It’s pedigree or nothing: Ensuring best breed of man’s best friend

To this discerning group, getting the right dog is a study in genealogy, going years back to trace the registered parents and grandparents. The details sought, sometimes dating back to the 1970s, include the fitness of its ancestors and whether there have been any genetic defects along the line.

Any dog they own has to be registered with the East Africa Kennel Club (EAKC), an internationally recognised organisation that has been around since 1919 and which has its headquarters in Nairobi’s Karen.

At the club’s registry, you can view a record of a dog’s lineage spanning back three generations or more, all in the spirit of ensuring the genes are as pure as possible. Purity often means a dog’s parents are not related in any way and that they have most of the desirable qualities for the species.

Some members of this choosy group participate in competitions at different times a year where a judge awards marks depending on how close the dogs are to the standard breeds. Owners of dogs that are most conformed to the pure species are then given trophies and certificates.

One such member is Michael Omondi, a 40-year-old graphic designer who currently rears 18 German Shepherds for breeding in Uthiru in the outskirts of Nairobi.

Today, Mr Omondi and an estimated 80 others who breed German Shepherds will head to the EAKC headquarters in Nairobi, each accompanied by his choice canines.

It will be the second and final day of a bi-annual event organised by German Shepherd Dog League of the EAKC.

According to Mr Yusuf Hussein, a dog trainer who is the chairman of EAKC’s German Shepherd Dog League, today’s focus will be on the breeding class.

“The breed class is in regard to the construction of the German Shepherd from the tip of the nose to the tip of the claws,” he told Lifestyle. “That is done to improve the breeding in Kenya so that we make sure we are in line with Germany, South Africa, the Netherlands. All over the world, the standard is the same.”

Mr Omondi’s female dog, Kilele Wendi, has previously won two awards in the league and he hopes it will scoop yet another.

The four-year-old dog in 2015 emerged the best puppy and in November last year was the best female dog in the show. Mr Omondi believes that the reason for the success is because in 2013 he insisted on buying the dog from a breeder registered with the local kennel club.

Kilele Wendi’s star shone even brighter last month when it beat about 220 others to be granted the “best in show” award in a competition not just for German Shepherds but for pooches of other species.

The contest was held on May 13 and 14 and was the 162nd edition of such a show that is held twice every year at the EAKC headquarters.

In such an event, a judge gauges dogs’ temperaments, how they bite, whether their front and rear quarters are at the right angle, how well they carry their ears, among other attributes, then selects winners depending on the species and age of the dog.

Mr Keith Baldwin, an Englishman, was the judge during the May event, taking over from a Scot, Mr Ronnie Irving, who had been the judge at the preceding championship held on October 15 and 16 last year.

Among the dog breeds that participated in the competition are pugs, German Shepherds, Rottweilers, Alaskan Malamutes, Caucasian Shepherds, Saint Bernards, Deerhounds and Rhodesian Ridgebacks.

Mr Omondi’s Kilele Wendi impressed the judge the most.

“Lovely feminine bitch with a nice expression. Ears well carried. Dark eye and good dentition. Nice body shape with firm back. Well-angulated hind quarters. Nice underline. Good rear quarters, with well-angulated stifle. Free flowing mover with power,” stated the judge.

THE FANATICS

The qualities listed by the judge are among the attributes that people who are fanatical about owning pedigree dogs look for.

There are others who have gone to the extent of spending tonnes of cash in importing dogs to ensure the canines are of the desired quality. One of them is Mr Muraya Guare, the Assignments Editor at NTV.

Two of the German Shepherds that Mr Guare owns are imports — one from Germany, another from Romania.

A German Shepherd he had obtained locally, he said, did not impress him.

“I have tried sourcing them locally but I did not like them because most of them are bred for show, where the focus is on the dog’s beauty and how the back curves and so on. I didn’t like the temperament. I did not enjoy the dog. I wanted a certain kind of temperament and characteristic in a dog,” he said.

