에피소드 57: Johan Weckhuyzen

into it was campagna and breeding lacenois or is there something prior well i must say when i graduated from university as a school teacher for sport right what i never did i never was in school i just give private trainings or whatever but not in school but i have my university degree right and i bought myself a dog the day that i graduated and it was a old english sheepdog because it was in 1984 and of course because i know nothing about dogs i said i need to go to a club so after corporate trainings they start to tell me about uh dog sport and competitions and i was like oh okay like i'm a really sport guy say okay competition i am motivated and so i started to do some obedience with the dog and in in 88 i competed for the first time in the belgium championship in obedience belgium obedience and in 88 also that's uh important date because january 88 i bought my first belgium shepherd and like you mentioned already it was a lacenois and his name was max van krikkebos and uh i must say it is uh in my heart when i do something i go for the not 100 i go for 200 and and so uh i meet people i meet people with belgium shepherds so that's the reason i bought myself a lacenois and uh all the luck for me the lady that was breeding the lacenois she also had the dogs from look from the depot to a canal at home with her she took care of bob i don't remember exactly but maybe 10 15 dogs of look were in her place and a lot of leaders were born in her place so that's also how i met look then but in that time when i met look i was already in a club uh i changed from club from an obedience club i went to a belgium ring club and there i came in contact with lucien riviere who was 17 times belgium champion in ring sport and there i started to do decoying i started to train and of course when when you're a sport guy and you compete you want to win you want to do good and every time i go i went one step further and further with my lake and was in the start and with max i can say in i don't remember the date i think in 92 i was competing then already in campania and in campania i became champion with the lacenois against the malis and the bouvies that were competing at that time and with lucia so i did a good evolution and at the same time look came there with the breeding program i started to know so i started i bought my first malinois i think in 1990 and so okay then it goes quickly because you go and you go you do one step further and two steps further and in very short time i had 10 15 dogs at home so in 95 i started then professionally as a boarding kennel and the boarding

kennel okay uh was interesting to do with my wife but that's not really my thing i went really in the dogs in the sport and with luke i met andre varley who is still my uh vice president who is now recovering from a very bad accident he had in august last year but uh i can say he's doing well now so that's good and uh from one came another and so i came completely involved in the dogs uh uh professionally it brought me with the boarding kennel i came into the position that people start to ask me hey johan can you find us a dog we need dogs for the army we need dogs for this we need dogs for that so uh i came in this world from buying and selling dogs adult dogs trained dogs uh we had to prepare those dogs for the clients like all those things uh so that went on till i think about 10 years ago because it was interesting to know that my first client was joseph russell in 1992 i still remember very well and joseph russell was he was buying dogs for french army for air force and he was at that time already full-time busy with explosive detection dogs uh in the army and he did a lot of things he did he was responsible when he met me for buying the dogs training the dogs and training the teams and that became very very intense relationship and beside the sport of course and uh with joseph he changed from army to private companies in the year 2000 when he became responsible for the airport in paris for all the detection dogs for explosive detection dogs and he had 60 teams under him after six years he said hey johan six or eight years he said you know i start to get bored because i'm not working for myself and i want to start up a company and so i joined him in the company in france and we formed the company named canine detection sino and and uh that was very very very intense let's say like that uh so i decided that brought good money i must say like this yeah yeah and so at that time i decided to go to start this same project in belgium but in belgium there was nothing yet there was no explosive dogs privately but with the law the european law that was there uh the possibility was present so in uh 2011 i started with my new company in detection dogs canine detection belgium and what i'm still doing now about six years ago i made up a new training center canine detection training because we need it for all the dogs that we train that we use on the airport in brussels and the airport in ostende and this is a bit the professional way how my career went went in 92 also the same year with andre varley andre he started by organizing the first competition

for belgium shepherds like a european championship in germany and there it was at that time vocal riddle who was uh organizing together with peter engel from dmc and uh so uh andre asked me hey johan can you check up if you can have a igp uh team to compete say oh oh igp i said nothing about igp i'm a marine guy so uh say okay i take a look and i will talk because most of the guys in the igp at that time uh with malinois they were flemish guys so it was difficult for andre and luke who are french speaking uh to have the contacts uh me talking with look this was very complicated yes yes and that's uh the first competition we did was in germany and we did uh igp and monitoring and three years later in uh because okay then i was lucky i must say unlucky by the way of speaking um because every time they did a meeting i was the only guy who spoke french who spoke flemish who spoke german uh and i i i speak four languages so being born in belgium yeah so as i had to translate all the time everybody started to uh phone me and ask me all the questions uh and yeah i got really involved in uh let's say in what became fmb the the idea everything that's the time when everything got planted yes exactly and uh three years later we organized in breden where i still have my office here uh the first world championship because then uh team from america was there and i still have my t-shirt from the championship oh really okay yes okay that's it was it was one of the first i mean i mean it was for me and for everybody it was a very important event it was the first world championship as you said you know and it was in belgium and it was uh yeah it was a important event like really it it made the beginning of something great you know yes yes exactly exactly because uh uh on those every time on these competitions that's when we started to discuss with all the team leaders how we do next year and i got more and more involved and we said okay we decide and i must say there is for sure andre who take really the lead in uh in the planning and saying hey we should do that and that and i was a little bit the executor from all the plans that andre had and uh so we were growing and growing and then uh with all the talks we have all around uh we decided in 2003 to organize the first time in the han the multiple championship before five disciplines and everybody said hey johan you're crazy you're crazy yes i know i'm crazy like i said at the start when i go for something i go for 200 percent and uh so that was let's say quite a good success and i remember the han also i mean i you know like

