Michael Gadsby is one of the world’s most successful breeder/owner-handlers. His Afterglow kennel, located in Blackpool, England, is responsible for innumerable champions and top winners in his home country, in the U.S. and many other countries as well. Cocker Spaniels, Afghan Hounds, Petits Bassets Griffons Vendéens and Poodles are just four of the breeds in which Gadsby has experienced major success; as he says, it’s almost easier to list those he has not contemplated an involvement in.
There’s nobody like Michael Gadsby in the U.S.: a handler who wins top awards with many different breeds but also breeds his winners himself — and who’s an up-and-coming international judge as well.
During a visit to England in September 2007, Dogs in Review Editor-at-Large Bo Bengtson talked to Gadsby and his American partner, Jason Lynn, previously a long-time assistant to professional handlers Mike and Linda Pitts in the U.S.
DR: I have no idea how you started in dogs. Does your family have a dog background?
MG: No, but I was animal-mad as a little kid: anything that moved, newts and frogs... We lived in a small village in Leicestershire, where my parents had the post office, so they knew everybody and this lady who bred Pyrenees used to come into the post office.
DR: Did she have a famous kennel?
MG: Her name was Lorna Ireland and she bred under the Arandora prefix. She had several champions and she judged at Crufts; this was right around the time when that breed was at its height in England, with Ch. Briarghyll Falstaff winning Dog of the Year in 1975. The boy who was working for her was going up to university, and she needed somebody to replace him. My mom and dad told me about this, so I went and met the Pyreneans.
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