In Memorian

more info on some dogs, click the photo

Nirvana de Omega Matari crossed the rainbow at 03-09-2009. 

We will never forget her. May she rest in peace in doggie heaven.

Our thoughts are with Vana's loving owners Sue and David Whitehead who did all they could for Vana but still had to loose the battle.

  1st foto: Vanas just arrived home after winning V1  red rossete in her first show

  2nd foto: Vana after digging in the garden

  3rd foto: Vana happy laying in the porche of her home

                       -------------------------------------------                                        

 Lars van de Contente 11.09.1990 - 11.08.1996

Lars......he was just a great dog. The picture we have of him doesn't do him any honor at all, but it is all i've got from him.
Reality is that he was a beautifull male, middlesized, very attentive and nice proportions. He was son of famous Champion Benno von der Schwarzenheide, who was later sold to the U.S.A.
Larses brother of litter, Lucas was allready sold to Australia as a show and working dog.
I bought Lars when he was one and a half years old. I knew he was bred 

  by mister Goof Kuypers from "van de Contente kennels" in the Netherlands.
  We found Lars here in Spain, and a weird story was told about him. I don't like to go into details how 

  Lars came to Spain and what was done to him afterwards, but i can say that mentally he was very damaged 

  when i bought him.
  He was excesively agresive, especially with men. 

  Anything could put him of, sunglasses, working-overalls, headcaps..........any of those things would wake up 

  a terrible agresive reaction in him.
  Knowing his breeder, mister Goof Kuypers, i knew that none of his dogs ever showed this kind of caracter. 

  Lars was allready a year old when he came to Spain, and i knew that mister Kuypers would not have sold the 

  dog being like as he was when i found him.
  Lars had been treated wrongly during his trainings and that had made him into a insecure and dangerous dog.
  To train a dog you need to have notion of dog psicology, every dogs reactions are different, they are 

  all individuals just like us.
  It is so easy to damage a dog in its behaviour, in basic obedience trainig and even more in defence training.
  If you don't know how to train your dog then better not start, ask a specialist.
  Anyway, my husband has had to endure a lot in the beginning of having Lars around the house. I had to 

  keep Lars away from any human being and lock him away in a kennel when i was not around. 
  But i just knew that inside of him there was a wonderfull caracter hidden, he just had gotten very damaged. 

  He didn't show himself as he really was.
  In the time he had left Goof Kuypers place untill i bought him he had been abused of in a horrible way.
  It took me more then a year, bit by bit introducing him to people agian, with a lot of pacience and loads of 

  l love, and ofcourse the corrections at the right moments. But i can say passing this period of 

  re-education (maybe re-habilitation would be a better word...) Lars made himself very loved by a lot of people.
  He never even tried to betray me or anyone that handeld him in my presence. At the vets clinic he would 

  behave very properly and our vets loved him very much. He was a kind and noble dog.
  He has sired a lot of litters for us and others, and we have had beautifull puppies from him. I did not walk 

  a lot of shows, but when his offspring was being showed they have recieved always "very promessing, very good   or excelent".
  I showed Lars in 2 ocasions and both he got "excelent". He would let the judge see his dentition without 

  a problem and he showed excelent behaviour, but at the same time having loads of people and dogs around 

  him was to exiting for him.
  I had taken a lot of time to give him a complete "brainwash" so i didn't want to risk a sitruation in 

  which maybe somebody would step on his toes (just an example). Maybe it sounds stupid, but an animal with 

  a history like his easily can explode, feeling itself again in an abusive situation, and that would mean 

  starting over the whole process again.
  I trusted him completely and he relied on me totally, therefor i did not want to bring him into any 

  inconvenient situation without a very good reason.
  Summer 1996 somehow suddenly he did not seem to feel well. He was very nervous, he was barking, 

  walking around in very hot weather and his breath got a bit accelerated. We had a lot of people visiting us 

  at that moment so i thought that that could be the reason. I decided to bring him into the nurseryroom so 

  he would have fresh air and he would be able to calm down a bit. When a bit later i started feeding the 

  dogs and i opened the door of the nursery to feed Lars he didn't get up, his breath had gotten very 

  accelerated and he was in a coma. We entered the vets clinic at 5 pm, he never came around and at 11 pm 

  he just died. 
  We made the vets do an autopsy on him because i really wanted to know what it was that killed my dog. 