my memory is not like i don't remember names for example i don't remember certain things but then i remember strange things like i remember pretty much to to little details the mondioring setup in the han because it was such a beautiful uh i mean the the place where it was and the idea with the kind of like the beach uh team yeah exactly it was just so so cool exactly and another thing we also did in the han when we did the the parade with all the teams up in front we had a guy from france we were lakanois and some sheep and it was also the first time that we tried to introduce the sheep herding in the and i still have those pictures of course so that was also a thing that we planned and the next years after the han okay we had some difficulties to find the countries that wanted to organize because they were i must say they were afraid it was scary this is a scary commitment how big it was even even today it's scary right yeah it's a yes that's that's true but so a good organization then uh you can collect so what happened after the han where did it go uh after the han oh i know uh we went to slovenia and i remember very well like in slovenia we also did the monduring yeah then i started from home with my van and my trailer behind with everything for the monduring because in slovenia they had no monduring yes and i can say i did that for several years that on every competition i came i put up the fields with some of my friends of course i cannot do it alone but like that we could introduce the sport and okay when we see that the last championship before we had corona it was in tschechi there we had 850 dogs competing in the in all the different disciplines that we had because we started with five but now we are on 10 already in 10 different competitions and already for this year uh i can say for the first time we split up the world championship because we have already the world championship in belgium in in end of april for the search and rescue dogs okay because greece uh already told us because okay maybe you you know normally it should be in portugal this year yes yes last summer when we asked hey but you didn't sign the contract yeah yeah but we don't sign the contract uh then we were blocked okay and we could find greece that organized two years ago or three years ago three years ago yeah two or three years ago yeah yeah yeah we had now italy romania and before romania it was uh also with greece so greece said they put out the helping hands huh and um but they could not do the search and rescue and not the

the shepherd sheep herding yeah so we say okay no problem we organize it on a different date and now we have uh uh because we had nobody so my club in belgium we decided okay we do the search and rescue and and and i must say for me uh that is a very very important step that we do because the search and rescue for me for the future is a very important discipline uh because if we check on the sport and all the difficulties we have with uh animal welfare so with search and rescue there is i mean as far as i know like there are different different competitions with different their own little rules like what what kind of um is a world search and rescue organization and what rules would they have for or championship for yes okay well uh i must say the search and rescue is already organized quite some years by uh fci and by ero which is not fci uh association but uh they work a lot together right so fci and ero they accept the the the judges from the the other uh association so and you can compete in both of the competitions okay okay so uh the rules and like with all the competitions we do our standard rules are fci rules okay we have uh we have uh we have signed a contract with fci uh that we follow the rules and that we uh take fci judges and things like that but okay we are not a real fci member we are recognized we have a cooperation contracts let's say like that uh which is not a bad thing i think you know no i think it's a good thing because uh uh like this i always say uh you don't have to invent the warm water yeah uh if something is there and you can use it you can better use it and say hey i will make up something completely new and and then the rules they are a little bit different and who and also in some ways you have much more control of of the organization than yes being answering to fci for for every little thing right yes exactly exactly let's go back to we will go we'll come to to fmbb but let's go back to history a little bit okay um because um you you're one of the very few people that i personally know that had the passion with the lucky no and and the understanding of the the dogs at the time and then they unfortunately just just um yeah there there is as far as i remember and know right now they're like few maybe maybe three kennels that are trying something to do with um recognizing the temperament and character but but but it's pretty much even even in the show circles they are becoming not so common to the to the point that i i remember again like early 90s people you walk a mile in on the street and they're like what is this

so you had to tell people like 20 minutes of explanation if you really wanted to tell them what the type of dog you have it seems today that when people see lucky no that's kind of how they are they're like well what is this what kind of terrier or what what what is that dog like they're very rare right now my question because again you you have the training experience and you work with both malice and like what what what would you say the interesting differences and commonalities between the two if you compare what did you like like you personally well uh how i started with luck is because in my club in lege i had a good friend uh joan also your one man and he was competing in obedience with a latino female and uh in the club he was also in the club in lege there in the club he was also training some bike work because he wanted to do the sequin sequin is like a little belgium ring program but for dogs that are doing uh shows and that want to have a belgium championship title right that's like a test they have to do yeah yeah so um i said at that time oh everybody has like a malinois and i saw this lacon with the curly hair and in that time i also had a little bit curly hair but that's a long time ago and uh now we wear glasses yeah yes and uh no but uh i like the doctor a lot and he was working very well and so i said hey you want um i had my uh all these english sheepdog and at that moment uh my girlfriend before i was at that moment she said no no second dog and this and that and so one day she decided to splitter and leave so the next day i was calling for a dog and i say hey if she come back it's too late then i have my dog but okay she didn't come back okay but that's history right but uh johan said hey but the breeder where i bought before i worked together they have a little right now and uh we can go and uh at that time i didn't know anything about the shepherds because that would be the first one that i buy right and uh but and somebody i'm always trying to be informed before i do something right and uh so i checked a bit on the lake and wine this and pedigrees and i needed to understand a little bit and when we went there uh the lady evelyn it was uh uh the kennel van krikobos right with evelyn who was the breeder and uh so evelyn she explained me everything and uh she showed me the pedigrees and yeah in belgium you know we have the white pedigrees and we had the rose pedigrees yeah and the rose pedigrees you can explain a little bit yeah for for everybody and the the white pedigrees there's uh

