And here is the ultimate.
Champion Twinkle Star v.Eurozone has been pronounced
the World Winner 2008.
A dream come true.
On 3rd of July in Stockholm, arriving
ringside early morning, I spotted the Best of Breed ribbon
laying on the table in ring 44. It laid there quietly,
beautiful in its silky crimson and saffron sheen. Waiting.
Teasing. I closed my eyes and recalled a ribbon that my
Jenny won on the day I turned 20 years old. It was a similar
red and yellow ribbon, given for the Best of Breed, and
I can still feel the taste of victory on my lips when
that ribbon left the judge's hand and went home with us.
"Jenny, do you remember that day?", I asked.
"Do you remember the excitement and tears of joy?
I need your help today. I need you to make sure that the
ribbon on the table in the ring 44 finds its home. Its
deserving home". I left it at that and went to prepare
Maffy for the ring. I knew Jenny would take care of the
rest.
Later in the day Zoltán told me that he talked
to Santos that morning. "Sunny", he said, "do
you remember winning all-breed Best in Show ten years
ago? It was an amazing win, and I felt like nobody could
hurt us that day. Today we need your help. Your grandson
is taking that ribbon home."
I put all of my heart into showing that dog, and in his
turn he gave me his best. Presenting his 32 kg of perfection
to the judge, I was bursting with pride. I knew and believed
he was the best darn Boxer to ever walk the earth, and
all I needed was her confirmation. Nobody else existed
in the building that moment - just the judge, myself,
my fawn artpiece, and my Jenny looking at us from above.
Just like Santos and Zoltán ten years ago, I felt
that nobody could hurt us. And then I felt the silky heart
of the crimson and saffron ribbon the judge handed me.
I knew this was the happiest day of my life. We did it.
We did it! For Jenny. For Santos. For our beloved breed,
the most wonderful breed of dogs that humans have ever
created.
It has been eight days since Maffy won Best of Breed at
the World Winner show and became the world's best Boxer
in 2008.
The ninth cloud is sailing closer to earth, and it is
time for reflections. Time for thanks, congratulations,
sorrys and goodbyes.
First of all, we would like to thank our judge of the
day Mrs.Ferelith Sommerfield from the UK. We learned of
this assignment when Maffy was mere seven months old,
and we knew back then that we were going to enter the
show. Mrs.Sommerfield, who we had never met before, is
one of the most respected all-rounders in the world, an
old-timer, who had bred Boxers together with her famous
husband under the Panfield prefix. We could not possibly
pass the opportunity to show our dog to someone who have
had the honor of seeing Frau Stockmann's dogs in person.
The president of the British Boxer Club, nowadays Mrs.Sommerfield
is sufficiently detouched from the breed to not judge
the faces. We knew this had got to be our best chance.
In comparison with some of the judge assignments at the
important shows in the last years, where uneducated and
greedy half-wits puff up into a balloon and play their
bad-smelling games, the Swedish Kennel Club has made us
all a gift by giving the Boxers into the hands of Mrs.Sommerfield
at their World Winner show. Thank you, Mrs.Sommerfield,
for finding Maffy, one of the most misunderstood Boxers
in the world today, in your ring, for rewarding him and
for recognizing all our hard work, sweat and tears that
went into creating this dog. You have made history, and
we are eternally grateful for that crimson and saffron
ribbon we received from your hands
Thank you to Arkan de Villa-Nika, Maffy's sire, for contributing
his valuable genes to our success story. Without Arkan,
this win would not have been possible. A wonder dog, a
true Boxer, forgotten in his native Spain, I still get
my breath caught every time I look at his pictures. He
has given Maffy his style and nobility, his temperament,
and his high class, and for that we are forever thankful.
Arkan will always remain one of the best Boxers we have
ever had a pleasure of meeting.
Thank you to our Koloni Chiara, Maffy's dam, for being
such a wonderful producer for us. Together with her color,
Chiara passed her magnificent expression and type onto
her son, and she worked tirelessly on nurturing and raising
baby Maffy, along with his seven littermates. Chiara is
a true treasure and we are thanking our lucky star for
being able to have her in our breeding program. Without
her Maffy would not exist.
Thank you Peet van Melis, of van Worikben Boxers, for
giving us the inspiration. Even though we have never met,
we credit Mr.van Melis for showing us the way. We are
grateful for all the work he had done for the breed during
his time. Without this man, we would still be sitting
in the muddy pile of oversized heavy non-Boxers with fleshy
wrinkled heads and pushed-in pinched noses. A real artist,
he showed us the true original Boxer idea. Ambros, Elfo,
Tabor, York, Casper - these silhouettes will always be
there to inspire. He taught us how to go against the flow,
how to believe against all odds, and how to love this
breed. How sad that we will never be able to thank him
in person. How terrible that following his death there
is only a handful of people who still value his contribution.
