The first year of the war, 1940, dealt four big blows to the fledgling
breeding of longhairs: foundation sire "Faust" was killed in
an action on May 10th. A dog that had worked with the herds
for years and had been placed with Ir. Voskens in Tilburg (he was the
one that found him), ran away. This dog had come from Lage Mierde and he
was pensioned off, as his owner called it, for his exceptional work
during 8 or 10 years with the herd. The same happened to another dog
that came from behind the herd; this dog, also a male, came from
Hilvarenbeek and was placed with Mr. W. Klerk in Zeist. A month before
it disappeared I had seen it in Zeist. It was a beautiful longhair of
the old fashioned type and was destined to be my Herder's mate. On the
day of the mating the dog had disappeared. These dogs, true working
shepherd dogs, were not used to the lead or being chained or locked up
and they took to their heels at the first opportunity. We never heard
anything about them ever again. The chestnut brown bitch from Dr. v.d.
Akker's litter that was mentioned earlier died in a car accident shortly
after.Herder also showed the typical shepherd dog qualities; if you stood talking to
someone for too long, she would press her nose to your heels.
She was a
dog with a wonderful character and Dr. v.d. Akker saw and knew that.
Loyal, brave and intelligent she remains for me to this day the ideal as
far as character of the (longhaired) Dutch Shepherd Dog is concerned.
The consequence of the disappearance of Mr. Klerk's dog was that we had
to decide to have my Herder bred by a "second choice" dog, a
dog somewhere in Zeist. Immediately after the disappearance of the
original intended mate Dr. v.d. Akker took me there. He had built up
some sort of "reserve" at the time and with a bit of good will
this dog could be called a land breed longhair. But we had no choice,
Herder was to breed the next generation and the entire variety's future
hung in the balance. Nowadays, who would think of breeding their dog on
the first heat? Herder's colour was far from ideal too: yellowish-light
brown, almost sandy coloured. And to think that Dr. v.d. Akker was a
strong opponent of allowing any colour apart from gold- and silver
brindle. But the character was wonderful; that must have been the
deciding factor for him, coupled with the seriousness of my intentions.
Extending the base: Blida-Prins II - Djoeka-Cora van het Eigen Land
In the late summer of 1940 the second litter of longhairs was born from
Herder and the unknown dog in Zeist. Dr. v.d. Akker advised me to remove
any miss-colours from the litter and apart form one or two that was done.
I cannot remember if there were any shorthairs or dogs with white in
that litter. After a while Dr. v.d. Akker visited me and took and placed
all brindled dogs. We didn’t speak about money; it didn’t play any
role neither for him nor for me. He was of the opinion that you had to
feed a dog anyway, pregnant or not. My own dog I had bought off him for
NLG 7.50, a ridiculously low amount even for that time, in those days a
dog was at least NLG 25. The idea of making money of a litter was so far
away from our thoughts that it didn't even cross our minds, it was all
about succeeding in an almost impossible task: re-building the almost
extinct longhair! |
