Nealie
URO1 UWP AM CH UGRCH UNJ Cazomic Look Busy BN RN RATN CAA BCAT TKN CGCA/U VHMA VSWB
2008–2024
Dylan × Kodi
Some dogs become part of a breeding program. Others become part of its foundation.
Nealie was one of those dogs.
Imported from Wales and entrusted to us by Carol Jenkins-Salter, Nealie became enormously important to Wavemaker Staffords—not simply because of what she accomplished herself, but because of what she consistently passed forward.
She was athletic, intelligent, gentle, enthusiastic and remarkably versatile. She could move from the show ring to obedience, rally, weight pull or lure coursing and approach everything with the same willingness to participate. She loved swimming, biking, the flirt pole, lure coursing and, perhaps more than anything, simply enjoying life with people and other dogs.
But Nealie’s greatest contribution to Wavemaker would ultimately be seen in the generations that followed her.
A Foundation of Wavemaker
Nealie proved to be an exceptional producer.
She was named the SBTCA 2012 Top Brood Bitch, and her children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren went on to earn championships and performance titles of their own.
More importantly, she transmitted many of the qualities we valued most in her: athletic ability, soundness, enthusiasm, versatility and an affectionate, people-oriented temperament.
As the generations accumulated, her influence became woven deeply into Wavemaker.
Much of what eventually became recognizable as a Wavemaker Stafford runs through Nealie.
That makes her accomplishments difficult to measure simply by counting titles. Her real legacy lives in the dogs who came after her.
An Athlete at Heart
Nealie was extraordinarily athletic.
She earned her United Weight Puller title in a single weekend and accumulated additional points toward her UWP Championship, at one point pulling nearly 28 times her body weight.
She also competed successfully in obedience, rally and lure coursing. Among her accomplishments were two qualifying legs toward a Companion Dog title, including a High in Trial at an SBTCA National Specialty, as well as her Beginner Novice and Rally Novice titles.
Later in life, she continued learning and participating, becoming one of the early Staffords to earn the Virtual Home Manners Adult and Virtual Scent Work Beginner titles.
Her versatility was never something we manufactured for a résumé.
Nealie simply loved doing things.
In the Show Ring
Nealie was an American Champion and UKC Grand Champion.
During her first year competing in UKC, she finished 2009 ranked #10 Staffordshire Bull Terrier in the UKC standings.
She was beautiful, certainly—but her importance to us was always larger than what happened inside a show ring.
The Dog Behind the Titles
For all her athleticism, Nealie was an exceptionally gentle Stafford.
She loved children, welcomed people easily and seemed to regard strangers largely as friends she had not yet met. She was equally enthusiastic about her four-legged companions and was a wonderful representative of the breed wherever she went.
That temperament mattered enormously to us.
Ability without stability is not enough.
Nealie possessed both.
Health
Nealie was hereditarily clear/unaffected for L2-HGA and Hereditary Cataracts, documented on her Kennel Club export pedigree.
Her recorded health testing included:
- CERF eye examinations — 2010, 2011 and 2012
- OFA Cardiac — Normal
- PHPV — Unaffected
- Patellas — Normal
- OFA Elbows — Normal
- OFA Hips — Good
She was later spayed.
Her Legacy
It is easy to look backward at a breeding program and identify the dogs who won the most.
It is harder—and far more meaningful—to identify the dogs who quietly shaped everything that came afterward.
Nealie was one of those dogs.
Her descendants became champions, performance dogs, companions and breeding animals themselves. Her athleticism and willingness appeared repeatedly through succeeding generations. Long after her own breeding years were finished, we could still recognize pieces of her in the dogs standing in front of us.
She came to us as a spirited Welsh girl named Cazomic Look Busy.
She became Nealie.
And ultimately, she became one of the cornerstones of Wavemaker Staffords.
We will forever be grateful to Carol Jenkins-Salter for trusting us with her.
2008–2024
Her life ended. Her influence did not.