Foxstand Kennels

William L. Shearer III established his Foxstand Kennels at first by trial and error. He started early in the 1930s, and his earliest breeding may have been unregistered. He acquired a male and female from the Seeley's foundation litter of Duke x Tanta of Alyeska and bred the female to a Seppala Kennels (Poland Spring) male Kegstedt (a son of the Leonhard Seppala leader Bonzo. He appears to have done one or two additional breedings with this early stock, but in the end the two Seeley dogs were sold to John D. McIlhenny Jr. and others from this earliest bloodline were also sold off.

The real beginning of Foxstand Kennels' bloodline came in 1940 with the mating of Millie Turner's Ch. Vanka of Seppala 2nd to an unregistered bitch Shearer had acquired at great expense from the Belfords, Sigrid 3rd of Foxstand. The resulting litter, consisting of Foxstand's Shango, Foxstand's Rombo,Foxstand's Colleen, Foxstand's Sukey, and Foxstand's Java, became the foundation of his breeding programme. Everything thereafter was based on that litter, with the addition of supplementary stock from the Harry Wheeler lines. Thus after an exploratory start with mixed lineage, Foxstand Kennels became one of the pillars of the Leonhard Seppala strain of Siberians, so much so that today we are apt to refer to the McFaul/Shearer bloodline to designate the main continuation trunk bloodline of the Leonhard Seppala sleddog descendants.