About us.

We are Sam and Danielle and we are the proud owners of 4 Catahoula Leopard Dogs..

Our first dog when we were going to live together in 1999 was Didi a Jack Russell female. She was already my dog when I was still living with my parents . She is 13,5 years old now.

After a half year we chose to have a second dog to guard our property.  That was a Bordeaux dog.

After 8.5 years we had too put him to sleep because of a terrible illness.

After some time we decided to take a new dog.

At the Internet, we saw the Louisiana Catahoula Leopard Dog. Wow, I thought that is interesting.

But they are not FCI recognized and there were no breeders listed in the Netherlands, but I liked his character and looks and I  continue searching. 

After some research, I found an email address of a Czech breeder: Gerhard Stein.

In 1998 he had introduced and imported this breed to Europe . A brindle with Glass eyes female So.Sloughts Katy and a solid black with brown eyes male Cat Cradle's Car where the first Catahoulas. After a few years he bought another male, Patchwork double glass eyed called Crawdads Toledo and a patchwork double glass eyed female called Peggy. These 4 dogs are the most in the pedigrees of the Catahoula population in Czech. Republik.

After a few years he imported another male, solid  red& tan with white trim and green eyes, Windridge's Trapper and a Black& tan with brown eyes female, Sunnydog's Hollandia. To add some new blood in the Catahoulas in Europe.

He had a litter of puppies but they were all reserved.

A friend breeder had a female and she was going to have pups in the beginning of February 2008.There were already 4 puppies booked but only females, we wanted a male so we got the first choice!  This litter was sired by Windridge's Trapper(solid red) and was his first litter sired by him, and the Dam Franceska Sumici Kridla(Double Merle red Patchwork) was from the first litter between Crawdad's Toledo and Peggy. So a nice combination of US dogs..

After a lot of information from the Internet on American sites, and a lot of contact with Mr. Stein and his friend Helena who translated everything, we were sure we absolutely wanted a Catahoula!  

On February 6, 2008 we got an email that 14 pups were born, 8 females and 6 males!

There in that litter somewhere was our new puppy.

We received almost every week photo of the puppy they named Ares Besavej.

We were asked to describe our living conditions and living environment and we send pictures of our house and other animals , so they got an idea  where the pup would be going to live.

Well, I thought, they are  seriously, but that was good and necessary! They wanted to have good people for there pups.

After 8.5 week waiting, we could finally go to the Czech Republic to get our pup. We decided to call him Troy.

When we arrived at the breeder, Hana Kouthova, we met a pack of 19 dogs, 2 Bernese Mountain Dogs, 16 Catahoulas, father and mother and 14 puppies and a Australian Cattle Dog. Really beautiful and interesting to watch.
 

After a few hours we were signing a contract and receive a passport. The pedigree was send by post after a few weeks.

At least we hold our puppy in our arms. He really was adorable!

In the meanwhile, Troy has all his obedience training finished and now he can "relax" and do some biking, man-trailing ,  go to shows , a few times a year herding and hog baying and  swimming when it is warm.
Troy has done some scenting on deer course in Belgium too, it is a very good hunting/scenting dog. He's very happy with it.

In December 2008 we have taken a female Catahoula who was looking for a new home. Her name is Sunnydog’s Amy. 

In Februar 11th 2010, I was in Nevada City, CA to pick up our 3th Catahoula. This is a Catahoula of Windridge's Catahoulas from Greg and Kristin Ludlum. Windridge's Aprhodite - Ziva is a very lovely female but with a big own will. She is a bit assertive towards strange people, but this is how a Catahoula can be.

We started working with all of our dogs in scenting people/ rescue work, they are really good in this work and we like it also very much.

Ziva's Hips are recently tested and she has HD B/A hips. She will be our first breeding female. She is a very good combination to our Red Leopard Male.

We had our first ever litter on July 23th 2011. ZIva had 8 pups and we kept one red& brindle trim female. Fair Mate's Arindi, called Abby. She will be trained as a Search and Rescue dog.

The Catahoula is a dog that is not for everyone! He doesn't have to be a friend for everyone/strangers, he will decide or he accepts them or not! They can not be forced, they are very independent, very alert, eager to learn, highly intelligent and protective!

Daniëlle.