  I thought he might have had a brain hemoriage and several tissue samples were send to the lab. Nothing 

  was found that diagnosed the reason for his death, it stays a mistery.
  Thinking about it after 6 years i still can't believe it. We burried him at the old petcemetary nearby. 

  The times i visited i've always had the impression that the earth beneath would open up and that he would 

  come out and just walk of at my side.
  He was always just fine with all my other dogs, even with the young males, he was not a fighter at all. He 

  would only get a bit upset with them when having a bitch in season around.
  I've never had another male dog with so much goodwill and so willing to please. 
  It has been a gift to get the chance to work with him, he has been my teacher in many ways and my 

  faithfull friend.
  Thanks Lars, thanks for accepting my love and care, thanks for your willingness to learn, thanks for trusting

  me as God only knows how many reasons you had for not trusting any human being evermore, thank you for 

  your loyalty, love, companionship ... thank you for everything.

  You were the best !!!!!!!!!!

                --------------------------------------------

Celi  08.04.1991 - 02.05.2002

Celi was born the 6th of april 1991 in Holland. Daughter of Douska and Tarzan. We brought her to Spain together with her sister Dona.
Celi did not have a "wonderfull" pedigree and she was not the most beautiful Rottweiler, she was very big but had a somewhat poor bonestructure. She recieved a "very good" in show anyway and at that moment is what we needed to obtain her breedinglicence from the CRE (Club Rottweiler España) together with her HD-A X-Ray cualification.
  She had a very special caracter, she was the Alfa dog, the dominant one allthough she never showed any signs 

   of agresiveness towards the other dogs. However they just seemes to accept her leadership and that 

  never  changed, not even when she grew old and sick.
  Normally in a pack of dogs, when one grows old or falls ill, ther is always another dog that will try to take 

  over the leading position in the pack, but in this case none of the dogs ever tried.
  Celi was an excelent mum, very very carefull with her puppies. She never lost any of them and she just 

  would not leave her puppies untill they were old enough to start walking. For the first three weeks i had 

  to take her out on command to make her do her do what she had to do outside.
  We have had "first"mums that really did not know what to do with those crying smelly little 

  newborn creatures. We would put Celi at the side of their beds so she would clean up the newborns and at 

  the same time she was able to quiet down the new "first"mum.
  This is not common in mums with new born puppies, but some way or another all the dogs we had, just 

  accepted having Celi by their side.
  Once we had two litters born at the same time, one litter from Celi and another litter from a female 

  called Britt.
  Well, Britt did not want to be with her newborns, she got very upset and nervous, she was really frightened 

  of those little things that didn't stop crying and moving around. She didn't want to feed them or clean them.
  After several intends trying to quiet her down a bit, i decided that it was the best for puppies and mum 

  to separate them for the moment.
  We put the 7 little ones of Britt together with the 8 newborns of Celi. She excepted them inmediatly and 

  she cleaned them up and fed them. The following hours we started introducing Britt into the nursery where 

  Celi  was. Having Cel at her side seemed to make Britt more confident and she started smelling around the 

  puppies. Bit by bit we started to introduce her to some of her own puppies so that she would start to clean 

  it and to feed it. Within 3 days we managed that she was tought how to handle her newborns and she has been 

  a great mum after.
  Celi always gave us beautiful pups. They all seemed to heretate her caracter, but their dads 

  fenotype (lookings).Celi was always sired by our dog Lars van de Contente.
  Celi was so obsesively wishing to become mum, that after every season she had not been mated, she would 

  have false pregnancy, to the extreme that she even got labour pain after nine weeks. For that reason we 

  just mated her two seasons sequently and then she would have just one season of rest, after which she 

  would  enter false pregnancy again. At six and a half years of age i decided that she had worked enough, 

  and she was sterilised. I wanted her to be my best friend for many years, but the breeding rithm would 

  would damage her health in the end.
  She has always been my favourite dog. Extremely loving with anyone who would enter the house, but when 

  we were not there she would corner anybody that came in untill we would arrive home.
  At one time we had told the guys who maintained our pool, to come a different day because we would not 

  be home the usual day that they came in.
  Our dogs knew them very well as they came every week and they would even play with our dogs.     

