Kennel Dunadan is located in Kajaani, which is a town in Northern Finland.
Time before Dandies
Our doggy life began for real in 1991. We've always liked animals, had an aquarium for years, and in the late 80s we had a Wire-haired Dachshund for a while.
 |
Our wire-haired Dachshund "Ruffe" joined the family in 1987. He was no great beauty -- because of the kink in his tail he'd originally been sold to his first family as a pet.
But when he was getting close to the age of one year his first family didn't cope with him any longer and decided to get rid of him. If we'd really known anything about dogs at the time we probably wouldn't have taken him, but we were complete beginners. Eventually he had to be put down a couple of years later. |
For a while we lived with just some fish in a tank, but they were kind of difficult to pet... so we wanted a hairy member in the family. That's how the guinea pig "Miss Jonas" entered the house. Her name was originally just Jonas, but it turned into Miss Jonas after we found out our initial mistake in determining his (sorry, her) sex.
She was very pretty and a rather good substitube for a dog, especially in the sense that she was good at guarding. Although it has to be said that she mainly guarded the fridge and immediately alerted us when she heard that the fridge door was opened; she had quickly learned that the sound often meant treats for her. So you couldn't really sneak to the fridge when she was around to hear it. |
|
But a guinea pig, no matter how sweet, is not a dog. Somehow we still wanted to have a dog as well, and after a lot of work in choosing the breed we – for some hitherto inexplicable reason – decided that a Dandie Dinmont would be just right. Why? Can't explain. We did think about it carefully, and at least a few reasons still come to mind: a Dandie is not too large (back then we still lived in a 60 square meter apartment, third floor of the house, no elevator), and it looked so irresistibly funny.
|
We'd never seen a live Dandie, only some photos in books, and knew nothing more about the breed except for what those books said. Eventually we managed to dig up more info, and our decision was sealed. We definitely wanted a Dandie Dinmont!
That's how it began - and we wanted a pepper male. Absolutely. |
|
