Mitch and Yvonne Wynn live in Lawrenceville, Georgia on six rolling acres where they raise and train their versatile collies. Their partnership goes beyond marriage with each playing a unique role at Wynhaven. Yvonne trains and shows multiple collies in conformation, obedience, agility and herding. The collies are her constant companions, bringing much joy and laughter into their home. Mitch enjoys playing with and spoiling their collie children. He is the behind the scenes dad who drives the RV to the dog shows, walks dogs at all hours, plays groom at the shows and helps Yvonne with their daily care. Occasionally you may even see him in the breed ring or running a dog in agility.

Our goal at Wynhaven is to produce beautiful smooth and rough conformation and performance collies that have outgoing personalities, sound movement, correct structure beautiful type and expression, and strong herding instinct. Quality not quantity is our goal. We only plan to breed occasionally, when we want a new collie puppy to train and show for versatility, as training takes several years to excel in many of the canine sports. We are members of the Collie Club of America (CCA), American Working Collie Club (AWCA), Collie Health Foundation, the Collie Club of Georgia and the North Georgia All Breed Herding Dog Association..

Here are Yvonne’s words on how she began in collies and how she formed her commitment to training dogs.

“I grew up with horses and spent much time as a youngster in equestrian activities. Our family collie, ‘Lassie’, was my constant companion. As an adult, when I realized, shortly after my 33 rd birthday, that I wanted to get a dog, naturally I turned to the collie because I loved and knew the temperament, intelligence and beauty of this breed. My interest in the breed led me to the Collie Club of Georgia where I met a local breeder, and acquired my first Collie, a Rough blue merle named ‘Rocky,’ in early 1997. We started him in a puppy class at four months of age at a local kennel club. This class reignited my interest in training animals and before long Rocky was enrolled in agility classes, followed by formal obedience training. Before I knew it, I was drawn to herding as well. It was great to see the natural drive to herd stock in our Collie breed. After my first experience with a herding clinic, I knew that I wanted to continue working all my dogs on stock in the future.

It was not until my second dog, ‘Harley,’ that I became interested in conformation as well. I have now trained four Collies in multiple events (agility, obedience, rally and herding) since my start in dogs in 1997, and have handled three of my four dogs to their conformation championships as well as all of their other performance and versatility titles. They are:

Gay Mill Rock Around the Clock, CDX, RN, MX, MXJ, HIC, BPD, VCX – Rocky

VCH Ch. Bo-Dandy’s Harley Davidson, CD, RE, HSAs, OA, AXJ, BPD, VX – Harley

Am/Can CH Row-Bar Wynhaven Dakota Sky, CD, RN, HSAds, HIAds, AX, AXJ, BPD, OFA, VCX, VX – ‘Cody’

Ch. Wynhaven Society’s Cover Girl, CD, RN, PT, OAP, AJP, VA – ‘Nikki’

I feel strongly that “The most important thing is that you enjoy working with your collie and appreciate the special bond that forms between you and your companion. All this performance training is not only good exercise for our collies but for us as well.”