Thank you to Jenny, my true soulmate, and to Santos, Zoltán's
once in a lifetime dog, for being there for us. We are
acutely aware of their silent presence in our lives, and
we believe that they help us whenever they can. We know
that both of them were there in Stockholm, watching over
us, and we know that the energy of Jenny's BOB win at
the Boxer specialty in St.Petersburg in 1998, and Santos'
Best in Show win in Croatia the same year have helped
us in Sweden in 2008. Thank you.
Heartfelt thanks to all of our supporters from around
the world! People who cheered for Maffy ringside and in
the group, people who recognized and approached him on
the streets in Stockholm, calling him by name and wanting
to spend time with him, making us feel like we were walking
a star, people who made phone calls and sent e-mails -
we truly appreciate your support! We could not have imagined
that Maffy touched so many hearts, and we are sincerely
grateful to all of you.
Finally, we would like to thank all of our doggies who
had to remain behind, locked in the boarding kennel in
the north of Hungary. Devi, Roya, Viva, Ani, Lissy, Angie
and Roni had spent a whole week without us for the first
time in their lives. We hope they forgive us the midnight
bath we had to give all of them the day we arrived back
home. We love these guys, and even though some of them
will start looking for a new home soon, they are forever
our babies.
On to congratulations.
Congratulations to the Swedish Kennel Club for a well
organized show that went on without a hitch. We appreciated
the large halls, the airconditioning, and the fact that
every ring started on time. The ring secretaries have
done a wonderful job.
Of course we want to congratulate ourselves on breeding
and raising Maffy and bringing him all the way to the
World Winner title. This is a given, and we are obviously
quite pleased with ourselves. A great dog and a well deserved
win. We could not be happier.
We would like to congratulate some of the other Boxers
entered at the World Dog Show 2008, and especially the
handsome Portuguese dog Oliver-Jones v.Bispus who won
the Reserve World Winner title. He is an excellent quality
dog, and we enjoyed watching him. We would also like to
congratulate the Spanish dog named Boston who won the
second place in the Champion class - he too is a wonderful
dog full of quality. Other dogs we wanted to mention are
the Hungarian Black Joy Kabir who won the Junior WW title
in a small competition, and the Russian Liberum Avis Pentagon
who had a fantastic movement, but unfortunately did not
present himself well in static. Congratulations are in
order to Ruslan v.Eurozone, born in our kennel, who surprised
us by winning one of the few "excellent" marks
in the Open class, and to several deserving oldies presented
in the Veteran class who are always such a joy to watch.
A couple of sorrys - a smaller one and a bigger one.
We are sorry that Maffy's littermate brother Totem Pole
v.Eurozone "Alex" did not make his appearance
in the Open class where he was entered. We met Alex several
days later, after not having seen him for a long time,
and we are convinced had he been present at the WW show,
he would have definitely done well. Next time.
A more serious sorry comes from the fact that there is
a handful of people out there who just cannot get over
the fact that Maffy took the World Winner title home and
try hard to hurt his reputation and that of us, his breeders
and owners. News travel fast, and we know who you are.
Those who simply suffer the sour grapes syndrome are not
worth mentioning, but those who intentionally try to destroy
the impeccable reputation of the judge and dare to doubt
the greatness of the dog, deserve nothing but pity. Open
your eyes, you blind fools, crawl back into the little
hole you came from and do not come back until you re-read
the Standard of our breed a couple of hundred times and
learn some manners. The ignorant people who believe the
Standard is open to interpretation and those who have
their personal "preferences" have no business
touching this breed!
I cringe every time I hear that a Boxer should be a massive
dog with bone resembling telegraph poles, an X number
of wrinkles over the bridge of the nose and a protruding
chin that extends from here to Africa. My blood boils
every time I hear that a Boxer should look "tall
and refined" resembling a bench with a mile long
skinny body sitting on a mile long skinny legs. The secret
to our breed is moderation - try to remember that! The
Standard describes a medium size square package that is
strong but not heavy, noble but not weak.
For those who proclaim that Maffy, with his picture-perfect
60 cm and 32 kg, is too small for them - please get out
of Boxers now and get into Bullmastiffs, or better yet
into dairy cattle! Those who feel that Maffy is too low
and chunky for their distorted taste - get out of Boxers
too, please, and go get yourself a couple of Pharaoh hounds
or go get a Giraffe. You are hurting the breed, you stupid
people! Please do not breed another litter until you thoroughly
study the Standard and feel obliged to preserve the breed
in the state our predecessors left it.
