Story about Luciano Bocchese Great Terrier Man from Italy Written by Anne Tureen
I remember my first show, I was 14 years old, and at that time the Milan show was held in the public gardens of the city, the judge was French, and she liked my dog which was a Fox Terrier lent me by a friend for the occasion. I guess that was encouragement enough because soon I had several dogs which I started keeping at my parent’s place near Milano. My parents didn’t mind that, they raised chickens so there was plenty of space. Certainly preparing and presenting dogs was an unusual thing for a young person to take on at the time, but soon I had 40/50/60 dogs and I was quite involved. One day I met a gentleman from England, Billy Mitchel and he took a liking to me. I must have been about 18, and he started having me with him all the time, teaching me this and that, and I became what today you might call his assistant, taking care of everything from the car to the hotel, all the little things, I took in his every move, and sure enough I had his own hand in preparing a dog after a while. Ha! I learned that sort of thing far better than the
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language, my English was never very good, but I managed. I started bringing dogs back to Italy, and I was able to sell them to wealthy people interested in this sport who wanted the very best. I could sell a dog at the time for 20/30 million Lire. No quality dog could go for less than 5 thousand pounds which was good money. People were willing to invest in this sport at that period. I kept these dogs on for my clients and groomed and presented them. I had many memorable clients, the lawyer Bennelli in Florence was one of my great clients. He had about 250 dogs of all breeds in his kennel, from the Basset Hounds to the Mastino Napoletano; and his wife had terriers: Fox, Welsh, Scottish. I prepared them and presented them for her. I was beginning to become famous since the results of certain shows such as Florence, Rome or Milan were written up in the newspapers, and so even more people were interested in buying dogs. I met Peter Green over 50 years ago. He always gave