  So the guys thought that they were not at risk at all, and having the key to the main gate they decided to 

  come in any way inspite our worning.
  Well, haleluya for the mobile phones. Once they were in and got out of the car their only option was 

  climbing  up to the poolhouse roof from where they phoned us by mobile phone, and we had to drive home 

  to save them from a penible situation. Once we arrived home Celi and companions welcomed us warmly, the 

  guys got down from the poolhouse roof and Celi licked them all over, just if she wanted to say:"i am so 

  sorry, but i just do my job you know, it is not that i don't like you".
  Well, what else can i tell you about my sweetest, my queen. Only that there is no other like her, allthough 

  my Sissy is so very much alike her.
  Might that be re-incarnation?
  Celi, my most loved, the apple of my eyes, we all miss her very much allthough she left us allready several 

  years ago. We still talk a lot about her and we will never forget her.
  Our friend and veterinarian José Rial Cells came over to do the eutanasia. She fell asleep inmediately. 

  She had  had several surgeries for cancer, but the moment came we all knew she was not able to recover.             She was in pain, in distress, she felt very sick and very tired.
  We burried her here at the house in a real coffin made especially for her (we ordered it at the 

  funeral   home).
  She took her own blanket, a thousand kisses and a very large part of my heart.
  Celi, thank you so much for all you have tought me, thank you for your eternal loyalty and love, thanks for 

  all the times you cheered me up, thanks for licking my tears, thanks for looking after my children, 

  and please please forgive me for all the times that i have been unfair to you.

You will always be with me

                                                                ......... untill eternity..........

                 For my dearest girl, Cellepel

           The Last Battle.
        If I should grow frail and weak
        and pain should keep me from my sleep,
        then you must do what must be done,
        for this last battle can´t be won.

       You will be sad, I understand,
       don´t let your grief then stay your hand,
       for this day, more than all the rest,
       our love and friendship must stand the test.

       We´ve had so many happy years,
       You wouldn´t want me to suffer? so, 
       When the time comes, please let me go.
       Take me where my needs they´ll tend,
       only, stay with me to the end
       and hold me firm and speak to me
       until my eyes no longer see.

      I know in time that you will see
      it is a kindness that you do to me.
      although my tail it´s last has waved
      from pain and suffering I have been saved.

      Do not grieve that it must be you
      who has to decide this thing to do,
      Don´t let your heart hold any tears

      And may the beautifull moments that we've shared

      be in your memory throughout the years.

                    --------------------------------------------------------------------------

 Mkoowi de Omega Matari  08.11.1994 - 29.03.1999

Mkoowi was daugher of Celi and Lars. She had her mum's caracter, extremely sociable with people and other animals. By the time we used to have rabbits, Indian rabbits, a horse etc.

Mkoowi was not really mine, she was my youngest sons dog. He chose her from the litter to be his to train her and to work with her. She was his first dog to be trained by him in obedience, you have to know that Benjamin by the time was only 9 years old. I guided himk during the training sessions and i have to say he did a wonderfull job. Mkoowi was a happy obedient dog that loved to work. Benjamin was very proud of her.

  Mkoowi was presented in show being a puppy and later on, in the open class, she got her "excelent", she had 

  a HD- and she got her breeding license by the CRE (Club Rottweiler España).

  She got her first litter when she was 19 months old, she was a great mum just like her mother Celi. She 

  was  sired by Varon Negro del Maigmo (xCH.Kas van der Nedermolen). After this first litter she has had 

  all the rest of her litters sired by this same dog. He was a great dog, nice qualities and always first places 

  in shows. The only obstacle (as i understand) was his behaviour during shows. That was not due to genetics 

  but  more to the lack of education during his first year of age. He was the tipical "spoiled" puppy. 

  Personally knowing and treating the dog, i never have had any bad feelings being in his presence and his 

  puppies have never shown any signs of agressiveness at all.

  One of the puppies out of Mkoowi and Varon was Daisy de Omega Matari, wellknown for several of her 

  offspring that became district Champions.

  One afternoon march 1999 Mkoowi did not feel well, she had a stomach-pain and her tummy was slightly 

  blown  up. I inmediately thought about a stomach torsion and took her to the vet. The torsion was 

  not complete and with the proper treatment she got well. Even so, we decided that we would do surgery on 

  her ten days later (to give her time to recover from shock and injured tissue). The intervention we wanted 

  to do is called "gastrocolopexia" and consists in sealing together part of the stomach to the colon, which 

  would prevent Mkoowi from having a new torsion. Dogs that suffer easily from stomachtorsions need their 

  food in small amounts over the day, no work or play before and after feedings. But we always fed our 

  dogs  various times a day so in Mkoowis case that had not been the problem.

