Sutherland's Kennels

Sutherland's Kennels was a stud kennel owned by Eric Sutherland.



In May 2000, Jack Duckworth and Tyrone Dobbs took Monica to the kennels in order to get her impregnated and were able to strike up a deal with Eric. While there Tyrone began to fancy one of the workers, Maria Sutherland, Eric's daughter.

In January 2005, Cilla Brown put her son Chesney's dog Schmeichel into the kennels after he ate her make-up bag. However, Chesney was later able to get the dog back when his sister Fiz discovered that Cilla was making money from Schmeichel being at the kennels.

In July 2005, Eric and his wife Dot Sutherland arranged a meal with Maria and their son Kirk Sutherland. During the meal the pair revealed that they were retiring to Cyprus and handing the kennels over to them. Maria was furious while Kirk was pleased at the idea. Despite being initially against inheriting the kennels, Maria later decided that they could easily cash in on the business - however, Kirk was against the idea as he was looking forward to running the business. Consulting their parents, Maria revealed that she hoped to use the money to open her own salon - although they decided to hand the business down to Kirk as they wanted the place to stay in the family.

Kirk and his girlfriend Fiz moved into the house at the kennels, but the noise of barking soon gets to Fiz - who is unable to sleep at night. Meanwhile, Sean Tully was attempting to get the attention of a local vet Tim White with whom he had a crush on. To do this he lied about having a pet dog (that he named "Bella-Sinead") and was later forced to borrow a dog from the kennels called Butch. While on a walk with Tim and the dog, Sean let him off his lead and he ran back to his owners - who subsequently refused to pay the kennel fees.

Maria later began to stick the knife in about how unsuited Fiz was to life at the kennels, and mocked her as she failed to feed the dogs properly. Fiz was left knackered by both running the kennels and working as a machinist at Underworld but refused to allow Maria to see her struggling. When Kirk went to visit his parents in Cyprus, Maria reveled watching the kennels fall apart under Fiz's management and delighted in telling her that one of the dogs had eaten their appointment book.

In September 2005, Maria hired Molly Compton as the new kennel supervisor - much to Fiz's horror as Molly was the victim of her bullying back in her youth. Molly quickly began getting revenge on Fiz by bossing her about and even locked her in a pen with Slaver an Alsation, who turned out not to be a badly behaved dog. When Kirk returned later that month he revealed that he had persuaded his parents to give Maria her share of the business back - when he saw the work Molly had done he agreed to let her stay on a trial basis.

In March 2006, Fiz attempted to get Kirk to agree to leave the kennels and to go traveling with her - but he refused citing that he was unable to leave for more than two weeks as he was in charge. Maria later suggested that Kirk should buy out her half of the business using money from a bank loan. However, the meeting with his bank manager didn't go to plan and he was unable to get the loan.

In May 2007, Kirk revealed to Maria that the kennels were being sued after he accidentally caused a pedigree dog to get castrated. Maria was left furious and they were both forced to sell the kennels and received nothing left over after they paid the compensation. Both Maria and Fiz blamed Kirk for the whole situation.

List of appearances
2000

2007