LES MONTAGNES SERBES

OD SRPSKIH PLANINA

The 15th Meeting of Sarplaninci “Les Montagnes serbes”

MEETINGS, ATMOSPHERE

In spite of some fears, we had a beautiful weather, even a little bit too hot for our four legged friends. As usual, the arrivals were very spread over the day. The family of Fétich had a car problem and arrived rather late. Marianne made me the great surprise, by bringing Cila, but so late that I completely forgot my role of photographer and thus, we are missing the pictures of this splendid bitch!
In fact this time and to my biggest regrets, Isabelle and Philippe were not present. Many people coming from abroad were missing, the Serfling family with Emina saw me in Austria and they did decide not to make such a long trip one week later, the family Merkel with Dragan were absent because of Ralf’s back problems, Suzana von Trier was also absent.
From abroad came the very faithful Mrs. and Mr. Gehlhaar with Cakan and our Carole with Alka in super form.
We must feel honoured by the presence of our two veterans: Svetla (Tamara) and Slavik (Max) 12 ½ years.

MEETING PICTURES

During the arrivals and the meetings, I took the job as photographer: more than 700 picture of 25 Sarplaninci and a Tatra guest. In addition to my pictures I received those of Huguette and especially those of the meal and also from Mr. Gehlhaar, from Yolande and from Patrick.
Pleasure and also work to correct and annotate all that!
If we make the review in alphabetical order of the litters, the litter “A” had 3 representatives: Agat, Alka and Arsa.
The litter “B” was badly represented only Bayka and Ben, in form, but with the tail eaten by his small Tervueren girlfriend.
The litter “C” had 3 representatives, but Cila was not photographed. I repaired this mistake during my very recent visit; these pictures will be shown soon on the site.
The litter “D” was rather well represented, 5 dogs out of 8 and still, Dragan was to come but his family had to cancel at the last minute.
From the litter “E”, numerous, in total 8 dogs, there were only 2 representatives, Ecka and Erkan.
The last litter came in force, missing were only Fedja and Forte Drago who are living far away abroad (Croatia and Italy) and their sister Fruska whose owner does not appreciate the meetings.
And, as I have just mentioned it above, we particularly appreciated the visit of the 2 veterans Slavik and Svetla. Slavik was accompanied by his friend Tatra, Sally.
As always from the litter “Y” Yak of our compatriot Milisav was the only representative, but in this litter there were only two pups, him and sister Yedra, who never came and that of course not by her fault.
Not to forget the very noticed presence of a small white female Sarplaninac, the girlfriend of our Ecka, imported from Czech Republic, the young Zirka and from the small girlfriend of our Falco, the Tibetan terrier Tinkyi.

THE WALK

This time the walk lasted approximately 1 hour, a beautiful walk in the shade of the big trees, with meetings of many bicyclists. Like each time, our dogs had a very good behaviour, even Fury who did not always appreciate the proximity of his brothers during the meetings and the “pictures session” calmed down during this walk and was very nice.
The very big and powerful Erkan was lead by his small owner and very often he was glad to be very close to his ½ brother Dragas, Furko and Fury were keeping each other company, Duska flirted with Dusko ...... and the owners talked about a lot of things.

THE MEAL

The opinion of many participants was that the meal was even better than usually. The table of the caterer was very nice to see and also to taste. I brought homemade baklava and a cake with nuts and chocolate cream. It was less beautiful to see, but very good to eat.
Like the last two, three years, our single male people made a separate table, in company of Stan and André and this very close to the bar. Our companions with four legs were numerous to accompany their owners during the meal, only Yolande did not dare to take Duska because of her greediness. Falco and Fétich were in the room and played like crazy on the stage.
After 5.0 PM not many people remained and we had to dismantle the cages, to have them taken back by Mr. Fagard.

THANKS

I would like to thank all those who brought us some help in one way or the other. Thank you, first of all to Mr. Fagard and Leslie for loading and dismantling the cages and their final storage, thank you to all those who gave a hand during this work. Thanks to Huguette who helped me to make the pictures and thanks for the attention she made, a beautiful small souvenir, for all of us, thanks to Christel who talked in German with the Gehlhaar family and finally, thanks to all of you who came to tell me the evolution of your companions and to have given me the opportunity to see them.

SOME EMAILS

Good evening Marija and Stan
Thank you for this beautiful day.
Andre

Good evening,
A very big thank you for the day of the sarpla, it was really super to join together, to be able to discuss between owners and to share our experiments.
Good evening, so long
Caroline

Dear Macha,
I hope that you are well and that you recovered from the efforts of Saturday. I simply wanted to say that I was very pleased with the meeting on Saturday. I was a little bit afraid at the beginning, not knowing how Falco was going to behave, but all went well.
The meeting between Falco and Fétich was extraordinary. While you had left to collect the cakes (delicious, like always!), the two brothers started to play together on the stage. They were inseparable.
I also liked very much to see a Tibetan terrier lost in the middle of Sarplaninci during the walk.
But it is true that in her head, Tinkyi is as large and strong as Falco!
Good day
Francoise

Hello Macha,
Herewith some pictures of your super successful meeting. How are you? Are you coming to Brussels?
Big kisses,
Yolande