berni pásztorkutya tenyészetAdventures with the Bernese Mountain Dogs/stories from the life of a family/How it all started? Well, we were sitting in our living room and my husband was watching TV. I was eagerly looking the first Dog Magazine that I had bought, because we were planing to move into a family house. "Which one should I choose? " I was thinking by myself when my husband said: "I really envy you! We can hardly pay for our house, and your biggest problem is to decide which breed to take. "One week after our moving to the new house, on an August morning:"I'm leaving. . . " I said. "Where are you going? ""I'm going to pick up the dog. . . " ( silence for a while) "Which breed did you choose? ""A vizsla" was the categorical answer. . . . And that day everything changed. . . The vizsla "transformed" a bit because I caught sight of Alida. I immediately fell in love with her, picked her out of the boot of a car and rushed home. On our way home my younger sister read out the instructions we fortunately got from the breeder. I realized that I don't even know what a puppy eats. "Potential puppy owner" I would say sarcastically now. I was distressed a bit as we arrived home. I left Ali on the terrace and went to the kitchen. I praised the meal my husband had cooked while I was away, and was waiting for the "storm". . . Time passed. . . 5 minutes. . . 7 minutes. . . 10 minutes. . . What strange noises are coming from the terrace! . . . What is happening out there? . . . I looked outside. . . VICTORY! . . . My husband, Vili was on all fours and was "speaking" to the dog as he did with his children. He also fell in love the puppy! Alida immediately became a member of our family, she became our 4th child with all the happiness and all the sorrow as it is. She always became ill at the weekends to make it harder to find a vet. Every time we were going to a show she lay down in the mud. To make her a well- behaved dog, we entered a dog school at 7 months of age, with 11 months we passed the exam. We were members of a team presenting obedience shows. To be honest we were not in the team because of Alida's "perfect" behaviour, we were rather the clowns. We had our "special performed exercises" like "he down". She did it but on her back. She jumped the agility fence only if I went with her. And the crawling exercise was also more comfortable with me - on my back. Then in the spring we realized that Lizi, a friend of Alida, had a big tummy. Of course, none of us knew what would happen: as the time arrived for Lizi, she placed herself in Ali's bed and gave birth to her puppies there. The whole family was there with her, Alida, too and she wanted to help with moaning. Wouldn't it be great if we had such caring babysitters among us too? When the cat mama went for a walk, Alida sat beside the little cats and was not moving away from there until Lizi came back. "She will surely make a good mother" I thought. "What about would begining with breeding? Let's buy a puppy! "On that summer Panka arrived in our home. Alida was really happy to have a companion and became a puppy again. . . From that time they dug huge holes together in our garden under the pear tree and as I got home I had not two but four paw prints on my clothes. We soon realized that Panka must have had mountain goats between her ancestors, because she climbed on everything she could. For example on the table, on the chair, on the ladder and naturally over the fence to our neighbours. On one of her trips she "lost her way" and fell on the head of a rottweiler that of course was shocked and attacked her. A crowd gathered in the street. As I tried to rescue her, everyone gave me advise but nobody wanted to get involved. Luckily Mr. Arno, the rottweiler let her go - this time Panka found her way home without hesitating. The next spring was full of excitement. We had to find for Alida the proper stud dog. Let's have a look in the literature! "Now I will tell you a fairy tale about breeding dogs" "Please don't" "OK , than we will study genetics. " It was not exactly like that. We had our first rendezvous and 2 months later we had our first big "event". Worrying. . . What shall we do? . . . Oh Lord, it's the 7th and there are still some to come! . . . Finished! . . . How many are there? . . . 6 boys and 4 girls. And then we were at the beginning again. "What does such a small puppy eat? " Of course the mother can't feed so many pups! Calm down! I have 3 children, it can't be harder than raising 2- legged children! Where are the nipples? Of course everything turned out well. The puppies grew and left for their new homes. We cried every time, but were happy that all of them found such good owners like us.