Rooten Brook Sheepdogs

Timothy Longton is one of the third generation of the Longton family to be involved in sheepdogs and sheepdog trailing at Rooten Brook, whilst always having good dogs he didn’t get serious until 1982/3 when he got Gel.

Gel was the starting point for all the successful dogs. At the present time she is in the pedigree of all the current trial dogs here at Rooten Brook.

Gel and her kennel mate Liz both qualified for the International in 1987, since then Timothy has been a team member 17 times, including:

Farmers Champion in 1999
Reserve English National Champion in:
- 1997 with Rob (200948)
- 1999 and 2002 with Vic (213967)
English Brace Champion 4 times

Above: Timothy with Rob

Timothy is also a respected judge, judging the English National at Bolton Abbey in 2003.

In 1999 following many years of pain and decreasing mobility Timothy had a hip resurfacing operation, this was a great success and just two weeks after the operation Timothy came second with Vic and seventh with Rob at the English National at Exeter. Vic then went on to come fifth at the International at Aberystwyth.

Left:Timothy with Rob (right) and
Vic (left) waiting to run at Biggar

Michael Longton has been trialling since the age of 12. He started out with a bitch called Gyp (200949) who was litter sister to Timothy’s Rob (200948). She was an accomplished trial dog that did as asked when asked without any fuss, and was the perfect dog for a novice handler. In 1995 he ran at One Man and His Dog where they had a good run, missing out on winning for missing a few sheep at the drive away. The following year they took part in the International Young Handlers competition where they were runners up.

Right: Michael with Moss
(right) and Monty (left).

Below: Michael With Monty after
winning the 2004 National.

Following on from Gyp came Moss. He was trained by Timothy and given to Michael as thanks for running the farm while he was out of action recovering from his hip operation.

Monty was the first dog Michael trained up to a standard suitable to run at open trials, having trained others for nurseries but then sold them on as work dogs, as they didn’t make the grade. He went on to win the 2004 English National trials at Piddinghoe beating the nearest competitor by 13 points

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