a full pedigree and full generations yes and in belgium you can if your dog has no pedigree you can by show uh get a rose pedigree but then only the name of the dog that did the show is mentioned and that's an annex in the in the in the stud book and uh so when i checked the puppies they would have a rose pedigree say hey but this how can i do how can i compete and then she explained me yes but you are you know the mother of your luck of the one that i bought in max the mother of that she is a mixed breed between a malinois and a lachenois so at that moment i was worried i said oh no i want a pure bread dog and but johan on the way back home he said no no no it's 400 sure it's official and this and that and so then i i decided anyway to to take a luck and walk but the luck and one the mother was mixed from malinois and luck and was and later on when i started to study well in pedigrees i could see that also the mother of the mother i'm pretty sure that also there was malinois in behind i cannot find it back on the pedigree but that's one of the problems uh in the early years they were not always the interesting story of the malinois and the belgian shepherds that's a very interesting for everybody those times were very interesting good times and also uh if you go back in history and you go back to the first uh dogs that were registered in the start of the 1900s because the first malinois in the belgian stud book was in 1903 1902 1903 something like that i think the name was was was the polders okay and uh but if you check on the origins the malinois the start of the malinois and the start of the legerois they come out of the same parents they have the same not the same parents really but the same dogs are in both yes yeah so this brings that sometimes uh in breeding of of malinois sometimes you get malinois with like a little rough coat a stripe of rough coat on the back right and this is the origins of the lucky one that is uh now more than 100 years ago yeah but we still see it and uh so when they uh did this intervariation where my max was coming out of uh also there the dog that they used uh he had already given malinois with such a rough coat on the back of course and so we didn't lose so much of the coat by doing we i didn't do it it was evelyn who did it at that time uh so uh the coat of this second generation was already perfect and uh so if we talk now uh uh when you say okay the lachenois and malinois uh all depends on the bloodlines that you use when they come right right and uh if we see uh like we mentioned at the start my

friend jose with quichotte okay he competed with the best malinois and he could get sometimes better points than the best money oh if if he i mean if if he was you know trained how we know how to train today he was a he was a strong dog yes exactly exactly dog like i remember him biting it was always with intention it's like i'm not playing here no no no no no that's true and it's it's a funny story but the first time that jose went for his ipo one at that time it was i view what is now igp right but uh so the first time just to help him i said okay just uh i have also one i will train a little bit igp and uh i go with you to support you right even i was a ring guy but i did it and so we went both with one lachenois to a competition in the doberman club and they see us coming and say hey poodles are not welcome here they have competitions like this yeah okay we do our best we do our best um after the competition because just he did the bite work and uh if i remember well he left the field with 99 in bite work everybody was like oh how did this dog do that and later on in the history in his career lots of time on world championships the helpers that did the bite work they come and see me and they say hey johan the bite the hardest bite we had on our arm it was like how did you do that how did you do that so it was very funny but i must say quichotte he was later on very important in my breeding because he gave very social dogs what is sometimes a problem in the lake was and i can recognize quite fast the dogs out of this origin and the kishot was used quite a lot and we see people that use him on beauty lines and and start to because most of the lachenoise i say beauty lines when i started with mux there was not so much working with the lachenoise right it was because he was very rare but and also one of the the nice things i had one day we competed in the in the holland championship of the club and all the big malinois handlers from that time they were participating right like uh techlar like van rossam knopp all the big ones that came to the world championships and they didn't know so well joss and uh i didn't know so well kishot and kishot he was lucky to do the last dog bite work so everybody was standing there because bite work you know how it is when dogs biting in igp everybody is watching dogs do the obedience but okay you you see a little bit public because then it's the time to go and drink something yes but everybody was there standing and i remember still because now still my head on my arms is starting to raise the judge he started his command when he finished today

well he said when i look now it's a shame i have to wait to the last dog to see the dog who's really biting so all the other one oh and i was like holy what is this right and also there he he stepped out with 99 points in the in the bike worker and that's for a lack of no more so those are really extremely nice memories and that is uh so do you do you i don't know when when was possible to collect and freeze semen but um i don't know when did that started i know um did you miss that opportunity with kishot or i i must say i already in that time i did some frozen semen and i still have i still have i still have i have semen from mux my uh latin war yeah i have semen from kishot and i have semen from one of my famous malinois yeah i know stoned i i'm trying to talk to you here and there every once in a while i keep talking about this one you know what happened i'll tell you a really kind of unfortunate story with with turkudos and i don't think we've talked about this one very like i mean he was super special dog no like and and we can go into the story but the bottom line is he he was the duvetore dog he and and eventually you contacted me because i i really liked him you knew that i like him and it was just the right perfect opportunity to to buy him so i did and i collected him a lot of times like i collected him i'm like i'm gonna have frozen semen from this dog until i'm done breeding in my life but i made a very big mistake i put all the semen into one bank in one hospital bush okay and what happened and i don't know if it's because of florida with the hurricane electricity whatever happened in the clinic at one time i tried to breed and it's not happening i try another one i try four different females and it's not happening but before like like we already use them we used frozen semen like for friends that wanted to breed to him so he was there and he was very strong but something happened in the clinic and the semen got destroyed and it was very very heartbreaking because uh even though he was dead already in my head i i hit him you know and and for me he really died the moment i realized that the semen is gone finally and and it was i get goosebumps too it's just one of the sad moments you know so like right now with every dog and this is for anybody that's listening advice if you ever collect semen split it in two different places so you know that you have it because uh i was always thinking oh i have enough i had like so many straws for so many breedings all gone you know very very sad but that's amazing that you do have the the from the lucky know that's