Mr Guare believes that breeders in countries like Romania and Germany have been adhering to the best practice and this ensures their genetic makeup is as close as possible to the originals. He believes that the purer a dog is, the easier it is to train.

“You can train them in either sniffing or attack work. They’re easier to train. They also have better temperament in terms of response to panic-inducing situations. For instance if you came at my Romanian dog with a gun, it will be a little bit more tolerant than many show dogs we have around that will hear the sound of a gun and run away,” he said.

Mr Guare took Lifestyle through working-dog.com, a website where all pedigree dogs from Germany and other countries are listed. The photo of the dog he bought is available on the site, same as photos of its parents and its grandparents.

“The pedigree gives you an idea of the dog you want. For instance, for this dog I bought, you can see its working certificate and an indication that it does not have any genetic disorder,” he said. “The genetics will assure you that you’re likely to land closer to what you want than when you go for a dog whose lineage you don’t know.”

To import a dog, he said, one should be ready to part with at least Sh300,000.

“A puppy goes for around Sh300,000. There is the cost of the dog and there is the cost of the freight. Freight is dictated by weight,” he said, adding that he spent Sh1.2 million for one of his imported dogs because he bought it when it was fully grown.

Once he imports them, he registers them with the EAKC as it is a globally recognised body when it comes to registering dogs.

PROVIDING SECURITY

A registration certificate he showed Lifestyle indicates that one German Shepherd from Germany born on July 27, 2016 was registered by EACK on January 5.

Mr Guare says his dogs are mostly for providing security, because since 2015 he has not bred dogs for sale out of what he calls the infiltration of “quacks” that breed dogs unprofessionally just to sell.

Confident that the puppies that will be produced if he breeds his dogs will sell out quickly, Mr Guare believes importation is the only way to ensure he has the best dogs.

“The import is necessary because you need new gene pools. You need a new kind of dog with different characteristics. It may be a German Shepherd but not the same one with the one going to the show on Sunday, for instance,” he said.

But local breeders like Mr Omondi, the owner of the Von Kijani Kennel, believe standards in Kenya are not bad.

Ever since he got Kilele Wendi and another German Shepherd in 2013, he has bred and sold about 37 puppies, each going for between Sh45,000 and Sh75,000.

Mr Omondi has come to understand that mating is not just a dog coupling with another. One has to study the pedigree of both dogs to ensure they possess the right qualities to be passed to the offspring.

“When you have a pedigree, you can trace the family tree back to the 1980s or the 1970s. You can see what lineage that pedigree carries. And also, you know what to expect in terms of the character and temperament of the dog,” said Mr Omondi who is also a co-founder of Perfect Vision Group, an advertising agency.

Twelve of the 18 German Shepherds he currently owns, which are not for sale but for breeding, are females. The youngest is eight months while the oldest is three years.

“A German Shepherd has to have that inborn hereditary aggression so that training is administered and people are able to control it. If it is a humble, less aggressive dog, then that is a fault. Correcting that fault would mean that at the point of breeding, you look for the mate that has a high level of aggression so that the puppies are corrected,” he said.

Giving birth

Mr Hussein, the chairman of EAKC’s German Shepherd Dog League who is also a dog trainer, said the best practice for breeding a pedigree dog is that it gives birth only five times in its life.

Also, the female should be at least 18 months old while the male should not be younger than 20 months. Once the dog hits eight years, it should not reproduce any further.

He noted that before a dog can mate, practitioners go to the extent of determining the hip score through taking x-ray scans of its hips to ensure it does not have hip dysplasia, a condition that renders dogs immobile before their second birthday.

The German Shepherd, said Mr Hussein, sits at the top of the three most popular breeds in Kenya, followed by the Labrador then the Rottweiler.

Security companies, he noted, are among those who treasure purebred German Shepherds.

“Most of the security companies are corporate members of the Kennel club,” he said, adding that over the past decade, the security firms have been trying to improve on their breeding practices.”

