This is how it all started.....

Ever since I was very small I have had a great interest in ALL animals. I rather watched animal programme than cartoons. The reason I mention this is so that you can see why my parents resigned at the age of twelve and gave me a dog. I had been nagging since I was six years about getting a dog preferable a Basset Hound but any dog would do.
My parents was quite sure that this interest wouldn’t last so they wanted a dog that the whole family would agree on. We had met Shih-Tzu through my classmate Pernillas mother who has Popeye’s kennel. Through this acquaintance we learned to know this wonderful breed. This was a dog that my mother would like to care of if my interest would fade.
But of course it never did fade on the contrary. The year after did we have two Shih-Tzus Ida (Popeye’s Cute Cinebar Choise) and Elin (Popeye’s Djinnie Djinnie). Since I hardley gave anybody else any chance to cuddle with the first dog, Ida my mother wanted another one so that she also could get the feeling of having a dog. Pernilla and Charlotte brought me with them to dog shows and that woke my interest. Ida wasn’t a big showstar but she is anyway one of the most beautiful Shih-Tzus I ever met that is her personality. We had many lovely years at the dog club nearby training obedience both as participants and instructors. Elin had a great heart and she was also a lovely show dog. She was my first show dog and my first Champion.


Ida and Elin

I have then been involved in the breed in many ways. For a couple of years I worked at Lady Chimas kennel. During this period I bought my first dog Chico (Lyckobringarens Wu-Ling-Wong). I feel in love the first time I saw him in his big round head with the softest expression and big black eyes. Unfortunately did I spoil this young man rotten which ended in that he didn’t do any things he didn’t want to do. He looked like he was going to die of boredom every time I took him to a show for example.


My first day with Chico

During Chicos first year with us we went to kennel Fossella to have a look at a litter. At that time I shouldn’t buy another dog. This was a good decision until I met HER! She wasn’t for sale and I shouldn’t have any more dogs.... A year and a half later SHE moved in with me because she did chose me. This is Inez (Fossella Dish of The Day). Inez has meant a lot to me and for the way I see the breed. With all her pros and cons she stands for the type of Shih-Tzu I want.
Any minute I can see a picture in my head of a black and white Shih-Tzu puppy floating over the floor at kennel Fossella from January 1997. That is a picture that a pick out of my memory anytime I feel the slightest insecurity about I think the breed should stand for. This has been a good platform to stand on, to have Bodil Fossenius as a breeder to your dogs.
I have had the breed since 1988 and I wouldn’t change one single minute with this wonderful breed. The kennels I have been inspired by is Popeye’s, Lyckobringaren, Lady Chimas and Fossella.


I would like to end my story by a quotation from Bodil Fossenius that I think we should bear in our minds:


”We have the future of our breed in our hands and we must preserve it to the next generation who shall live with it and take over from us. We shall not develope it because then it will not be the same breed that our descendants will experience”.

 

 This is a standard I will try to live up to when I show my dogs or let people use my dogs at stud.