“Do you remember when I said I was never going to get promoted again and we could just stay here?” asked Alysha Towell’s husband one day. “Oh, I knew what the next sentence was going to be,” she recalls thinking, knowing that she was going to be packing up her family and moving again, this time from Oklahoma to Colorado. But there was a dilemma. The couple’s oldest child, daughter Annessa, would have to leave her goats behind, and told her mother that she wanted something of her own that couldn’t be taken away from her. “So, I thought about it for a bit and decided that we could take a dog (but not a goat) with us,” Alysha shares. “I told Annessa that if she wanted a dog, we could find one and she could show it.” That decision proved a pivotal one not only for mother and daughter but for the girl’s younger brothers as well. In the years that followed, dog shows, and Junior Showmanship specifically, have become a big part of family life.
“We stumbled into it,” Alysha says of her family’s involvement in the sport of dogs. “I found a website,” she reveals, but that first dog, a Bouvier des Flandres, developed a serious health condition. A breed rescue followed, but a thyroid problem in that dog prompted Alysha to learn what it means to purchase a puppy from fully health-tested parents. “I didn’t know about OFA certificates or CHIC numbers,” she confides. In the meantime, Annessa had been competing in Juniors, and unbeknownst to her mother, a well-known figure in the breed had taken note of the young lady’s talent. “Doug Johnson [Rocheuse Bouvier des Flandres and Bugaboo Old English Sheepdogs —Ed.] took a shine to my daughter, but I didn’t know who he was,” Alysha shares. “Then one of Doug’s daughters asked, ‘Do you know why my dad watches your daughter every time you go to a show?’ and I told her I would love to know. That’s when I learned how impressed Doug was with Annessa’s grooming and training of her dog.” Doug saw that she was giving it her all and wanted to help. Ultimately, the whole Johnson family worked with the newbies, but unfortunately, after a year, the Towells had to move again. “The Johnsons actually offered to keep Annessa on as an assistant,” Alysha notes. “Heather is still her favorite person to work for!”
The family’s next move to Virginia introduced them to more people in the dog show community and also to more breeds. “Annessa had seen a Lakeland Terrier in Colorado,” Alysha shares, and so, mother and daughter researched the breed. They had learned how to pick out a good dog and met Mark Brandsema of Wakefield Lakelands, himself a former Junior Handler. “Mark made us wait 15-16 months for a dog,” Alysha confides. “He thought surely we’d give up and go get something else. He was nervous about sending a dog to a family with seven kids.” However, once Mark saw how committed Annessa was to stripping the coat, he realized he shouldn’t have made them wait a year! “Annessa was the first to do everything, but she didn’t get to ‘live the dream’ as the other kids have,” Alysha says, although her oldest child did make it to the Finals in Orlando with an 11-month-old puppy. Judge Edd Biven told her she did a fabulous job with her Lakeland. “I felt like I’d won,” the proud Junior told her mother.
Annessa, now 27, has shown several breeds and is the breeder of a few litters of Bouviers and Lakelands. The other Towell children, all boys, have followed their big sister’s lead. Cortlund, 25, has exhibited Pointers, among other breeds, and placed Third at the AKC National Championship with a dog borrowed from Lydia Frey for the occasion. He also showed his younger brother’s Lakeland at Westminster where he placed Fourth in the Junior Showmanship Finals. Bevin, 21, started out in Whippets. His dog, Steve, bred by former Junior Kourtney Murray, is the family’s best Novice teacher to this day. Kourtney got her foundation bitch from Jody Garcini (née Paquette) who was friends with Mark Brandsema as a Junior. Interestingly, Steve is the great-great-grandson of Jody’s Juniors Whippet, and Mark got his first Lakeland from Jody’s parents. “Bevin took Best Junior his first day out,” Alysha shares. “He mostly showed Papillons, but switched to Löwchen his last year in Juniors. He’s really good at keeping dogs in coat.” Fenric, 19, started on a Beagle, but Lakelands are his thing. “He placed in the OH Group in Orlando several times, and he’s gotten our family’s one and only Reserve Best in Show,” his mom notes. He’s also co-bred two litters with his sister and has bred 7-8 litters of his own. Fenric is currently a Breeder of Merit in Lakelands (and in Beagles, thanks to Kris Hurley and Ann Wolf)—and he’s one of the sport’s youngest. His Lakie is a couple generations down from Mark’s Juniors Lakeland.
Gideon, 17, received the family’s first Group Four placement with a Löwchen in Orlando, a first for the breed. Alysha explains, “It was a Puppy Group, but none of the kids had ever placed, period.” Gideon has shown Löwchen, English Cockers, and Boston Terriers, and wanted to breed his Boston, Sugar, but she couldn’t be bred and another Boston couldn’t be produced despite the efforts of Sugar’s breeders, Karen Workmen and Sherry Patton. So, that prompted Gideon’s mom to reach out to Mari-Beth O’Neill. “I need your help,” she told the AKC VP of Sports Services. “The kid’s going to quit if you don’t help me find a dog. If you can find an English Cocker with the right hair, we can win him back over.” Thankfully, the right dog was found through Liz Neff and Beth Hendrick, which led to Gideon becoming a preservation breeder himself. Today, he shows a Bedlington in Juniors, bred by Gaby Gilbeau, and his Cocker goes along for the ride. Hadrian, 14, chose the Manchester Terrier as his breed of choice, and got his dogs from Taylor Blankenship who is also a former Junior. “Of all the breeds we have cared for and shown, they get six stars out of five,” notes Alysha of the support extended to her son by the breed’s AKC parent club. “When Hadrian’s Juniors dog couldn’t compete one year in Orlando, they took him to the Breed ring and told him to choose from the six dogs in the ring.” Hadrian guided his choice to a Fourth Place in the Juniors Finals that year. Japheth (Jay), 12, shows Chinese Shar-Pei and has just raised several puppies for Beth Brown and Alex Gonzalez.