“You have Security Group, Wells Fargo, G4S, BM Security. They are many now. They are members and because of that we educate them on the way forward. And they’ve really improved. Looking at them 10 years back and now, you’ll see that they’ve really improved. At one time we used to visit them and see that they had good dogs but they were not feeding them well or they were inter-breeding: brother to sister, son to mother, all that,” he said.

One thing bothering pedigree dog enthusiasts is the sale of haphazardly bred dogs, most of which are hawked at markets in Nairobi and elsewhere.

While the recommended rate of a dog giving birth is once a year, some of these practitioners want the pooches to reproduce up to three times per year, which Mr Hussein said compromises the quality of the breed. However, he believes attitudes are changing.

“Dogs, when they’re small, they’re all very cute and very attractive to the eye. You will fall in love with them. But many people have now realised that when you see the puppy, you ask to see the mother and the father if possible,” he said.

The Kennel club, he added, does not register any dog that is produced without adherence to the breeding rules.

On the club’s website, there are 16 listed breeders located in various parts of Kenya.

“The Kennel club is very essential to people who are breeding dogs; not only German Shepherds but all breeds because it is out to promote dogdom in Kenya. It is also like the style book. It’s the only place where you get all the records of any breed,” said Mr Hussein.

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We can’t trade our dogs’ company for any other: owners

For most residents living in middle-income estates in the city and in other urban areas, the dog is now a prized member of the family that not only spends most of its waking hours snuggling on the couch but also enjoys a regular bath and a special diet.

In the past, you could only come across these pedigree dogs and their owners in the city’s leafy suburbs. But not anymore. Fluffy dogs of all shapes and sizes and their doting owners are now a common sight in even less affluent parts of the city.

In Nairobi’s Harambee Estate, for instance, the family of Mr and Mrs Geoffrey Odondi is a proud owner of a pedigree dog, a Chihuahua called Bush. Visiting the family, it is not hard to tell why owning indoor dogs is becoming the in-thing. The family has barely had the dog for one year but you can tell that the bond is unbreakable.

The Odondis’ household takes turns to ensure that Bush is cleaned regularly, fed properly and taken for routine walks.

The family has long realised that acquiring a Chihuahua, a poodle, a Japanese Spitz, a Pomeranian or any other much sought-after pet dog and giving it a fancy name is the only fun part. The real task is the readjustment needed to accommodate the new family member because purebred dogs need a lot of care.

Elsewhere in Nairobi’s Imara Savanna, the Gitaus keep in their compound two German Shepherds, Asha and Karl, whose collective howl can send a burglar flying over a perimeter wall.

Although their access to the family’s house is restricted mainly because of their massive sizes, it is not hard to tell the fondness between master and dog.

And if you thought these fierce canines are averse to being petted, think again. They have a softer side and are equally playful.

Ms Jean Gilchrist, the director of animal welfare at the Kenya Society for the Protection and Care of Animals, says that even bulkier dogs, including the German Shepherd and the Rottweiler, can be trained to be house dogs.

“A big dog can create a mess in the house, but so can human beings,” says Ms Gilchrist.

The Gitaus admit that taking care of the Alsatians is not a walk in the park as it requires massive resources and time. “When travelling, for instance, you have to plan for their care,” says Michelle Gitau.

In Buru Buru, Mr Allan Obenjo says he has had dogs as pets since he was a small boy. He currently owns a South African Boerboel, a Great Dane and a Rottweiler.

Mr Obenjo reckons that keeping a pet is a massive responsibility that no one should take lightly.

And in Jacaranda Estate, Lucy Owara and her sisters are besides themselves with joy eight months after acquiring Khalifa, a cross-bred between a Japanese Spitz and Chihuahua. 

Clearly for the Owaras, it was money well spent because Kahlifa is playful and a joy to behold.

Khalifa has recently been losing her fluffy long hair probably to make way for the fur she will have as an adult and there is evidence of this on the sofa sets and even the carpet. But the Owaras don’t mind this.

“She is still growing,” says Lucy.

–  BY PAUL NYABICHA