In our wildest dreams we couldn't imagine that we will one day become the owners of 16 medium sized mix-breed dogs and 3 toy-mini breeds. We have had earlier only 2 large male dogs, but never a female dog. In 1993 we bought at a Sunday market, brother and sister as 6 weeks old pups. Their ancestors are Doberman, Bull Terrier and Staffordshire Bull Terrier. We kept them together in a very roomy dog kennel (3x8 meters) and because we haven't seen any sign of heat at the female pup or any sign of mating together when we daily exercised them in the yard, we were sure that we had not to neuter one or both at that stage. But we were wrong. At 9 1/2 months the female pup got neutered by Cesarean section with the delivery of 13 pups. One died at the pet hospital, the other shortly afterwards. We asked the vet to painlessly and quickly put down 7-8 of the newborn pups but he refused with the argument, that with such a big litter, other pups may still die and then we possibly would have none of them. Because of the vet's advice we bought at this pet clinic a lot of special milk powder and bottles for the pups, then fed them 7 times in 24 hours, and permanently fed them on their mum's teats. I boiled each time the water for the milk powder and the bottles before feeding the pups as I did with my own children, which were all grown up healthy without any serious illnesses. (I was raised in a household of a doctor of medicine and a senior nurse, 2 of my sisters are nurses, 2 nieces have studied in microbiology, one with Ph.D. and one niece is a doctor of medicine. We were all raised fighting viruses and bacteria!) Under these circumstances none of the pups died but all 11 survived healthily & happily. We spent hundreds of dollars in different newspapers with the intention to find caring homes for them and sent 10 folders away with photos and description of each pup. But the people who were interested in our pups did not qualify to receive them after they all told us how they were treating their own dogs or used them as "pig dogs". As responsible people, who have learned to love and respect each of the pups we didn't want to throw them on the street like some other cruel people do (we never ever have seen before in our life so many dead or starving dogs on the highways in our area) or to bring them to the vet for putting down, or to bring them to the dog shelter or the RSPCA where most of them will get killed after a couple of days. Do you know that in 1994 the RSPCA has had to put down 35.000 unwanted & abandoned dogs & cats, in 1997 they have had to kill 85.000 dogs & cats and in 1999 the figures went up to ca. 280.000 or more because of unresponsible dog-and cat owners. We didn't want to become guilty the same way, so we kept the parents & pups with a very deep sigh. In the meantime we have got in exchange so much love and trust each day again and again from the doggies that we want to keep all of them to the end of their protected and happy dog life.

People have asked us why we are keeping our dogs in kennels and runs, instead of letting them roam freely around. That's easy to explain:

We are responsible, not only in a verbal manner, animal lovers. That means, we want to care and want to feel responsible, not only for our own dogs and cats, but other people's dogs & animals too, including the highly valuable and beautiful Australian wildlife. We are also aware that in each dog are still the genes of a wolf, it's ancestor, and know that science found out that the non-manageable genetic structure of humans and dogs is 80% and only 20% of it is manageable by education & surrounding. You can't teach a dog, against its 80% of the genes as a hunter & killer like a wolf is, not to kill.

If there's an opportunity each dog will try to hunt and maybe to kill, even one of our toy-mini breeds, which is not longer than 15cm body size, tries to hunt and kill grasshoppers and butterflies, sometimes with success! We are keeping our 3 toy breeds house trained in our home and 2 guard dogs in the front and back of it. But all dogs are trained to feel good & satisfied in kennels and are secured in their roomy cages if we are travelling with them.

The media always reports, that people are wounded or killed by roaming dogs, or that cats or other animals were killed by dogs which have the freedom to be unlocked. If dogs are well cared for and well fed in clean kennels each with long 10-15 meters, high-fenced runs they are able to lead a very happy and fulfilling dog life. However, each dog owner should socialize his/her dogs in puppy schools, dog clubs and should take time to play with or exercise them. The basic obedience should be trained regularly. But freely roaming dogs may always be a danger for humans and other animals. It's not a cruelty to keep dogs in kennels with their secured runs, but it's a cruelty against humans and other animals to let them free without supervision! Nobody has the time to supervise a free roaming dog for 24 hours, and a dog will mostly find a way out of a fenced yard! Two of our female dogs are digging every day a new deep hole at the fence of their runs by trying to make a "visit" to our free-range ducks and chooks. Since 8 years, the parents & their pups are with us, we have permanently brought sacrifices for them by spending a lot of money and a lot of time for their welfare, which proves that we are loving them and want to care for our doggies in the future, too. They have changed our life dramatically in every aspect and brought us many unwanted troubles. But we have learned a lot because of them, especially our youngest son. He learned to operate a SVHS video camera and many of the film shots, which we made since 8 years of our dogs (ca. 220 film hours) were made by him! We want to market the films after finishing them and donate a high percentage to different animal welfare organizations.

In the meantime we have bought 2 very sick pups at a pet shop and Sunday market and immediately brought them to the vet. They have survived very well and are still with us. Also we have taken over 2 dogs from 2 different owners who wanted to move and were not allowed to keep their dogs but would have had to kill them. They too are still with us. Sometimes it is better to stay firm and not to try to solve other people's problems, but we couldn't!