Our story
Two breeds, one philosophy.
A considered beginning
Two breeds, raised the same considered way.
Suzanne Goodchild didn't set out to breed two of the most different dogs imaginable. Papillons came first, in 1998 — all ears, all opinions — and a fascination with how much personality could fit into three kilograms of dog.
Then she met an Otterhound. Rare, shaggy, enormous, and somehow just as devoted a companion as the Papillon curled up on her lap. Szzan Kennel grew from both — one philosophy, applied to two breeds who could not look more different.
Suzanne is also an accredited Dogs Australia judge — the Toy, Hound and Non Sporting groups today, with Terriers next — a natural extension of a lifetime spent around good dogs, on both sides of the ring.
In the ring and at home
Decades of the same eye for a good dog.
It's a story that starts before either Papillons or Otterhounds, really. Suzanne's first dog was a Borzoi, back in 1989, and the SZZAN prefix was registered the year after — long before either of the breeds Szzan is known for today had arrived. Showing, and eventually judging, has run alongside the breeding the whole way: a term as president of the Papillon Club of Victoria, a fellowship with the Canine Museum, and now an accreditation to judge the Toy, Hound and Non Sporting groups, with Terriers next.
That time on the other side of the lead changes how you breed. Suzanne has spent as many years assessing other people's dogs against the standard as she has raising her own, and it shows in what she prioritises — soundness and temperament over trend, structure that holds up outside the ring as well as in it. In 2023 she imported one of the first new Otterhound bloodlines into Australia in some years — the same deliberate, long-view thinking that's guided every Papillon litter since 1998.
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Whether it's a Papillon or an Otterhound you're picturing, tell us about the home you're hoping to bring one into, and we'll come back to you personally.
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