very important how did the i mean how even the name what is the name how did the name come that uh van de duvet torre how did the name come yeah well very stupid very very stupid uh because i'm i'm not so strong in names because some of the guys that buy a puppy from me say hey you are where did you pick up this name where did you pick up this so uh it was for the litter of of key shots because i must say i was not really interested in start breeding so i had a couple of liters with max with my latin one but that was on the kennel name of krikobos or from my friend johan on the vantoo part here that were the two kennels said yeah but that on your name if it's female from you it's on your kennel name it's female from you it's on your kennel name so and one day so i do the breeding for kishot and so i called to evelyn and say hey evelyn uh my female daughter from max uh she had the puppies and i made it him with this man uh can you ask for the pedigrees and she said to me hey johan the mail you used i don't like him i don't ask pedigrees for this what i said what what i do now oh no it's your problem oh okay so then i had to ask and send the bear very quickly a kennel name because without kennel name it's it's not yes yes and if you ask a kennel name at that time i don't know how it is now but at that time we had to give 10 names yes so i was like looking in the history and some historical names say oh maybe that maybe that and so i the last one was over what else can i put what else can i put and i'm from newport where we organized uh also a second time third time the world championship in 2012. i'm from newport and there is an old tower from the 13th century and the name in our language is duvetore okay i said oh like i'm from newport i will call him i will say the last one for the duvetore then they will never take it okay so good one that's the history of my kennel name and i will say the duvetore uh it's uh how you say it's the language that we really speak in newport and that's a uh real dialects and it comes from uh the devil and the devil with l is the devil so it's the devil's tower right and they have ancient pictures from the first world war when the the normally it's the saint laurentius tower when he was destroyed by the germans and that was not the first time that the tower was destroyed every war when newport was involved they destroyed the tower so the local people said hey this is the work of the devil we cannot have such a nice tower so it's the devil's tower because

he is doing all these things and that's how uh we call it and in in in the in the dialect they started to cut the l like duvet but if you take a pigeon in our language it's a dove and more pigeons it's duven so a lot of people think it's the pigeon's tower no it's not the p it's the devil's tower that's a good actually that i i like the name like this makes sense because you picked something local like i mean it's the same with me with udvitusha you know it's really just the mountain that i grow up near sofia you know um it's kind of and eventually what is strange with these names eventually it just becomes the name of your kennel it's not in your head it's no more associated like you never think of it the way we just described that's true and what what is interesting also is that uh later on uh because you know i'm a collector everything i can see uh pictures from belgium shepherds or books or whatever i try to to buy them or or bronze statues whatever when i see something from belgium shepherds i will not let it go right because uh here in my office we have a little office for the fmbb and there uh i have lots of books lots of books i have lots of statues i have paintings everything that we can get our hands on we buy it and by by searching like this i collected some cards some old pictures from newport from the devil's tower and uh i had one card where i say hey this is just like a malinois on the picture right but it's very small but you can really see the type and i'm i'm i'm 100 sure it's a malinois and then later on my father who was uh doing always uh you know the genetics of people starting to fill in the the the family tree like we say and he collected the things and then he collected some pictures from my great grandfather with a malinois and then i could find out that he was in in the years 20 in 1920 1930 he was a member of the newport dog sport club doing ring sport wow so that's that was for me a big surprise because me let's say nearly 100 years later i i see that my great grandfather had the same hobby as i had crazy that's yes for me that's also very very crazy i you know i mean if you have this kind of collection you should you should you should get some young kids to make like pdf files and and preserve everything and maybe even have a section on the on the fmbb website or something about like i mean the history is very interesting and as far as i know you know like i was it in bredon or where was it there there was a little exposition it was i think jean-marie van bustel yes exactly it was in the hum oh in the hum right

in the hum we did an exposition like that it was beautiful like for people that appreciate the breed it was very learning like like you really understand that uh belgian shepherds have just as much culture and history as any other breed you know yes um i must say jamari uh i had very very good contacts with him because we had same interests right about the history and everything uh and jamari he died a couple years ago yeah yeah but now his daughter is still keeping on all the collections of things that he has and she still sells the books that he has yes we will i i already talked about it and we will try to put something on the our website uh to promote those things because they alay jamari wrote very interesting books about history yes i think these are very i mean for anybody that starts or even even people that have been in the with the breed for a while when you look around there is not much information or people don't know where to find the information yeah and and this can be very very because it's a it's such an interesting story um how did it all start with the malice was that was that yeah i don't want to even mention names i i just want to hear how how did where how did you got stuck with the malice and the breeding and which dogs came to to like play the important role for you well uh like i said when i started with my lekenwa in the club in lake with lucia who who teach me everything about the training how it was done at that moment because uh like i mentioned at the start i'm i have a university degree on how to train uh people for different kind of sports uh psychology is there yeah and uh so lucia he uh okay he trained me i was his decoy for quite a long time uh and uh at that moment he was competing with gaillard in the sky who was three times belgian champion in the different categories in the ring sport and um in our club we had uh lut who was a veterinarian and she owned a dog from depotua and uh and uh lut decided to do a mating with gaillard in the sky and uh i said everybody i was there with my money with my luck and i said yeah but maybe i take a i take a little uh malinois and just for fun and to train and uh you know and so i bought pita from lut and uh because pita was the mother of stone yes exactly and and it was what elgos and pita elgos pita yes exactly and uh so uh with pita we did a few little competitions in ring sport uh but then she entered in my alley i started to breed with her yeah and uh at that moment i started to know luke very well because i met him quite a lot uh with evelyn

