The Wycliffe Central Lines
When Jean Lyle first became involved in showing purebred
dogs, beginning with a Boxer bitch in 1948, she could never have imagined the
impact her kennel would eventually have on the poodle world. She was a suburban
housewife in the
Perhaps
in part because her Boxer was not a great success in conformation, Jean's
interest turned to obedience training. At that point it was almost inevitable
that she would become involved with Poodles, as the rules for obedience trials
in
"There were no obedience classes here at the
time (so) I had to do it from a book, and Blanche Saunders' book was the one I
used. When I found out that she was judging a series of shows in Eastern
Washington in May, 1952, I wrote to her and asked if she would like to come on
to Vancouver and show us how to run an obedience class. She agreed and when she
came, my husband started thinking that maybe we should get a Standard Poodle.
Blanche said that she could supply us with one."
(Jean
Lyle's comments from a Poodle Variety interview published in 1979)
That
puppy was Carillon Michelle. "Mike" was a compact bitch,
"with an excellent wiry coat (and) a body full of sturdy substance", according to Jean. She also showed typical Poodle
intelligence and independence, and loved to swim and retrieve.
"I got a U.D.T. on this bitch, and since (I)
had decided to show the conformation people, simultaneously I finished this
bitch's American and Canadian championship."
The
Wycliffe Founders
The dogs
owned or bred by Jean Lyle are shown in black, others in blue. Though
additional dogs were involved in the early litters, as described below, none
make a contribution to the central line.
Jean Lyle decided that she wanted to breed a good
black Standard with a refined look and dignity. She sought advice from those
she admired, and read the best books on breeding dogs. I have no doubt that she
started out with good intentions. Unfortunately, in the fifties, the
"best" reference with respect to breeding dogs were
based on overly simplistic genetic models and an inadequate understanding of
the consequences of inbreeding.
"I had read enough books to know that the only
sensible way to breed was to line breed or inbreed and we were fortunate enough
to have a closely related dog (Petitcote
Domino) in the area. He was a very stylish dog and that breeding was hung
with horse shoes, as from that very first litter we got what I feel was one of
the very finest Standard Poodles ever, Int. Ch. Wycliffe Jacqueline, U.D.T. "
This
was in 1954, and produced Wycliffe Michelle as well as Jacqueline. Jean
repeated the mating the next two years. The 1955 litter included Eliza Jane and
two other champions.
In
Sept. 1955, Jean bred Wycliffe Michelle to her half-brother (out of Domino) Wencair's Frere Jacques. Jacques'
mother was High Meadow Babette, bred in
Altogether,
Jean created one primary male line and 5 female lines:
·
Eliza Jane's
(Carillon Michelle x Petitcote Domino; May 1955)
·
Gillian's,
near the end of 1955 (Jacqueline's first litter. The male was the later
'never-named' Bel Tor dog -
Hugues Capet
- a full brother to the better-known Morceau Choisi, though from a later litter.)
"I ended up (breeding Jacqueline) to a dog...
that was much lauded as a puppy. When I look back at pictures of him now, I
wonder why I was advised to breed to him. They did have a litter of ten and I
think three of them were champions."
The November '55 litter included Glamorous Gillian.
(Gillian was then mated to Frere Jacques, in 1957, to
produce Melissa, and in late 1958, Melissa was mated to Kirk to get the first
"S" litter, born on New Year's day, 1959. [see note on the naming of Wycliffe litters]
·
Lulu's, from the 1957 cross of
Carillon Michelle to Carillon Dilemma
·
Nicola's,
from Jacqueline and Dilemma in early 1958.
"Blanche had come up with a young male
(Dilemma), so for her second litter I sent Jacqueline back to Blanche in
(Jean does not mention that she had previously
mated Michelle to Dilemma, producing the litter that included Little Lulu,
listed above.)
·
Mitzi's - Sedbergh Mitzi was an Annsown Sir
Gay granddaughter that arrived in the
In 1959, Blanche Saunders suggested that instead of
using Dilemma again, she "should use another young dog in the East (Annsown Gay Knight of Arhill)
because she had just bred to the dog, and was delighted with her puppies."
So she bred Jacqueline to Gay Knight and got a litter of 8 that included 6
champions (Thomas, Timothy, Theodore, Talk of the
Town, Theresa and Twinkling Tiara). This litter changed the course of the
breed.
