HOW DID IT BEGIN?

As a small child I already longed for a dog. We lived in a small flat in a block of flats in Litomerice – and a dog was said not to belong to a town and especially to a block of flats. Many people told that those times. When we moved (to another block of flats , but to a bigger flat), they could not stand me anymore. Finally I won and from 1980 there was a new family member with us – very nice bitch of a black middle-sized poodle called Dyna. I didn’t know anything about an organized breeding and shows etc. so according to many friends’ advices we bought Dyna as a puppy without pedigree. We were lucky – she came from a litter bred with love, she was healthy and for us the most beautiful of all (even though as to poodle breeders it just wasn’t a thoroughbred poodle).

Dyna lived with us happily 12 years! As a proper poodle she learned many tricks except bringing shoes (when wanted to go outside, she brought a whole couple without a command, when lazy she was able according to a repeated request “bring the second one” to bring all left shoes from the shoe-rack to the first right one) or jumping over various hurdle (with her height of 40cms she jumped over a whole bench with a back without a touch – oh, how wonderful would it be doing agility with such a dog today!). Dyna could enjoy her life and lived it fully.

Getting more clever and having visited few shows (the ones in Litomerice belonged already to the well known and numerously visited by both exhibitors and spectators) I started to long for a thoroughbred dog with pedigree. And because we were about to move to a house, my idea was clearer – I want a longhaired shepherd to go to shows and to train. And that was a problem – to find in 1985 a longhaired shepherd for shows and training. German shepherd was even longhaired, but according to its standard it was undesirable (it would be a defect on shows). Collie was beautiful and elegant, but it was not one of the races of Svazarm, that organized the dog training and tests (and some kind of shepherd training was impossible that time). And other longhaired shepherds in Czech Republic? – none! That was what I thought until I saw in a magazine a picture of a beautiful imposing dog - a typical shepherd, but longhaired and more elegant than the German one, and more „doggy“ (let the fans of collies forgive me) than a collie. It was a Belgian shepherd - Tervueren!

I was in love at first sight and started to write letters to all breeders of Belgian shepherds (you could count them by fingers that time). After a long thinking I chose a breeder and waited one year for a first litter of puppies from a dog just imported from Belgium. But the destiny decided – there wasn’t a girl for me in the chosen litter. In a desperate situation I started to look for a puppy and then went to the first kennel where they had them. That way came to our family in the spring 1988 my first Belgian shepherd, a tervueren Arnika Borreli. She was a great bitch, intelligent, sensitive, clever, with a strong temperament and empathic. We have done together few tests (including ZVV2 and IPO2), took parts in competitions and shows (she was my first Champion and got her first CAC even on the World Show in Brno). Arnika became a founder of breeding in the kennel Perla mahagon. Later of course came other Belgian shepherds, not only tervuerens, but also groenendaels (simply „the hairy ones“), and to give a bigger “comfort” to their shepherd lives, we moved to a village. Arnika lived to 11 years and even though she is not here anymore, her spirit still stays with us. And the beauty end elegance of Belgian shepherds runs around us thanks to our groenendael Klerken and very promissing tervueren Isis.