yeah with that with my local or when we go on ring sport with lucia we went for training in the dornik but i was always with lucia always i was always so uh look look also you should come to my club and uh no i'm very i have my but all my training let's say it's lucia who orientated me and luke he orientated me in the breeding because when i had my female i said look i said yeah you should use elbows so okay i used elbows four times i did four times the same combination and then i started to become very very good friend with luke because uh through luke and andre varley i started to work as freelance for royal canon where i had to visit the clubs and i remember those times yeah i remember those times and uh so when we went we looked to to an exposition we always shared the hotel room maybe we were always together and look he was really really really good friend and look he teached me everything he teached me all the the lines where to take care of what you could expect oh my god he was so cool when uh like i remember the same stuff like i would go to his place and and and it's just me and my french is pretty much zero and we didn't have the phones to translate but then he would open the freaking big book and then we would start writing the pedigrees and explaining and it's like i remember this like it was yesterday it was very special times you know yes in fact you know i i um he made a couple of breedings very recently and and i got one female from him um i don't know if he he was in a hospital he had some very serious health problems just last year sometime but i think i don't know what happened i haven't checked in a while um well it's let's say it's now a couple years it's from before corona i didn't see look anymore yeah just before or just before or just after corona we had still a nice meal together together with paula you know paula from switzerland yes yes yes who is always also breeding with uh that's how i got nakita she brought nakita she they sold nakita to somebody in switzerland i can't remember who was a high level competitor but they had that didn't like her white feet oh okay yeah and that's how she came to me and i it was um i remember it was in breden she was in heat and yeah at that time i think bertrand the nikki and bertrand the joe farm they already had algos so she was in heat i was the last dog to compete um and right after i tried to make a breeding with algos and i was so excited for this breeding but it didn't take you know okay um so i i besides um yeah i had um what was the name of the the people um the the hank hank hank hank

shook um breeders missley yeah johnny missley yes so that's kind of how i got a little bit of algos her bred bred bred bred bred bred bred bred bred bred bred bred bred bred bred bred bred bred bred bred bred bred bred bred bred bred bred bred bred bred bred bred bred bred bred bred bred bred bred bred bred bred bred bred bred bred bred bred bred bred bred bred bred bred bred bred bred bred bred bred bred bred bred bred bred bred bred bred bred bred bred bred bred bred bred bred bred bred bred bred bred bred bred bred bred bred bred bred bred bred bred bred bred bred bred bred bred bred bred bred bred bred bred bred bred bred bred bred bred bred bred bred bred bred bred bred bred bred bred bred bred bred bred bred bred bred bred bred bred bred bred bred bred bred bred bred bred bred bred bred bred bred bred bred bred bred bred bred bred bred bred bred bred bred bred bred bred bred bred bred bred bred bred bred bred bred bred bred bred bred bred bred bred bred bred bred bred bred bred bred bred bred bred bred bred bred bred bred bred bred bred bred bred bred bred bred bred bred bred bred bred bred bred bred bred bred bred bred bred bred bred bred bred bred bred bred bred bred bred bred But for him, it's a very interesting story also because of Bieber and GV2 and then there was Nelton and there was Elgos. Tell me a little bit of these stories because it will be very interesting for everybody. Okay, so look, I don't know in exactly what year he started to breed, but when he started to breed, he was breeding mostly on lines of flap. Yeah. With, what's it now? Cartouche. No, no, no, no. Cartouche is different. That was the second wave of Luke's breeding. The first wave, it was the flap line with the famous French guy. I'm bad in names. I'm very bad in names. Like me. Maybe it will come. Yeah, it will come. So he started breeding that and he was not so happy with that. And so in the early 80s, then he started to be, to see some dogs in the NVBK and he started to know Marc de Welde. And Marc de Welde, he owned G. Bieber and Cartouche. And then he started to use these dogs. And G. V. 2 and Bieber, they have the same father. They are both out of Cartouche, but a different mother. Where G. V. 2 is then second time on the line of Arad, who is behind Cartouche. And so he started on that. And then he started to have his real, real group of strong dogs. And then the third wave was after he started to use Elgos. So that's the three waves that I can say we've looked, that we can see. And that is very interesting how we did.