"We had several problems to deal with in those
days. Number one, our dogs were too small and I wanted a big dog. Thomas was
the biggest in the litter. Number two were light and round eyes. Although
Timothy had a prettier head than Thomas, he still had the lighter, rounder eye
while Thomas had a better shaped, darker eye. So it was on the strength of the
size and the eye color and shape that I decided to
keep Thomas. Fortunately, Timmy was sold to people in
From
1960-63 she alternated between Thomas and Timothy, using a variety of females,
in what appears to have been an attempt to decide which was better. After that,
she stuck with Tommy up till his death.
"(Tommy's) puppies usually had sweet
personalities, size, heavy coats, beautiful eyes, always good feet and they
were impressive. They were eye catching, balanced, and very dignified. You
couldn't ignore them. Through his sire Gay Knight, Tommy got size and color, and he got his beautiful conformation from his
mother, Jacqueline. He was a very good mover, but he sometimes produced dogs
that shuffled their back feet, they didn't pick their feet up and you could
hear them when they moved around the ring."
Onstott, and many breeders of the day, said
that inbreeding was the way to go - so that was the way Jean Lyle went - and
she did not do it half-heartedly. Father-daughter crosses followed
father-daughter or mother-son in an almost unbroken succession.
"Thomas had this one fault, and that was his
belief that you simply didn't do 'those things' with your mother! Timothy
didn't seem to have nearly as much respect! So we got Virgil, Veni Vidi Vici,
and a bitch called Veronica who was acquired by Dr. Kingsley in
"There
were some beautiful bitches in the litter also, but these went to the usual,
run-of-the mill fanciers who bred the bitches well but never really developed a
line around them. It could have been done, but it wasn't."
I
suppose that's technically true, but Theresa and Twinkling Tiara did make a
significant contribution to Haus Brau,
and thus to Executive and Country Gentleman and their many descendants.
Starting
in early 1960, when he was not yet a year old, she began systematically
breeding Thomas to all the female lines:
·
to Nicola in 1960 (see below)
·
to Sidse in
early 1961, producing Winsome Ways
·
to Mitzi, producing Yolanda (May '61)
·
to Lulu, producing Zara
(Sept '61)
Now
to this point, I can't really fault her strategy. Judging from her successes,
she chose her founders well. Though they are not unrelated, the inbreeding was
not exceptionally high. She tried out Tommy with each of the female lines,
eventually settling on the last two as the most promising. (Though she gave
Nicola to Joy Tongue (
The
real fun began in 1962 and continued until 1966. Tommy didn't have any
reservations about mating with his daughters, and was mated to each. He was
mated to both Yolanda and Zara three times.
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The most significant, in terms of continuation of
the lines, were to Yolanda, producing Calypso (1962) and Ian (1963), and to Zara, producing Kenneth (1963) and Rowena (1965). Rowena
went to the Campbells (Blacknight;
now Dhubhne) to join Ian's son, Martin, born the
previous year. Ian went to June Hobbs in |
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Thomas
sired 67 champions, ranking him high on the list of top-producing males. His
mother, Jacqueline ended as one of the all-time top producing Standard bitches
with 21 champions (17 of them AKC champions) from 41 pups in 5 litters.
Both Ian and Kenneth played important roles in the
continuation of the Wycliffe lines. Though Jean Lyle doesn't mention Ian by
name in the PV interview, I am reasonably certain that she is describing him
when she says:
"There was one dog I bred that was a nice dog,
but I sold him to an obedience home because his temperament really called for
training. Physically, he was a dog with a very over angulated rear and he
didn't have shoulder angulation to match. He did have
a gorgeous head. His head was probably one of the very best I ever bred, but I
didn't feel that he was worth using simply for his head. Well, several people
in the Northwest latched onto this dog and just thought he was super!"
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Though Ian sired only a single
"Wycliffe" litter, in 1964, from his aunt Theresa, this litter of seven
(the M2 litter) included five champions, of which Martin and Murdoch were the
most influential. He was also used by Kathleen Baker ( The
second female line, that started with Little Lulu,
was continued by Zandra (1966), a daughter of
Martin and Rowena.
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John
Campbell has described Rowena as "our very worst counter-sweep. (We)
always had to keep the counters clear of goodies or she would up and on and
have them before one knew it. Martin was a lazy 'bring it to me' couch
potato." Martin was smaller and, in John's view, more refined than his
cousin. Rowena was also stubborn, and resisted handler Frank Sabella's attempts to finish her championship.
