Having both grown up with dogs, they have always been a part of our lives as children and adults. As adults, our first two dogs were Australian Cattle Dogs, Sydney and Dingo. After their sad passings, we adopted Liberty at seven weeks of age, from a local animal shelter. Wanting a large dog, we searched for just the right rescue. Labeled as a Cholocate Lab/Rhodesian Ridgeback mix, we expected Libby to mature into an 80 lb. or so adult. But soon, her floppy ears stood up and her drooping tail curled, and she grew into a herding dog in look and personality, topping out at just under 50 lbs. She was quite a handful in the beginning, but lots of socialization and expert instruction from Aleita Downer, excellent dog trainer and owner of Cape-Able Canines in San Diego , turned her into a wonderful adult companion. In fact, Liberty now has her AKC Canine Good Citizen (CGC) ranking. We are active with her in agility training and have trained her in sheep herding as well, and she is excellent in both. She is our happy loving girl.
Still yearning for a large breed, we started pouring over the breed books in our Books section and going to all the local and not-so-local AKC conformation shows we could find. We were drawn to the Bullmastiffs, and started hanging around the Bully ring always looking for owners to ask questions of. It was ringside that we met our now good friends, Deb Catterall and Pat McFarland, owners of Warrior, a wonderful Bullmastiff breed ambassador. Warrior was the first Bully we officially met, and we fell in love with him and the breed. Deb and Pat introduced us to breeders Taun Brooks and Marilyn DeCair of Wildheart Bullmastiffs. And a year or so later, we got Zeus from them. Wildhearts Rolling Code, Zeus for short, was born June 6, 2003 and immediately captured our hearts, as you can tell from our website! We had never had a show quality dog before, and we were excited to dabble in the show ring. Taun Brooks graciously agreed to handle him for us, and he won a four point major in his second show when he was just 8 months old! Taun guided him on a whirlwind winning ride for the next three months in several shows, winning his championship in May 2004 before he was even one year old! Since then Mark, Zeus' “dad” has handled him in the ring on and off for fun, including winning BOS at the Beverly Hills Kennel Club show in 2004. In addition, Mark handled Zeus in four International Shows winning V-1 Ratings, the top ranking, from all the judges in all the shows and winning Zeus' International Champion title on April 17, 2005. Most recently, Mark handled Zeus in the Kennel Club of Riverside back-to-back shows on October 29 & 30, 2005, winning BOS both days! Mark and Zeus then started competing in obedience and won their Rally Novice A title on August 26, 2006. Sadly, Zeus passed away at age 3 ½ on November 5, 2006. The whole in our hearts aches, and we miss him daily and profoundly. First and foremost, Zeus was our loving companion and our big sweet boy. We cannot begin to express our devastation at his loss.
Our newest addition is Mystic's Mademoiselle Lola, a fawn French Bulldog born April 15, 2005. Lola is a big dog in a small dog's stocky body, and she gets along wonderfully with Libby and Zeus. Lola competed in her first AKC conformation show on October 29, 2005, the Kennel Club of Riverside. Expertly handled by Dione Shastid, she took first in her class of three bitches, and then went on to take reserve. We love her outgoing confident clownish personality! Since then, Lola has decided the show ring is not for her. She is now spayed and practicing obedience and agility; both activities fit her active personality to a tee!
Our household is also graced with a wonderful rescued Congo African Grey parrot, Georgie. Adopted from a fantastic organization, Parrot Education and Adoption Center
( www.peac.org ), she keeps us company with her expert mimicry of household noises, including barking dogs, squeaky toys and loud kisses. She blends into our mix perfectly, and we treasure her.
We socialize our dogs as much as possible taking them with us whenever and wherever we can: on walks, to outdoor restaurants, to outdoor shopping malls, to other people's houses, to ball games at local parks, etc. We have some dog crazy friends who participate in these activities with us. It's fun and a real bonding experience.
Our special thanks goes to Aleita Downer and Lee Wells, extraordinary dog trainers, Benita Keiss, cutting edge vet at Pacific Beach Vet Clinic in San Diego, Taun Brooks and Marilyn DeCair for breeding and initially raising such a wonderful boy and their vast knowledge and willingness to answer all our questions, Rich Stevenson and Gary Brown for their friendship and readiness to watch the crew on our rare vacations, and Deb Catterall and Pat McFarland for their patient answering of all of our questions and for their warm friendship.
You can see some of our fun and proud moments below.