Those who say that Maffy won his title on handling - go
home and try to mold into a half decent shape your 40
kg piece of flesh with the croup slopping so bad one could
organize skiing competitions on it and the neck so short,
its ears touch its shoulder blades! Maffy stands the way
he was made, the way the Mother Nature tells him to stand,
and no amount of molding you do with your dogs could approach
his shape even half-way. Those who call us names because
we allowed Maffy to sire 13 litters - sleep tight, we
will do our darnest to make sure you never get your little
jealous hands on any of his offspring.
Those who challenge the integrity of the judge who handed
Maffy his title - this woman has more experience and in-depth
understanding of the breed than all of you combined, and
the best you can do is shut your little mouths very tightly
and go beg her to share some of her knowledge with you,
if she so chooses. Please have the decency to say that
you are too uneducated to understand that the breed history
was made at the WW in Sweden and go seek more knowledge.
People like you are the breed's parasites, the core of
its deterioration, and the main reason we are making the
following announcement.
Time for goodbyes.
Six weeks before the World Winner show in Stockholm, Zoltán
and I decided to take a break from breeding. As passionate
about our beloved breed as ever, we no longer feel that
we can continue. We have reached the level of understanding
of this breed and passion for it where we feel we are
very lonely and where every wrong step other breeders
take causes deep pain to us.
We are depressed about the direction the breed is taking
world wide, and we can no longer fight it. We hate seeing
people screwing other people for money. We hate watching
breed judges selling titles, and breeders buying health
clearances. We hate seeing self-proclaimed experts distribute
wrong ideas about the breed. We hate the greed of the
breeders and the eternal hunger for titles, when nothing
is enough.
We hate seeing people treat Boxers as one of their past
times, something unimportant, and we cannot tolerate people
giving their dogs less than the very best. We cannot tolerate
people who do not give their dogs the very best either
because it is "too expensive" or "too inconvenient".
We don't like people who have no ethics and no shame in
their dealing with others. We truly and deeply hate the
long tails and ears, and we feel the originators of the
breed had been betrayed by their successors on too many
levels.
We hate watching dogs who have gone through plastic surgeries
and series of injectable treatments get top honors. We
hate seeing blind newcomers who swallow the bullshit their
half-literate mentors are feeding them. We hate people
who are hungry for power and do not stop at anything to
get to the top spot. We cannot see people who do not love
their dogs and leave them out in the kennel all day, without
as much as a scratch behind the ears - but come show day,
and they are there pretending to be big dog lovers.
We hate people who find their joy in spreading gossips.
People who sit in the relative safety of their own rooms
and spread shit on public forums and lists. We hate when
people lie and cheat and pretend to be your friend only
until the point they no longer need you. We hate people
who copy our ideas, from web design to pedigree lines,
and do not give credit.
We hate when a seven year old Boxer is being called "old",
and we hate watching breeders bombard their puppies with
antibiotics and hormone injections before selling them
onto unsuspecting buyers. We hate when people sell dogs
who limp or faint or are sterile, leaving the new owners
deal with the issues. We hate people who conceal information.
We hate the system where a knee grade is more important
than a heart grade, and where health tests, often fake,
are the only deciding factor in breeding. We hate people
promoting poor dogs and successfully blinding others.
We hate Bulldog heads. We hate humpy bodies. We hate poor
temperaments. We hate people who do nothing to improve
the breed, and those who are in Boxers solely because
of their overinflated egos.
Most of all we hate the jealousy and people who would
be happy to seriously hurt us just because we work harder
and with more passion than them! If we do not stop our
involvement now, we will not be far from the point where
we will hate the whole mankind, and we don't want it to
happen.
The human factor of the Boxer breeding turned out to be
a bigger obstacle in our lives than we had originally
estimated, and we are sorry to announce the Eurozone Boxer
kennel will no longer be actively involved in the breed.
We do not know if we will ever come back, but if we will,
it will be not here and not now. We plan to continue showing
Maffy sparingly, and making him and his half-brother Devi
available at public stud. Hopefully there will be a breeder
who could take on from here and continue building on our
legacy. We might even have a litter or two at some point
in the future, as the bitch we plan on keeping is quite
young. However we no longer will sacrifice all of our
time and resources, and our very lives, to the cause that
no longer makes us happy. At this point it gives us more
pleasure to take a dog for a run in the fields or to cuddle
with a couple of them on the couch. Boxer forever.
We feel that the well deserved World Winner title for
our homebred Ch.Twinkle Star v.Eurozone is nothing but
a perfect dot at the end of the sentence.
All of our enemies out there, feel free to rejoice in
this information. To our friends - sorry to have disappointed
you...
World Winner 1979 Ch.Casper (van Worikben)
World Winner 1994 Ch.Tenor de Loermo
World Winner 2008 Ch.Twinkle Star v.Eurozone
The silky crimson and saffron ribbon is home.
Alexandra Gav & Zoltán Rudolf
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see Maffy's World Winner gallery, click on any of
the pictures above. |
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