  Anyway, we never made it to the day of surgery. Excactly one week after,  the 29th of march 1999, 

  she  suffered a new torsion and this time complete. When i found her she was allready haemorrhaging in 

  her intestines, she was loosing blood from her rear end. Once arrived at the vet we tried to keep her alive 

  and tried to stabelize her to be able to do an intervention.

  She was loosing so much blood that she was actually bleeding to death. She was in need of blood urgently so 

  i brought in both her parents, Celi and Lars, to take blood from them and do the necesarry transfusion 

  to Mkoowi. 

  But it was just to late, we were not able to help her and she died on the table beneath our hands. 

  We lost  her........ inspite of all the efforts.

  It was just horrible, Celi and Lars both needed a treatment for anemia, they had given so many of their  

  blood for Mkoowi.

  In the early morning when i came home, i had to tell my son, Mkoowi's owner, about what had happened. 

  It destroyed him. He was not able to attend to school that day. Mkoowi had been his best friend 

  and  companion. 

  As young as he was by the time, he had put so much effort and ilusion in working with Mkoowi.  

  Untill today he has never had another dog again, plenty of puppies, and i even offerd him to buy a whole 

  other breed of dog, but he always refused as Mkoowi was unique to him and no other dog would be able to 

  take her place.

  Mkoowi died 05.23 AM, 29 of march 1999. He misses her a lot,  just as we will always do.

   Lars, Mkoowi, Celi.

                --------------------------------------------------

                                                                                                        Dhahabu (Bubu)              19/03/2006 -  31/08/2006                                                  

My little Bubu (Dhahabu) crossed the rainbow today 31 of august 2006.  

She was my little baby, so sweet and special. Never seen a 5 month old puppy taking care of new born puppies so naturaly, so caring and loving. Bubu was a little miracle to me and i miss her so awfully much....

 Bubu was a daughter of Rani vom Hause Angele and Chris de Albaycan.

  Right from the start she was a very special puppie.Very much alert but   at the same time very quiet.

  She would play with her sister, running around and rolling over eachother, but what she never did was , as what 

  other puppies do, jump up on us. 

  We have never noticed anything strange in her movements, she had a beautiful trott.

  But she would never run after a ball, she did not seem to be interested in those games, she 'd rather stay             close to me and followed me wherever i went.

  When she was only 4 months old a new litter was born. I like my young dogs to get used to the odors and 

  sounds of new borns (that experience will help them later on when they have their own puppies born), 

  so i decided to introduce Bubu to the litter as soon as possible.        

  For the mum of the litter (Sissy) that was not a problem as Bubu was still so young that she was not believed 

  to be a threat to the new borns.

  Bubu, soon after meeting the litter, she started to behave like a stepmum, washing and cleaning the 

  puppies whenever she was allowed in the nursery. 

  She would sleep in front of the nursery and when she went out, she was always alert for any sounds of 

  crying puppies to come running in inmediately to see if all was ok. She would find her way around the 

  8 babies with so much care and without stepping on them once, better care she gave them then most 

  experienced mums. We were so impressed by her behaviour, and looking at the future we thought she 

  would be going to be the greatest mum. Appart from her behaviour she was also a very, very 

  handsome goodlooking dog with beautiful proportions (inspite of her age), nice bone, good colour, and we 

  were looking forward to enter the shows with her.

   It was july and the weather was very hot. 

  All the dogs spended lot of time around the pool, swimming and playing.

  When Bubu would take some time of from  what she believed as her task, being a stepmum, she would be 

  at the pool aswell. Everything seemed to go just fine with her. The only thing i noticed was that after 

  having had a swim for a long time Bubu seemed to be suffering from musclepain (she liked the water so 

  much she would not come out of the pool!!).

  After laying down for a while she seemed to have problems with sitting up and walking. So reduced 

  her  permited swimming time to only a short while. But in the water she seemed just fine, it was only 

  outside the water that she would show signs of pain. I observed her for 2 days and then i decided that 

  the same afternoon i would take her to the vets hospital for an examination. The same morning i spotted 

  her having difficulty with urinating and i observed blood in her urine. She had no fever but at the vet she 

  was diagnosed with blatter and urine infection. 

  An ecografy was made of most her organs and the only strange thing we found was that her reproductive

  organs were so much developed that she seemed to go into season really soon. This is very rare for a puppie 

  her age. 

  So we thought that part of her discomfort in part could also be consequence of that.

  We kept her on antibiotics and anti inflamatory and hoped she would get better soon. She did not.