And he used other lines where he said, hey, Johan, stay away from that because you see this and this and these problems. And I must say in all the years now we are nearly 30 years. After the 85, we are 25. So it's 40 years. And those things that Luke told me and teach me about the bloodlines, I still can see that. And people say, yeah, but that's not possible. But the traces, sometimes the look of the dogs. Yes. For sure. And they say, hey, they go back on that, they go back on that. And if you see the look, it goes also with the temperament and the character because everything is genetic. Yes. And if you see the, let's say in the 80s, the French dogs, they were quite small and they were all, let's name it, the Loup de Métain, they were small dogs. The males, they were size of a very small female in the Boutouin lines. So that is, we can still see things that you say, hey, but this is typical French line. This is typical this line. This is typical NVBK line. So of the look, the look gives you already the information about the bloodline. And if you know what characteristics the bloodline is giving, you can have a good probability that the puppies will be all like the father or like the mother. But, okay, if you do some line breeding, you know what you do and you can know what you can expect. If you do completely out crosses, you know nothing. You know nothing. That's one of the big things in the breeding. And everybody says, yeah, but inbreeding and line breeding. But without, I tell you, they ask me, they show me pedigrees. They say, Johan, what do you think? What can we get? Right. It's throwing a dice in Las Vegas. If I see the pedigree, I can see 25 different males with no connections. So, yeah, it can be anything. If you see, let's say, like Luke Brett with a biver on GV2 or the other way around. Hey, you know, hey, there's Cartuzzi, there's Cartuzzi. Okay. The probability that you will get something like this is, of course, much bigger. And eventually you have to be careful how thin, how many times you go. But to some extent, as you say, you can be almost certain that you know what's coming out. Yes. But that is why also that also things that Luke teach me and then with the research that I did, there were very, very interesting articles written about inbreeding in the 50s by Mr. Verbank, who was a real Belgian shepherd guy who had a really high standard in how he could write things about the Belgian shepherd. And Mr. Verbank was a very important guy in the history of the shepherd. And now I hear everybody say, yeah, but inbreeding.

I only remember a black and white picture of him with a cigar or something. Yes, exactly. Exactly. Exactly. He was from Ghent, originally. But Luke had a very, in a way, very simple recipe for breeding, but he understand the types. Yes. As you said, like you see the type of the dog and you kind of know what the temperament and what the endurance and agility and everything you can kind of. Yes. And then to keep the balance and not to lose it in your breeding program. That's the skill of a breeder. Yes. You, Alec, because I know there is a lot of things said now lately about this inbreeding. And I say inbreeding. Okay. Inbreeding, that's a father on his daughter or a son with his mother or brother and sister. That's inbreeding. Right? All the rest is said line breeding. Line. If you take nieces or grandfathers, then you go on line breeding. But in the inbreeding, really inbreeding, it has been done quite a lot in the Belgian Shepherd in all history. If we check on the start, because the Belgian history, the history of the Belgian Shepherd, we have two important males that started the breed. That was chop and the wet. Those are the two most important dogs. And chop and the wet. If you see the pedigrees from that time, wow. It's scary. They never breed like they did. But the pool was small. Right? Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And you had the special dogs that you really wanted to. Yeah. And after this start where it was a lot, a lot inbreeding, I must say, in the whole history, we can find back dogs that were important, but that were issues of two, three generations of really strong inbreeding. Mm-hmm. And despite all the inbreeding that has been done with the Belgian Shepherds, we can say we have quite a healthy breed. Yes. Right? And it's not because it's like that, that you don't have, you have to take care, you have to know and understand what you do. Because the inbreeding, if people talk about living, they say it's bad, it's bad, it's bad, because it will accentuate the problems that the dogs have. Yes. Yeah, but which stupid guy will do inbreeding with dogs with problems? That's what I, that's my question. Yeah, and even, even more, today we have so much better understanding of, like, you can run a bunch of genetic tests and you can see a lot of health problems that maybe you, okay, well, let's say there is, I don't know, epilepsy. Or skin allergy or skin allergy or whatever. And then it gets like, okay, well, do I really want to take a chance?

But when you, today when you have all the opportunities to do the health checks, line breeding, inbreeding, it becomes even more interesting because you can avoid a lot of the problems that we took bigger risk back then, right? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah, that's good. Because I can say, with stoned, I did some really inbreedings. I did three or four times, I made a stone on one of his daughters, right? But different daughters, I must say. Yeah. I got dogs. Wow. Hey, you could see, you put them up and you, and if you do an inbreeding like that, then you can see also the value of your male. Right. Because if you do an inbreeding, a male on his daughter and the puppies are, let's say, shit, well, you put your male in the garbage, right? Yes. If you have there the product that you say, holy shit, this is 100% the father's side that we see, that is also the father of the mother, well, then you know that your dog will be of any interest in the breed because you will see the qualities of this dog. And that you can only verify in my knowledge by doing this inbreeding. And when we did that with Stone, well, we saw he was really giving what we wanted. And like in Germany, Stone, he did only two matings in Germany. But one of the matings was the litter of Casper Futtermor, right? That our friend from Futtermor helped me. So, Knut, eh, Knut Fuchs said, hey, Johan, I really want to do mating with Stone with my female Aika, who was several times on the podium in IGP. Yes, yes, yes. Because I want to have a little bit more strong dogs and I want to, oh, well, if we see the litter of Casper, wow, you check all the pictures and you put a picture of Stone, there are copies, and there is no inbreeding. And then you see Casper, what he bred. We have Fritz from Brunberg as land. Shit. You put a picture of Stone next to it. It's Stone. And now we start to see the children of Fritz and we still see the same thing. You know? So then we can say, this is a dog that is really tracing. Yes. Really giving his qualities because from the litter of Casper, the first year they competed, they were super, super happy. They were like, wow, now we have it. But then, I must say, the ISO, the way they trained their dogs in Germany, that's not the type of training that those dogs needed. That can handle, right. Because after one year, out, they were not out anymore. They were disqualified for the biting because they were out, because too strong. Yeah. Because too much used to the, let's say, a little bit easier dogs that have an out and that you have to support all the time where you support the ones that we had.

