Preserving Our History – One Photograph at a Time

Every photograph has a story. More importantly, every photograph represents a dog, a breeder, an owner and a moment in the history of our breed.

For a decade, Sue Poulin faithfully photographed our National Specialties. She carefully labeled each photograph and preserved this remarkable collection, ensuring these memories would not be lost to time.

Years later, the Endowment asked Emily Holden, Sally Sotirovich and Pam Mandeville to head up a project to retrieve Sue’s treasured collection, saving an irreplaceable piece of our Wheaten history. Many photos are of dogs whose breeders and owners are long gone. Recognizing the value of this collection, Pam Mandeville generously funded the scanning of every photograph so these memories could be shared with you and entered into the database.

Finally, Kathy McIndoe, our Database Administrator – whose countless hours of volunteer work can never truly be repaid – carefully linked each photograph to the dogs in our database. In many cases, these are the first photographs ever added for dogs that now appear throughout today’s pedigrees, filling important gaps in our breed’s historical record.

What began as one person’s love of Wheatens, the National Specialty, and photography became the work of many generous hands, each contributing to the preservation of our breed’s legacy. As you browse these images, we hope you will also think about the future. Someday, the dogs we own and love today will become part of Wheaten history. The photographs, health information, pedigrees, certifications, and stories you share which we preserve will become invaluable resources for breeders, researchers, historians, and future generation of Wheaten enthusiasts.

Please help us continue building that legacy by keeping your dogs’ photographs, health records, and information current in the SCWT Health and Pedigree Database.