The Towell family also includes two younger children, Marec, 7, and Pierce, who turns four years old in December. As for their dad, well, he’s not really a “dog person.” “He tries hard,” Alysha says. “We label the crates, but then he lets them go potty and, oh no…”
Thankfully, his children are always there to lend a hand. Jay helps his father during the day, and Fenric feeds the dogs after he comes home from working all day. “He knows who gets what,” assures Alysha, who somehow manages the entire menagerie and has learned that when it comes to dogs and kids, breed matters. “I started all my kids on Beagles, except Jay, and I highly recommend Beagles for a Juniors dog,” she offers. “Think about it, with Beagles you hard-stack, you free-stack, you can take the collar off and put it back on, it’s simple to groom, it’s the right size (you could show it on the floor or on the table), and it’s got a tail. There’s just a lot to learn with a Beagle.”
Alysha emphasizes that each of her children needed to prove they could first take care of a dog; feed it, bathe it, crate it and keep it in their room—and only then would she let them pick their own dog. Each child’s breed of choice reflects who they are as individuals, and Alysha is quick to emphasize how important it is for any Junior to be able to choose their own breed—and their own dog. Gideon sums up this importance when describing his relationship with Sugar, who came to him when she was nine months old. “She hated me until the day at Orlando when she finally decided she liked me,” he shares. “She’d heard us talking about things not working out and that we were going to send her back to her breeder, so she finally flipped a switch and said, ‘Let’s do it!’” Alysha shares that the pair even made it onto a television commercial. “They were sensational,” she boasts.
These days, parents of other Juniors often reach out to Alysha for advice. “A lot of families have one or two kids, so their career in Juniors is going to be very short,” she says. “Some ask how my kids picked their breed, and I tell them that we’re going to help by letting them borrow a dog until we see what their kid’s talent is. By watching them in a couple of classes, I can tell how they interact with different breeds.” Alysha offers that it can be a good idea to begin a search within a single Group and then pick a breed from among those dogs. “Then I do admittedly give people a run-down if I’ve had experience with a breed,” she continues. “We’ve had a lot of experience with different breeds—and with different clubs. I want kids to have a positive experience; the better the mentors are, the more likely they are to have success. The right mentors are important.”
As members of their breeds’ parent clubs, the Towells have found their own mentors, but they do much more than just represent their breeds in the show ring. As home-schooled students, the kids have had the flexibility to represent their clubs in New York City at Meet the Breeds. According to Alysha, the benefits of participating in an event like MTB far outweigh any time spent away from their lessons. “It is one weekend where they are going to educate 40,000 people on their breeds,” she says. “It‘s extemporaneous public speaking, and they’re going to have to make eye contact, shake people’s hands, and know what to say on the fly. That is a lot of interview skills for when they get older and need a job.” Alysha also thinks that participation at dog events helps other children see that even introverted kids can do well; to see that they don’t need to have a certain personality, or a certain gender, to be good at something. “To me, MTB is just as educational as sitting in an English class,” she emphasizes.
Participation in the sport of dogs has certainly allowed the Towell kids to consider their future goals. For example, Hadrian will be a Ring Steward in Orlando this year because the judging panel prevents him from competing. No matter, the experience will help to prepare him for his ultimate ambition of becoming an AKC Judge. As his mother notes, “One of the judges told me that he knows type. You can’t teach type, you just have to see it. That kid sees type.” Similarly, Gideon is discovering his own place in the sport. “I specialize in dogs that basically have anxiety, dogs that lose their mind when something spooks them,” he shares. “My aura is calm, it is Zen.” He also thinks he could teach other kids and offers the following advice: “I would prefer that you get the correct dog, a dog that actually matches with you. Don’t get something that is the complete opposite of you. Get something that matches your personality, a dog that means something to you when you walk in that ring.” And Hadrian has his own words of advice: “Find a breeder that at least half the people in the breed say they’re trustworthy and health test their dogs, and will not give a Junior their worst dog but will give them a dog that is a six or seven out of ten.”
Alysha acknowledges the many people who have mentored her and her family through the years, and she has some advice of her own to share with parents of Juniors who may be inspired by her family’s journey in the sport. “If they live near us, we invite them to our club, Langley Kennel Club. But if they don’t live near us, I try to get them connected to somebody, and if I can’t, I tell them to email Mari-Beth and ask for a local dog club. Go to that club, meet the people, and ask if there’s any dog they can borrow. Go to the shows until the child can decide what kind of dog is for them and what kind of mentor they want. Langley has been fantastic, and I want to encourage all clubs to respond if Mari-Beth calls and says, ‘I’ve got this new kid…’ Invite them to come to your club. Invite them to your home and watch you bathe dogs. Invite them to your handling class. Let them borrow one of your older dogs and show them the joy of that, because the kid is going to have a far better experience with a seasoned show animal than they are with a puppy. Find out if the family is responsible, and then try to help them find the best puppy you can. Because those are the people who will stick with it.”
As Alysha knows all too well, it’s also important for newcomers to be encouraged, supported, and prepared to change course when necessary. “I thought one of my kids was going to pick a Kerry Blue Terrier,” she says. “I had Poodles as a kid, but I really liked the terriers, So, I thought it would be the best of both worlds: hair and type A personality. But after having many children, I’m a different person than when I started, and so, I’m going to have English Cockers with Gideon. My youngest, Pierce, has down syndrome, and to watch this breed with him… well, they are just so kind to him. Just therapeutic.” Like kids and dogs, the Towell family and Junior Showmanship are perfect together—but only in the right combination.
