LES MONTAGNES SERBES

OD SRPSKIH PLANINA

16th Meeting of Sarplaninci “Montagnes serbes”

Health problems prevented organising our annual meeting in 2008.
I was very unhappy not to see many of my dogs and their masters for so long.
This year's meeting coincided with the birth, 25 years ago, of the first litter of Sarplaninci in our house. Vucko, Vule, Vujo, Vujka, Vidra and Vesna, children of Zoe and Dadas, were born during the winter Olympics in Sarajevo, hence their names inspired by the mascot of these games: Vucko. When looking back, I notice that these dogs were much closer to the original dogs than the dogs from the later litters, already more "urbanized". These dogs very strong, and very healthy, have lived very long, between minimum 12 and up to more than 15 years.
I had some complications regarding the location of our meeting, the usual place changed the manager and it became a construction site. The former manager has currently a tavern with a large hall, and she was happy to have us again as customers, but there was no garden to put the cages of our dogs. Finally, I got the permission to use the garden belonging to the nearby chapel. As this was looking like a "jungle", it was very difficult to clean it to enable us to put the cages, especially as we didn’t have the appropriate equipment. For this I must thank a Montenegrin friend and fan of Sarplaninci!
Like previous years the loading, transport and the placing of the cages, as well as their removal and transport back home were done by Mr Fagard, Vladimir and Leslie. On the spot Huguette gave a helping hand.
Around 16h our guests began to leave. I was helped by Huguette and Christel to collect all the material that I brought , and also for my dogs.


MEETINGS

This time, the participants gathered a little bit faster, it were just my young neighbours with Gorstak that came a bit later. This time all the visitors of foreign countries were absent, except for the family Merkel, who came from very far, from Bremen in Germany. They came with Dragan and his companion Babsy, which comes from a kennel in France. And also the family Jongens, who came with Goranac, called Zoran from the Netherlands.
The young dogs played together, here I think at the litter of last year, from Zero-Beli and Cica-Vesna and also at Gara and her brother Gorstak. The older dogs showed from time to time some signs of nervousity and aggressivity. I must express my admiration for the exemplary behaviour of the dogs Fetich and Goranac. Congratulations to their owners for the education they gave them.
Olga came, accompanied by a photographer, I'm curious to get these pictures.
We had to be particularly happy with the weather. It was cool and cloudy but but for our four-legged companions, it was a wonderful weather.

PHOTO SHOOTS

Once again Huguette and I were the appointed photographers, in the company of the lady photographer, which came with the family of Jean and Olga. Huguette and I finished the day with each 800 pictures in our cameras. There were many participants who also took pictures as a souvenir, and we will hopefully get some copies of them.
Litter “A” The eldest of the meeting, who also became the veteran, was our 8 years old Agat, called Esra. After the disappearance of Arsa and Alka last year he was the sole representative of this litter. In good shape, a little bit fat, bright eyes, he got a little angry on other males in its proximity, a quite normal reaction.
Litter “B” Our Bayka was the only one present of this litter. She could be proud on 8 of her children, present from the litters “F” and “G”, unfortunately none of the litter “E” which is however very successful.
Litter “C” Like Bayka, Cica-Vesna was alone, while her 7 brothers and sisters are all alive. She was the proud mother of litter “H”.
Litter “D” This litter was the best represented: Decko, Dragan, Dragas, Duci, Duska and Dusko, 6 of 8 met again. To be noted the good behaviour and socialization of all the present ones.
Litter “F” Three out of 9 were present, while at the last meeting they were the most numerous: Fétich, Furko and Fury.
Litter “G” Present: Gara, Garo, Goranac called Zoran, Gorstak and Grivna.
Litter “H” The three representatives were the stars of the day: Higor, Hodessa and Hooker, still a little intimidated to be among such a large number of adult dogs and strangers.
As a special guest we had Babsy, a female dog from the kennel of Mr. Gudfried. Babsy just got the mark BOB at the special exhibition of the club in Austria.
The photo shooting was over at about 11h45. So after that we made our walk.

THE WALK

We have chosen to go again on the line 38, but this time in the direction of the town Fléron, the part that looks more like a park and that is less wooded.
As usual, our dogs have had an exemplary behaviour and numerous were the walkers who stopped to let us walk by and watch with admiration this unusual line. About twenty dogs of the same breed walking calmly, side by side, it was a beautiful scene!
My dogs have also been able to participate at the walk thanks to Christel who took Bayka and Valjko who took Gara. During the time of the walking, those who were “frozen” or did not like to walk: Stan, Vladimir, Mr. Blanjean and André have found their place at the bar and have tasted the good Belgian beer.

THE LUNCH

The new hall was very spacious, a bit dark, but the large tables were nicely set.
As each time, the table with the cold buffet was very nice to be seen. It was decorated with a beautiful bouquet of flowers brought by Nicole. We were well served by a very nice team.
Some well educated dogs were in our company, without any incident.
I, as always, made the desserts.

PRESENTATION OF THE VIDEOS

I had brought two DVDs with some documentation, showing the Sarplaninac guarding the flock of sheep and fighting with the wolf, a Shepherd dog of Central Asia in a fight against a leopard and finally a presentation of the Serbian Shepherd dogs, a breed that is on the way to be recognized.
Around 16 hours our guests began to leave. I was helped by Huguette and Christel with collecting all the brought material, and with my dogs.

THANKS

I must say a big “thank you” especially to the team that took care of the cages: Mr. Fagard, Vladimir and Leslie. Next person to get a credit is Valjko, the Montenegrin who has cleaned the yard, and who gave me the disc with the interesting videos and who has walked Gara. I, of course, do not forget Huguette who took care of the security of the dogs on the accommodation site, who was the photographer with me, who gave a helping hand in the organisation and who helped me loading my belongings.
Thanks to Christel, who helped me throughout the day to keep my dogs, carry the equipment back and forth, walked Bayka and served as a translator in German and Flemish.
Thank you to Nicole for the flowers and the offer of assistance on all levels.
Thank you to Leslie for providing the projector, thank you to David, who saved the situation bringing his laptop and who made the necessary connections.
Thank you especially to Olga for bringing the photographer and to the photographer personally, we hope to have beautiful memories of that day.

SOME EMAILS

Dear Marija and Stan,
First of all we would like to thank you for the extremely pleasant day that you have organised. It was nice to see back the brothers and sister of Zoran, as well as all the other Sarplas and for us to participate.
We had the opportunity of exchanging our experiences with the other owners of Sarplas.
The day's program: welcoming and photo shooting, the walk, the buffet and videos, we really enjoyed it and everything was in a relaxed atmosphere. For us it was a very successful day, which (if possible) may be repeated!
It was also good to see that Stan was in such a good shape (at least for us) and that he was able to participate so well in the activities of that day. We hope that both of you enjoyed it very much and that Stan’s health did not get any bad effect because of all his efforts. Also we hope that everything continues to go well with him!
We also made some videos and pictures. We have put it on CD and we will send it to you by mail, you may use it for your site, if you wish.
Once more a big thank you for the pleasant day and we hope that you will both spend a great summer!
See you soon.

Best greetings from Ruud and Anke

Dear Marija and Stan,
The annual meeting was again really great. We were really pleased. We again met a lot of people.
Even Stan looked very good.
The conference was very informative.
It was simply a great day.
Thank you very much for that!!!
We hope that we will see each other soon.
See you soon…
Sincerely yours

Silke and Ralf

Macha,

I just wanted to thank you this morning for the celebration of the dogs. It was absolutely perfect. Souzy has so much appreciated it, and so to I. They are so beautiful the doggies. It was really great!

Nicole