The
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Jean Lyle kept Kenneth, and he sired 15 Wycliffe
litters over a five-year period. His first litter was from his half-sister
Calypso, giving us the second "S" litter (1965), which included
Sybil. Sybil, and their daughter Genevieve (1968), continue the female line
that started with Mitzi. |
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"I think Kenneth was probably the better
looking dog but people were so enamored by the
reputation of Thomas that they didn't use Kenneth perhaps as much as they
should have. I used him extensively myself and was pleased with the results.
They were about the same height, the same general type of dog and they both had
the same great temperament. Kenneth had a little more sweep to his rear, but he
used it beautifully and didn't shuffle at all."
Kenneth to Fitzherbert
For Jean Lyle, mating Zandra
with her cousin Kenneth was almost an outcross, but she obviously liked what
she got as she repeated the combination 3 times - in July '69, March '70 and
Oct. '70 (producing 7 champions). From the perspective of continuing the lines,
the last (which also appears to be Kenneth's last) was the most significant,
for it produced Thomas Too, to continue the male line, and Titania,
to continue the second female line.
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The second Tommy started a brief carrier as a
stud when he was only 10 months old and by the end of 1972 had been bred to
four different bitches. Then he "disappeared" for 9 years, before
being used, apparently one last time, in 1981. In the interview with Poodle
Variety, Jean relates why she did not keep any of the males between Kenneth
and Fitzherbert, born in 1974. |
"There was a time after Kenneth died that I
was not quite as pleased with the dogs being produced as I had been with the
previous ones. For instance, there's Thomas Too, who is still alive although he
doesn't live with me. He is a very virile, masculine, stallion type of dog, but
he lacks some of the refinement of my other dogs. I think that it's vital that
a male be masculine and strong, but we can carry this a little too far for
great success in the breed ring. It may be wonderful for a breeding program, but
when using a dog like this, you have to be very careful that the bitches be
ultra-feminine."
The
very first of these litters was from Genevieve, and produced Xcellente...
"A very in-bred dog that is lovely
and a great producer. He is also a tremendous
gentleman."
Xcellente went to Glenna Carlson's
"Fitzherbert looks
so much like Kenneth that it's uncanny. In fact, I won't have Fitzherbert's portrait taken because, why bother? I have
Kenneth's and they look exactly alike."
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Fitzherbert
enjoyed a steady stream of Wycliffe and other bitches in a career that lasted
from 1975 to 1983. Of course Jean couldn't resist, and bred him to his
mother/grandmother (yes, Genevieve) in 1976 - to give us the incomparable
Lord Lysander. However, she sold Lysander, apparently without using him, and continued to
use Fitzherbert. |
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Despite the profound influence of Genevieve on
the male line, she appears not to have produced a significant daughter, which
effectively ends that female line. However, in a litter just before Lysander's, she mated Fitzherbert
with great aunt Titania (sister of Thomas Too) and
finally succeeded in getting another bitch she was satisfied with, Joyous
Jacqueline. |
"Although she is bigger, a little, tiny bit
more extreme and a better color, although not
perfect, she is very much like the original Jacqueline. She moves just like
they should. She moves naturally and proudly and sets herself up right and you
see her striking all of these beautiful poses, because this is the way she is
put together - right! She is also very animated and a very devoted dog."
I'm
sure by now you all know what to expect next... and you're right, she mated Fitzherbert to his daughter. The surprise was that
Jacqueline wasn't used until she was 4, but she was bred to Fitzherbert
3 times. The results, however, were apparently not satisfactory.
What to do? Fall back to Plan B and call out the
reserves - the reserves being the many Wycliffe-bred animals now in the hands
of other owners around the world. Fitzherbert was
bred to such luminaries as Proud Poll, Red Rose, Polly Perkins, Karla of Seabonay and Anlon Anabel Alexis. These litters were not disasters, and these
names turn up in various pedigrees of current champions, but they did not give
Jean Lyle quite what she was looking for.
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Fortunately, plan B had a complementary plan C -
mate Jacqueline to the other males of the central line (the ones she had not
kept). Thus, at 10 1/2 years, Thomas Too was brought out of retirement. The
second Tommy and second Jacqueline produced Fern, who continued the second
female line. Then,
6 years after his birth, she made a call to the owner of Lysander.
Margaret Tauzin relates: |
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"Jean Lyle once told me that the reason she
drove Jacqueline to be bred to Lord Lysander is that
he had never bloated and the owner never took any precautions against bloat,
either. She felt him 'safe' to breed to in an attempt to decrease the amount of
bloat problems she had been having."
