Dogs have been an integral part of my life since I was born. As a child, it happened to me many times that I slept in the kennel of our dog and tried some dog food from its plate. We have been keeping puli dogs for more than twenty years but these days public security is quite uncertain even in a village.
We needed a dog that shows strenght and confidence, and protects its territory in a reliable way. If my mother has time to go for a run only in the evenings, she does not need to be afraid of anything because she can go together with a companion that can make the monotonous kilometres more entertaining. Besides this, she can feel totally safe as she is guarded by a Sarplaninac dog with its 55 kilograms and 6-8 centimetres big tusks.
However, when choosing a breed it was an important factor for us that the dog must be family-centred, treatable and can tolerate little care. For the first time I saw a Sarplaninac at my workmate’s. He lives on a fenceless ranch where he needed effective guard, that is why he got two Sarplaninac dogs from Serbia. One of them is a classic steel grey, the other one is white. Unfortunately, the expected litter I intended to buy failed.
That was how I met Zsolt Csapó (Akela Népe Kennel) from whom I bought little Mira (ICH , HJCH, HCH, SRB CH, RO CH, 2X Special Sarp. Exhibition winner, 7 CACIB, 13 CAC) in 2009. It changed my whole life.
I took her to an exhibition first to Serbia at the age of 9 months. It is the greatest annual special exhibition called Smederevska Palankara where more than a hundred Sarplaninac dogs are entered every year. To my great surprise my dog became the winner of the category. Theoretically, it was supposed to be the most beautiful bitch of the exhibition, however, it could not be stated in practise because of its young age.
The other positive consequence of this trip was to get acquainted with a great team. There was no way back then – the taste of success, the atmosphere of the exhibitions, the new friendships and getting to know a very interesting world, ‘the Balkan’ were all the pleasant results of one single dog, one breed.
Besides the exhibitions in Hungary we travel to the native land of the breed several times every year. The aim of these trips is to get to know the authentic Sarplaninac in its original habitat with its original functions as it has been working besides sheep and shepherds against wolves for hundreds of years. We do not want the Sarplaninac to lose its most important features because of new trends – its toughness, light and harmonic movement, intelligence and health.
This was how I got to Montenegro where besides the beautiful scenery I could encounter one of the most famous breeders, the legend of that time, Slavko Martinovic. We were all impressed by his hospitality and enthusiasm towards Sarplaninac. During the conversations that kept until dawn we could listen to a lot of stories and legends illustrated with photos and videos.
After this experience it got even clearer to me that a breeder cannot reproduce and overrate the natural evolution of hundreds of years of a breed only within 5 or 10 years. Particularly not in the case of a sheep dog in which instincts play a vital role. That is why we are searching for a dog that is an outstanding specimen in its natural habitat. Sanyi Barna and Zsolt Csapó were able to find Karabas Gafurov, the father of Mira.
The idea to mate him with Meda was great. Their puppies that were taken to exhibitions have all been successful, and the others have also become real favourite family members and guard dogs. All have excellent build and anatomy, they are intelligent and motile as it is proved by the photos and the video.
Mira was eleven months old when it became the Hungarian Junior Champion. At the age of two it got the titles of Hungarian, Romanian and Serbian Champion. In addition to these, it has the titles of 4HPJ, 13 CAC, 6 CACIB. What I am the most proud of is its title of The Most Beautiful Bitch at the Special Sarplaninac Exhibition in Kula. Mira was chosen out of seventy dogs. This is a title that a dog from a Hungarian breed can rarely get in the native country of the breed.
We deal with breeding with the belief that we will be able to give the same successful breed representative and mainly healthy specimen to the future owners who intend to have dogs from oue breed.
2014. 03.
Attila Téttry