  After a few days and seeing that there was no "feeling better" (it got worse instead) i took her to the 

  vet  again.

  Together with our veterinarian traumatologist José Rial Cells, we decided to do Xray all around (4 legs,

  spine, abdomen etc). We never got any further then the first 2 Xrays. Hind quarters. Those were more 

  then enough to be able to make the diagnose. And in was the worst surprise ever. We never, not in the 

  slightest way,  expected to see what the Xrays showed us. 

  Bubu had a complete deformation in her squelet. And this was something so obvious to know that this 

  had been allready there when she was born.  Right from her ileon downwards there was not a bone in place. 

  The connections were just not there. It was so shocking and incredible. Bubus muscles had kept her 

  hind  quarters in place all this time, but now she was growing very fast and therefor she was gaining weight, 

  and her muscles could not bear the weight anymore, so her hind quarters were "falling appart".  

  As in a flash i suddenly understood why she never jumped, why she did not like playing with the ball, why 

  she always acted so quiet and why she liked so much being in the pool (that was the only time she

  did not have to bear her own weight and therefor she did not feel the pain as much). 

  But what none of us did understand, how in heavens sake she never showed pain before.......how had she 

  been able to even sit......how was it possible that untill then, she had shown such beautiful movements. 

  How she must have suffered all those months of her life. She never complained, not even a squeek, going 

  through obedience training always following my orders without a problem, so terriblty obedient...............

  I will never understand her bravery, without showing her pain, just wanting to please me...

  Surgery was not even an option. She would have to go through at least 3 operations and even so my friend the

  traumatologist did not think she would ever get to know a life without pain.

  As i looked up at my vet his eyes told me that this was the end. Bubu was still asleep on the Xray table.

  I hugged her as i told her how much i loved her, i kissed her as my tears were running down on her 

  so beloved and beautiful  face.

  And we did what we had to do. She never woke up again................my precious little baby, my Bubu.  

  For now i know she is in very good company, she is surrounded by all my other dogs that have 

  crossed over before she did. I miss her terribly, still, like all my other sweethearts.

  Some day we'll meet again where she crossed the rainbow. 

               -------------------------------------------------------------------------

 Sarah 25.05.1999 - 25.10.2008

 Sweet Sarah came to us through the dogshelter, together with 3 littermates. My friend at the shelter had a look at the pedigree of the parents of this litter and she saw that Sarah was far decendant from our Lars (4th generation) and therefor she called me. The owner of the litter had hard time selling the pups and therefor took them to the shelter. I picked up all the pups, gave 3 of them to good friends of ours but i kept Sarah. Never with intention to breed from her as her "breeder" was not bothered by registering the puppies for the LOE. Sarah was a very nice female but she turned out to suffer from severe elbow displasia (ED). Therefor she got surgery before she was even 1 year old and we got her sterilized at the same time. Sarah was a great guard dog and she was always very attentive to everything ocurring in and around the house. And allthough she never had a litter of her own she did a great job being aunty to other puppies. She raised our Sissy and as Sissy grew up and became the Alfa female in our pack Sarah became Sissy's right hand in keeping order among the other dogs.

Sarah suffered as the years went by from severe arthritis. She dealed ok as she got all medication she needed but suddenly and over just a few days time it had started to affect her front paws in such a way she was not able to get out of her bed. That brought us to the point we had to make a decision for her as we could not let her suffer. She had always been a very bright dog, always on the move around the plot, and suddenly see how she was in so much pain that it kept her from standing up was to much. Sarah was put to sleep in her favourite bed in the livingroom. In my arms she slowly drafted into a deep sleep and i hold her untill long after she had crossed the rainbow ............

Sarah made herself loved so much with her beautifull caracter. She left an empty space and we miss her a lot.

Dedicated to Sarah.

(With special thanks to my good friend and co-breeder Marianne Neary Philips, rottweilers de Anfield)
    
      My best friend closed her eyes last night

As her head was in my hand.
 The Vet said she was in pain,
    And it was hard for her to stand.

    The thoughts that scurried through my head,
    As I cradled her in my arms.
    Were of her younger, puppy years,
   And Oh, her many charms.

   Today, there was no gentle nudge
   with an intense I Love You gaze,
   Only a heart that´s filled with tears
   Remembering our joy filled days.

   But an Angel just appeared to me,
   And he said.You should cry no more.
   God also loves our canine friends,
   He´s installed a Doggy Door!

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