If you support too much Turkudos, I tell you, I tell you story personal of whatever. It was led to care. It was when Kenny won the FNVB. The, like, three hours, literally three hours before we go to the protection. I'm like, let's just, he hasn't done any bite work in a few days. He's going to lose his mind. Let's just give him a little, just to warm him up. Kenny out. Nothing. Kenny. And I mean, I'm like right here. I mean, I'm looking at him out. And he's like this. And luckily, thank God, I decided to do this right before. Because that's the type of dog we were discussing. Yes. Exactly. And it's not in panic. It's not in, it's just, it's a feel good dominance. It's a different, you know, you cannot, like you try to really go against it the wrong way. No. It's not going to work. No. No. But that we had also with Stone, eh? If you, I'm pretty sure if we could train those dogs with the techniques we have now from dog training. Wow. It would be very interesting. I'm 100% sure. Yeah. Because I know that when Mario trained with Stone, he was really nice. He was, I would say, nearly same as he did with Yagos. He had an obedience very nice. Yes. Yes. Yes. Till one day, till one day that Mario said, now, I think he did have enough attention for me. And maybe he was a little bit nervous, Mario. So he. Well, you always try to get more points and then you take a chance. And he say, now you will, I will force you to do. And since then, his obedience was over. Since then, he was, yeah, he was doing obedience, but not so intense, not so attentive anymore as he did before. And I know that from Elgos, they said the same thing, eh? When people said, yeah, but we don't like Elgos because he's so slow in obedience. He's this, he's that. Yeah, but for Daryl's dogs, that's the type of training. If you do the motivation type of training with those dogs, wow, then you have. I still have videos of Turku Dos after he come and I just, but there was no pressure. So I was just playing with obedience with him and he just, just opened up and just loved it, you know, just loved it. Tell me something because from kind of when we talk on emails and stuff, you, you go to some of the like Dubai and Bahrain and Abu Dhabi. And you say that you do some lectures on, on the breed and stuff. What do you, what, give me something that's interesting. What do you, what, what do you do? Well, I've done a few, when people ask me, then I give like a little, little seminar, I saw the seminar, maybe two, three hours. It depends on how many questions are coming. Yeah. But I make up a little PowerPoint with the history of the Belgian Shepherd. Very cool.

And then I start from the start. What, what, what are we looking for? How can we achieve what we are looking for? How did the breeders do everything? How were the combinations made? And I, I think I did it now two or three times and people loved it. It must be very interesting. Like I know I would be interested. That's why I'm like, what is he talking about? But, you know, I, I need, I need, you know how much time it took before I could accept our speech today. But I need time to make it a real professional PowerPoint. And then, then I can go everywhere. Now it's a PowerPoint made by myself like a real amateur because I'm not a computer guy. But that's why I'm telling you, there is, there are some young kids that are already interested in the breed that would love to help you. If you, if you make some, some announcement, you will have some really, really brilliant young kids that will make incredible work with, with this stuff, you know, just because they will be excited. And because they, they live in this age, they know how to do this. We, we are, we're learning. It's hard for us, you know, the young ones are resilient with, with how, I mean, even with the AI now and everything, they're so good, you know. How, like, like the detection, you know, I mean, thinking of back in early 90s and today, where did it change? It changed like quite a few times, but what is different today, you think, with detection training than how it was back in the early times? It's, it's, it's completely different. It's completely different. I must say, I, I, how should I say? I, I started in the Belgian Marine, in the obedience club, then Belgian Marine club, where at that time in the 80s, it was quite common. Training were done mostly by force. Right. We say, and the dog do, and he has no choice. Right. That was the way how it was trained. But I must say with my, my studies, my university studies, being a teacher, a trainer for people, I said, hey, there should be other different ways how it can be done. Right. Right. And so in 1992, I met a guy in the club of Mario with Julia. Right. And I met Hirt Bolstov. And Hirt, he was then busy already in dog sports with clicker training. And he was talking on prior and this, and he explained everything. And those were the times when it became interesting. Yes. And so I was really fun. I, I, I, I followed immediately some courses with them because I said, yeah, but this is, this is more the way how I think things should be done. Because I work only with punishment. That's not really in my style. And also I have two children. I never punished my children.

And I can say they are raised perfectly. I'm super happy. And we see now with the last dogs that we do, we always do it without any punishment. Right. I don't say that you never need punishment. Right. That's something else. Right. But, but the problem is you talk 99% of the time about how you can train with rewards or taking away rewards. And you talk 1% about giving or taking away a punishment. It's the 1% that 99% of the people will keep in mind as most important. So when I teach, I never talk about the punishment. And I will only talk about the punishment when it's really needed. And when you do the things correctly, it's very rare. You need the punishment. That's my opinion. And when you need it, it's less and it's meaningful. Yes, exactly. Right. Exactly. Exactly. And so when we started with that, it was quite funny because I was invited in Finland to give a seminar. with Tarmo Antila, who was breeding turbulence. Was he the guy with the curly hair, right? That's Zeppo. That's Zeppo. Yeah. That's Zeppo. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But he was there also. Yeah. At the seminar that they did. But it was quite funny because Tarmo was there, who had a sister of later, later of Turchudos. and so now I must say I see quite a lot of turbulence with real good quality but if you see the size of them and the type you can say very good yes and you go back and you see they come a lot from NPA with NPA origins now one of the latest one NPA I don't remember Holden is used quite a lot and I see a lot of terveens out of him but with the type of Holden and Holden is I think a great grandson of Bichotte also Jos Malinois son of Stolt and you see the type when I see him right away I know I go yes it's that Harry Greun was there and we come in the classroom and I said hey I come but I don't come alone because now the way we train I have Julien who did the competitions with Turku DOS yes yes yes and and here the bolster they will come yeah yeah okay because they were expecting 40 or 50 people on the seminar so we go there in the first morning and it's Geert who take the word I said I'm here just to help and to I let here do because that's the way how we do it now and here started to explain everything about the clicker training and at noon it was a big group I said maybe 40-50 people and a lot of women but all different kind of sports right there were ladies doing doggy dance and agility and it was a group of IGP and at noon the whole group of IGP Johan Johan we invited you not to have this shit we want to train like Mario is training we've stoned a very hard way I said yeah but we don't do anymore that's the past things have changed that's history because now Mario is that was the moment

