About Northfield
We are a small family programme, not a kennel. Every puppy we raise grows up underfoot in our home, learns the world from the inside of a busy household, and leaves here knowing that people are safe, interesting and worth paying attention to.
Our story
We did not set out to breed dogs. [ADD HOW YOU CAME TO HAVE YOUR FIRST BORDER COLLIE — THE DOG'S NAME, ROUGHLY WHEN, AND WHY THAT BREED.]
What changed our minds was being asked. Again and again, by people who had met one of our dogs and wanted to know where a dog like that came from. [ADD WHAT MADE YOU DECIDE TO PLAN A FIRST LITTER, AND ROUGHLY WHEN THAT WAS.]
So the programme grew out of our household rather than the other way round, and it has stayed that shape ever since. We raise a small number of litters, entirely indoors, alongside everything else that happens in a family home. [ADD WHO IS INVOLVED — WHO WHELPS THE LITTERS, WHO DOES THE SOCIALISING, WHETHER CHILDREN ARE PART OF IT.]
What has not changed is the standard we hold ourselves to: breed for temperament, raise them underfoot, tell families the truth, and stay reachable for the life of every dog we send out. Everything else on this website is simply the detail of how we do that.
How we do things
Every breeder says they care. These are the specific, checkable things we do differently — the ones worth asking any breeder about, including us.
Not in a kennel, not in an outbuilding, not in a run at the end of the garden. Our puppies are born and raised in the middle of family life, which means the noise of a kettle, a vacuum cleaner, a door slamming and a child laughing are ordinary to them long before they meet yours.
We raise a small number of litters, and we do it one at a time. That is the only way we know to give every puppy the individual attention that makes the difference between a well-socialised dog and a dog who merely had a clean start.
Our girls are family dogs who happen to have litters, not breeding stock who happen to live indoors. They are rested properly between litters, they are retired here rather than moved on, and if a girl tells us she has had enough, that is the end of it.
A Border Collie in the wrong home is a miserable animal and an exhausted family. We ask real questions, we sometimes suggest a different breed, and we would far rather turn down a deposit than place a puppy where we can see the ending.
Health results, temperament, the quirks we have already spotted — you get all of it, including the parts that are inconvenient for us. If we have not tested for something, we say so rather than implying otherwise.
The day a puppy goes home is the middle of the relationship, not the end of it. Ring us at eight weeks, eight months or eight years — and if life ever changes such that you cannot keep your dog, they come back to us rather than to a rescue.
Our approach
A Border Collie is one of the most capable dogs on earth, and that is exactly the problem. The intelligence that makes them extraordinary in the right home makes them destructive, anxious and obsessive in the wrong one. Breeding them well is not about producing the prettiest puppy in the litter. It is about producing a dog whose brain is sound enough to live in a house.
So temperament comes first here, every time. We look for confidence that recovers quickly from a fright, for a dog who can switch off when nothing is happening, and for biddability — the willingness to check in with a person rather than decide alone. Structure and health matter enormously, and we do not compromise on them, but a beautiful dog with an unreliable mind is not something we are willing to put into a family.
That thinking runs all the way through: which dogs we use, which litters we plan, how much handling a puppy gets in its first eight weeks, and which family we send it to. It is slower and it produces fewer puppies. We think it produces better dogs.
Our dogs
Our adult dogs are not housed separately from us and brought out for photographs. They sleep in the house, they walk with us every day, and they are the reason we can tell you honestly what a puppy is likely to grow into. When you meet a puppy here, you meet its mother in the same room.
Each of them has a page of their own with the details we hold on file — sex, age, colour, registration and whatever health documentation we have. If a field is empty, it is because we have nothing on paper to put in it, and we will tell you that to your face as readily as we print it here.
The next step is a conversation, not a deposit. Tell us who lives in your house, what your days look like, and what you are hoping a dog will add to them. We will tell you plainly whether we think a Border Collie fits — and if one of ours does, which one we would choose for you and why.
Raised in Our Family. Ready for Yours.
Tell us about your household and what you are hoping for. We will be honest with you about whether one of our puppies is the right fit — and if the answer is yes, we will help you find exactly the right one.