She was very much attached to him, so, when he died she was in a terrible state for some months. She had shown interest in the chech wolfdog and because I felt sorry for her I offered to go to prague and get one. We contacted Pavel on the internet whether he knew there were puppies available and when the answer was affirmative I called my best friend and the next day we drove to Prague.

Now, more than two years later, I wish we had stopped in Plzen to get very drunk, forgetting what we were doing there, and went home (we did get drunk but still went on).

I don't mean that. Or better: I mean that just half. For we did not fetch a dog, we fetched half a dog, half a wild animal. When we got home he immediately accepted my wife as his new boss (how does she do that?) and became friends with my children and our other dog, an australian cattledog female.

And there it ended.

In his terms: that's the pack ( luckily I'm included) and everyone else is an outsider and should be treated likewise. Without the pack life is meaningless and very threatening. That means that the more pack-members leave the territory (the house) the more annoyed he gets and there goes your furniture. (Do'nt think you can lock him up in a bench. He has wrecked two guaranteed pure iron ones already).

When you think of taking a holliday and go by plain to, say, Spain or a Greek island, forget it. You can not place him with friends or in a dog-pension for he does not accept friends not to mention pension employees and he probably would escape and go searching for us.

So now we go to places where we can take him with us (no brittain, no ireland, my favourites) like the Belgian Ardennes. And I must say: he is at his best when we wander through the woods, the whole family together. He loves it. disappears into the woods for long times and always comes back from where you least expect him, looking very happy.

But unfortunately those are short periods. The rest of the year he lives with us in a suburban area where we cannot walk him without a lease. Because everything that moves is a possible prey: from cats to running children and from little lap-dogs to childrens-farm sheep. He probably will not harm them but they get scared shitless seeing a big wolf-like dog trying to hunt them down (and he always gets them. he's the fastest dog I have ever seen on this planet).

Visitors are not welcome. It does not matter how often they come by, he will allways distrust them and never let anyone but us touch him. In a way it's a pity he can't wander through the woods the whole year through (with us of course) to chase rabbits and deer because that's what he is made to do.

To resume: I would never advise anyone who is looking for a dog to take a csv, as good looking as they might be (and they are) for they are likely to dominate 14 years or more of your family live. But I think that when that 14 or so years have ended the emptyness in your live will be so all consuming that you immediately will go to prague (by way of Plzen of course) again and fetch another of those impossible (not)dogs.

Geert de Jong