Jamie Souza Bartlett

Jamie Souza Bartlett has known Irish Wolfhounds her entire life. Her grandmother, Janet, gave Jamie's mother, Linda, her first Wolfhound when Jamie was just two years old, and Jamie has been involved in breeding and handling under the Limerick name ever since. She entered the show ring with an Irish Wolfhound for the first time at the NCIWC specialty in 1984, and received her first Whippet at age eleven — a breed she has also bred and shown under the Limerick prefix for decades. She is also the co-owner and breeder of several Afghan Hounds and Salukis.

As a child and teenager, Jamie devoted nearly all her free time to the sport of dogs. She worked for four years for Patricia Trotter (Craige) of the famed Vin-Melca Norwegian Elkhound kennel, and from the eighth grade through high school, for legendary Whippet handler Mary Dukes. During these same years, Jamie built an accomplished junior handling career presenting Whippets, Irish Wolfhounds, and Salukis. She was named California Junior Handler of the Year in 1992, and in 1993 won the World Series of Junior Handling, earning the honor of representing the United States at both Crufts and the World Show. At the World Show, she handled the influential Int. BL. NL. Ch. Quincy of Kilmara, and coordinated a breeding between Quincy's sister and the Souza's' own "Noll" — a pairing that produced Limerick's first all-breed Best in Show winner and, in 2003, Limerick's first National Specialty winner.

Jamie and her mother went on to campaign their Irish Wolfhounds to the Number One ranking in the country in fourteen of the following twenty-eight years. In 2013, Jamie, Linda, and Janet were honored together as the AKC's Hound Group Breeders of the Year — three generations of the same family recognized for a program that, across more than fifty years, has produced just sixteen litters, guided always by a philosophy of quality over quantity.

In recent years, Jamie has shifted much of her focus to judging, a change that lets her stay close to the sport she loves while making room for her family and career. She is AKC-approved for a select group of hounds, including Irish Wolfhounds, Whippets, Afghan Hounds, and Salukis, as well as Junior Showmanship, and has judged specialties and shows across the United States, Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom, France, Italy, and Sweden. She plans to establish the next chapter of the Limerick breeding program once she is permanently settled in Wyoming, with stored genetics from the family's finest dogs — a direct line back to Roaree of Limerick — ready to carry the Limerick name into its fourth generation.