Our dogs are our Life not our Living
To write for yourself and trying to talk about your great love
( Shar Pei ) is not easy to express with words ...
All started with a dog that has proven to be a great turning point in our lives.
This dog (Roxanne) was something we could not explain.
It helped me tremendously with a serious health problem that
I had so much that the dog was like getting the symptoms ...
I realized that she is not a simple dog.
I started to read a lot about the breed to see what is what makes it
so different beyond the proverbial wrinkles.
The bad news was that Roxanne did then pseudo pregnancy
and my Vet said we must mate her.
My logic saying that first of all we must find a healthy male to mate her.
I lived all the anxious to get right owners for these puppies. It was a nightmare....
By taking at least 10 phones a day from farmers asking me to give them to place them in a pet shop ...
Not we are not that kind of people.... I gave the puppies and kept one of my favorite Zizel.
There, I decided to create a site (sharpeilovers) to help people who have or
want to have shar pei to find information and avoid bad things.
My study took me to America and I start communicate with big breeders there,
I wanted to help the breed in my country because looking around it was full from Bad Hungarian Shar Pei(not all hungarian breeders are bad).
The advice of our friend Dee Dee Wells was that we must get a very good male to mate the Roxanne and Zizel.
She suggested me a friend of her in Italy who had a very nice litter.
After two years of study and decided it was time to get a good male.
We went to Italy to Khambaliq Kennel, we saw about six puppies,
and more than 25 shar pei to sleep around the fireplace happily,
I was impressed ... how can someone have so many ... Isabella told me
That Shar Pei are like Cherries,
You can never have only one you want more...
I remember that I laughed and I said how can someone have so many in such good condition ...
From the six puppies that I saw my eye fell on Baci ... There was something different.
I saw his mother, his father and was impressed, nice dogs with wonderful temper.
I said I will bring this dog in Greece and
I will help the pedigrees to escape from the poor Hungarian lines (there are also good lines but in Greece not).
With Baci we began to part more and more to shows and educate our eyes.
Things were pretty easy for Baci ... from his first show wins Best Baby Puppy in Show (all breeds).
In all shows he was going he was winning everything. He is the only dog in Greece that he had win all categories BIS in every life stage from baby to adult.
With Baci we stuck to the good of the bug for dog shows and because we like long trips we saw it as an opportunity to find excuses to travel worldwide.
The search and the need to meet people who have played a key role in the evolution of the breed.
He made us want to go to attend in Shar Pei specialty also because in Greece there was not many Shar Pei.
My friend in America told us that he would go to attend as a guest at a spesialti in Slovenia.
Official would be invited Matgo Law the man who saved the race that we cherish today.
I saw it as a great opportunity to learn more to meet the world and the most important people in the breed and see many dogs.
The trip to Slovenia was a great experience we competed with 69 shar pei(I had never seen so many gathered)
and what impressed us even more was that Baci at the age 9.5 months she won the title of Best Male!
Among dogs from 11 European countries, champions, European champions ...
The joy was great and the bug reports of dogs came even more into our lives.
It was a great school that trip the speech and the meeting with Matgo Law . I heard and saw with picturs by first hand the history of shar pei.
After Slovenia we began some of trips to study the breed and of course to study morphology (there is not better way to watch over Shar Pei with 100-140).
I joined the biggest Shar Pei Club of the world watching births, lines.
Soon understand what type of dog I like and what kind of dog I would like to use.
Next step was to find a good male for my girls to keep a female and mated to the Baci.
I had great help from my friend Isabella Pizzamiglio in Italy. She give me a dog in Greece a legend in this breed from a great American blood lines.
I went to Italy to get the True (KHAMBALIQ MARGEM TRUE STYLE) to be mated with Zizel.
Beautiful dog in all respects, with health status, morphology ...
My friend Stelios told me to mate also Roxanne to keep this line in Greece.
He was right saying that dogs must stay in Greece to help the breed ...
So I did two matings and I register my kennel name to FCI (Federation Cynologique world) ...
I chose the name in a minute ... the question to myself what are the dogs for me ... and of course a precious hug.
I was waiting the first litter, I felt proud that I managed to get this male in Greece ... maybe my selfishness perhaps what we say in Greece,
the evil eye, things went very, very bad that day ...
Saturday November 25 where we were saying how beautiful Zizel had been with her pregnancy, the bitch dead along with the puppies ...
Myocardial ... many puppies (8) who pressed together she had eaten her food, and Roxanne food and then she fall asleep in the sun ...
I have never experienced before so bad day in my life ...
I was running to save the babies with George, We did not knew how to erase the pain ...
we were saying we will have Roxane puppies and we will forget, but we were waiting Roxanne in 15 days ...
we were like zombies ... we decided to quickly get another dog but we wanted to be from the same father.
We took the phone and we ask Isabella if it has something to us, including a daughter of True ...
I flew to Italy the same day and brought home our Scaly.
It was something that made us forget the event (even it it was deep in our heart)...
After a few days we were waiting Roxi to have her puppies but something was not right here also...
Without the figure had fallen to our slippery balcony (we were near the sea and had humidity)
she entered to her welping box give birth but we can not figure out she is in pain ...
The result was to be born puppies died one after the an other from the many hours that were left inside ... destroy ... the 5 / 1 3 dead ...
The Vet was at home said that definitely she has an other one (ultrasound showed 5-7) ... then Fibi is born...
So weak puppy, our Vet said that definitely will not live ... I struggled to 3-4 hours, rubbing,
I put to the mom .. Roxi did not want her... but it was impossible to eat because she was too weak ..
For days used to collect milk from the Roxanne and feed her every 2 hours.
The third day,we are losing one of the other puppies ... ... we were awake for 15 days ... from Roxi and Fibi (the Molter was ok) ...
Finally Fibi survived and we named her PRECIOUS HUG TRUE SECRET OF LIFE ....
There Fibi opens a new chapter in our lives a wonderful dog.
It went along with Baci all shows, they began to win everywhere and the reviews were always amazing ... until now Fibi has won several time... ... (see Fibi's page)
In all this we have done until now with the confidence and presence in exhibitions
(the big breeders do not easily give a dog we added to the group of precious hug Storm and Token ...
two of the top lines in the world ... and together with the other dogs we are having we would do something different and above all healthy dogs with good character ...
All this made us change our lives ...
We have done so far many litters in our home.
We have 18 dogs living with us in our beds, the couches, our puppies grow with us with hugs and kisses.
Parents looking for dysplasia, have clear eyes and of course our dog nobody has done surgery in the eyes.
We give a Shar Pei in South Africa, America, Sweden, Belgium, Spain, Cyprus, Austria, Italy (not ordinary dog owners but breeders). And our dogs have excelled results all over the world.
With all these dogs have changed our lives and moved to the countryside so that the dogs have room to run play ...
our dogs come everywhere with us, walks for coffee, shopping, where dogs are allowed, vacation with us because they are part of of our family ...
We are thinking when we saw 25 dogs in front of the fireplace in Italy
that we will never see something like this again and now we are looking our fireplace and we admire our kids...
All this of course would not have succeeded without Dee Dee Wells, Isabella Pizzamiglio, Susanna Björnsson ...., George Kostopoulos and Stelios Makaritis.
Lila Leventaki
PS: SORRY FOR MY BAD ENGLISH...
PS: With some people maybe now we do no thave the best relationship in the world but... not matter what i can not turn my back to the fact for a period were very helpful to us.