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The strategy appears to have succeeded. Son
Michael, born Aug. 1982, inherited the throne (or should we say "the
royal bedchamber") from grandfather Fitzherbert
when about a year old and continued in that role until he was 10. His very
first litter was with half-sister Fern to produce Wescott
Quintessence, who was later bred back to Michael in 1987, 88 and 89. |
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Between 1983 and 1992, Michael sired 27 Wycliffe
litters. The most significant are:
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Two litters (1983 and 1984) from Vivid Verbena
should also be considered part of this group. Like Fern, her mother is Joyous
Jacqueline, but her father is Fitzherbert (Fern's,
you will recall, is Thomas Too). One AKC champion came from each litter, but
neither has produced descendants. However, Wycliffe Sans Souci
of Dymar, exported to
·
Liza
Jane's 1985 "Y" litter and their descendants, primarily from Yvan and Yoseffa, include at
least 34 Canadian, American and Australian champions.
Liza Jane
descends from the 1980 cross of Wycliffe Imp Ishbel
of Anlon, a daughter of Fitzherbert,
to Jaylee Louisiana Gambler, a grandson of Wycliffe
Hadrian, who was bred to the brown bitch, Molly Brown's Creme
de Cacao (see pedigree).
The idea was apparently to create a brown Wycliffe line, but the only brown
descendants ever obtained were from Yvan, who went to
Daughter Yosefa was bred
back to Michael twice ("O" litter of 1990; "U" litter of
1992). The Canadian champions are from Rupert (Ultra High), while the AKC
champions are from Odette at Dalcrista and Oleana.
·
My Capal Luludja, a daughter of Fitzherbert,
was bred to Michael in 1984 and 1985, as were two daughters and a granddaughter.
Together they add at least 16 Canadian, American and Finnish champions to the
total.
·
Another daughter of Fitzherbert,
Minmist's Madame Butterfly was bred to Michael in
1986 and daughter Bridget in 1989 and 1991. However, the more significant daughter
was El's Baltimore Belle, who has 32 champion descendants.
Jean Lyle died
Though
the Wycliffe Kennel stopped breeding with Michael's death, several of his sons
carry on the line.
·
Herald has produced 9 champions, mainly
at Bay Breeze. He has been bred to both close and distant relatives, and some
of his grandchildren owe as much as 94% of their heritage to the Central Line.
·
Yvan, at
the Jurado kennel, has sired at least 20 Australian
champions. Some also carry Wycliffe heritage from
·
Rupert (Ultra High) has produced a
number of Canadian champions for Teannas.
Jean
Lyle used to brag that her dogs were the most highly inbred of any breed.
Though I do not share her faith in inbreeding, many of the sons and daughters
of Michael are certainly highly inbred (60-70%) yet continue to be successfully
bred and produce champions. Perhaps, through trial and error, and a measure of
good luck, Jean Lyle succeeded in picking her way through the inbreeding
minefield and in producing the closest thing, outside lab-bred mice and rats,
to a pure line.
In the first Wycliffe litter (1954), there appears
to be no system to the choice of names. However, starting in 1955, each litter
was assigned a letter going through the alphabet sequentially. Mrs. Lyle made
it through the alphabet almost 6 times. A few letters appear to be missing, and
there are also a few litters that do not follow the pattern. The former may
include some planned litters that did not materialize. The latter are primarily
litters where only one parent was Wycliffe. Initially, the puppies from these
litters were "Wycliffe Xtra", as in
Wycliffe Xtra Fancy (Wycliffe Theodore x Pantaloon Britta). Later, both kennel names were often used, as in
Wycliffe Rondell Sabrina (Wycliffe Fitzherbert x Rondell Foxy Lady).
Acknowledgments
Thanks
to Lynn Brucker for loaning me the Poodle Variety
article from which the quotes are taken, and for the use of her database, and
to Margaret Tauzin and John Campbell for telling me about Hither, Rowena and
Martin, thus adding some human depth to the story told by the pedigrees.
The
1998 Stud Issue of Poodle Variety features a tribute to Jean Lyle which
includes a reprint of the 1979 interview and photographs of some of the dogs
discussed above.
Return
to: Wycliffe - Table of Contents | Diversity in Poodles
Copyright 1997,
1998, 2001 John B. Armstrong. The Canine Diversity Project. All rights reserved. Reprinted with permission.
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