 countries up to now, including USA, Russia and UK. Some of my personal highlights was awarding CC’s at the prestigious English Hound Association Show, the Irish Wolfhound Club Show of Northern Ireland, the Saluki Club of Greater San Francisco (California) and being part of the judges panel at the German Winner during the successful World Dog Show weekend at Leipzig (Germany) in 2017.
Since more than 10 years I live in the north of Germany together with my partner and passionate greyhound breeder Ina Koulermou from Cyprus. We are living our dream with a success story worldwide of Ina’s Fashion Greyhounds.
We bred the top-dog all breeds 2022 in our country, who also won the Hound Group at Crufts and Best in Show at the FCI European Winner ’22 in Paris.
Since 2019, Ina’s Fashion Greyhounds are ranked as top greyhound kennel / top breeder UK (according to Our Dogs International). We had the top Greyhound in the UK for four years in a row with several Best in Show wins at the English Greyhound Club Show. The current #1 Sighthound in Finland as well as the #1 Greyhound all systems in the US (2023) is proudly bred and co-owned by Ina’s Fashion Greyhounds from Germany.
During the last years I have been co-organizing congresses and breeders’ seminars. Lately I have been a speaker at the FIWC Federation of Irish Wolfhound Clubs 2022 Congress in Czech Republic, as well as the Greyhound World Congress organized the same year by the Greyhound Club (UK). This year I have been invited to run a judges’ education on behalf of the Dutch Kennel Club in front of more than 130 breed judges from the Netherlands. Communication has been the seminar’s main topic as a thoughtful exchange between breed specialists including a panel discussion – by connecting scientific principles with practical implementation in the context of dog shows.
Furthermore, I am publishing articles in specialized magazines worldwide, lately at the German Sighthound Magazine, the English Greyhound Club Handbook as well as the Sighthound Review International Annual in 2022, edited by Sighthound expert Mr. Bo Bengtson (USA).
It’s a great honor and pleasure at the same time to be part of the 2024 judges’ board of the famous Kartano Sighthound Weekend. I have fond memories of this amazing show weekend with several fantastic breed specimens and truly passionate sighthound fanciers, after traveling to Helsinki more than 10 years ago.