Our Story
My name is Catherine Bull and my family and I live at Withcott, a small community situated at the bottom of a section of the Great Dividing Range, 10 minutes from Toowoomba in South East Queensland. We are a small kennel that strives to breed for type and temperament.
By chance I stumbled onto this beautiful breed and feel very privileged being able to breed beautiful Border Collies.
In 1998 my family and I decided to buy my Mother a Border Collie pup for Christmas. To my dismay, my mother was not really excited about the idea as apparently she had always wanted a Rough Collie (Lassie Dog) not a Border Collie. Our family took little Reggie home with us and until his untimely death in 2000, we enjoyed a wonderful bond with this amazing loyal pet.
In June 2001, I was extremely lucky to come across an advertisement in our local paper looking for a loving home for a family’s blue Border Collie, as they were moving and were unable to take Oscar with them. Oscar, (Wottapud Torbrek Blue 2-7-98) who was bred by a lovely family from Gympie, Carol and John Penn of Wottapud Kennels, never looked back from the first night we brought him home. He settled in instantly with us and had given us many wonderful years until his passing on 21-12-2009 at the age of 11 ½. Oscar completed his 5 levels at Toowoomba Dog Obedience with my then 14 year old daughter, Charlotte who never missed a Tuesday night with Oscar regardless of the bitterly cold nights in Toowoomba in Winter, as Oscar just loved school and always seemed to know when it was Tuesday night. He also was chosen for a spot in the 2008 Optimum Dog Food Calendar as 'Mr November' and really enjoyed his photo shoot, which took about three hours and then followed that with a spot in a pet store TV commercial.
My darling boy made me think more and more each year that I needed to carry on his intelligent lines and wonderfully calm nature plus a ‘Look at Me’ personality, hence the beginning of ‘Ionaborda Border Collies’ in early 2007. The ‘Iona’ part of my prefix came from the name of a small island ‘Iona’ which is situated off the west coast of Scotland, remembering that the Border Collie was bred on the border of Scotland and England. I’ve also incorporated the red & green ‘Iona Tartan’ on my business cards and on my website.
I hope you enjoy my website and the constantly being updated photos of my dogs and puppies, so please come back and visit my site again.