that he was starting with Iagos and I said no Mario now is training with Iagos and we do the clicker training so for a couple days they refused to follow the seminar they don't believe they don't they didn't believe in it they said no this is for for circus dogs and this and that but at the end we could show some things that they started little by little coming back to us Tarmo he followed because he came to train with us in Ghent so but it was strange and then we see later on how everything changed and more and more people started to train this way and okay so now coming back to the detection when I started with the detection I said I met my friend Joseph who was in the army and in 2008 when we started at the company with him I was involved in the company he asked me I was part of 40% in his company and the way of training that was done like they did in the French army was hiding the explosive but putting the explosive before the ball or the reward and they teach the dog to search the reward and they learned the sense and the association like you say now we don't do that anymore we are completely changed I must say I have studied quite a lot about how we can train in the operant conditioning and that you know very well and by doing that wow and you do it correctly it's rare we need to punish and like we already mentioned if you say then they say oh shit we did something wrong and they correct themselves because they go so much for this reward that they want and they have to work to get the reward they don't have to find the reward that's a very big thing right we say if you teach a puppy now for an explosive well we start at 8 weeks well when the puppy is 10 weeks I can show you little videos puppies of 10 weeks that is doing the job of another dog of one year one and a half year old and they have a perfect indication and they thought of course they're not ready to work in reality but they show understanding already exactly they show they understand what they should do and they never had to search for the reward because the reward we give the food and we drop the food and it's incredible the results that we get with that so that's changed a lot but we see if I check here in Europe I don't speak in other countries Norway they are very high level already and I had some contacts with Bruno Fjellanger who wrote books in the 90s about the rest method in Africa where for a convention in Geneva where also Stuart Hilliard wrote quite a chapter about dog training so they are really really strong in detection just like NPA in Bosnia but they are coming Norway it's all the same thing but for the rest in Europe I see a lot they still train like it was done in the 80s and the 90s and that's difficult that's difficult do you how old when do you like if you have it in an ideal

situation when would you start to how we start at eight weeks when they when they're ready to go and would you do what do you do like if it's if it's explosive like do you do pseudo do you do cocktails like what what is your basic strategy I don't want you to give away any of the secrets but just there are no secrets there are no secrets if if we start we start with an order normally we start with a neutral order so with a neutral order there I mean we make like a kind of oil by mixing some different things together that we know if he finds this this is something that we'll never find in real life so but by using a neutral oil even if something goes wrong the dog will never associate it with the order that he has to find later in his career if if you start okay you say we need a drug detection dog we start to search on heroin or we start to search on TNT and something goes wrong in the training you have never to be afraid that later in his career when he finds this TNT or this heroin or cocaine he he will never think about hey I was punished yeah the backlash of exactly yeah but I say punished not even punished because something can go wrong that when he's searching something is falling and even some level of confusion that it wasn't resolved in their head right exactly so and then when we see he starts to recognize the order we we make it immediately every time every three times after three two three rewards we make it more difficult we make it more difficult we make it more difficult and that's the thing that I see in the training that people don't do enough we explain something we say hey you should train that and we say for example we train the dog for example to go on a spot on the ground on a little wooden plan we do that so we say people we show and then you do it for a week but for a week they will do on the moment the dog put one feet on the object they are happy and they reward and then they come after one week and they say hey but he's not sitting on no but we rewarded only on putting yeah but if you put only this now it will be difficult because you made it so strong for him that when he put his feet or one foot on the planche on the object he will be rewarded if you do if you do three times and you stop rewarding he will say hey why I don't get my reward yes and he will look to go further on he will put his second one yes that's what in animal I mean in psychology that's the extinction burst of and that's exactly how it works exactly and I must say I did this demonstration one day in the in the 90s and I had a puppy I trained him already on sitting next to me or sitting in front of me reward him with clicker he knew the clicker let's say like that and he was sitting and I'm in the club and we are discussing about they say yeah but Johan your technique it takes much too long and this and that and it's no and if we do

sit we push him on the ground and he's sitting immediately and we see in two seconds he's sitting yeah but he don't know exactly yeah but we see and from you it takes 10 minutes before he sits the first time but they don't understand that the second time mine is exactly exactly allow the dog to think instead of just yeah yes and I see now like the type of dogs that we breed they're so fucking intelligent if you do something three times and you don't make it more difficult they lose interest they don't want to work anymore that's very true and that is difficult that is difficult in the training we have much more problems to train the handler just to keep that momentum so the dog has enthusiasm to keep him involved instead of reaching this level oh I know this is and eventually it becomes disinteresting and now you have to try to create motivation and that should not be happening to begin with right exactly tell me with the this is the in detection the ongoing question always do you after indication do you throw something at the resource or do you release and the dog goes back it depends it depends it depends on what we work okay because in the start we we we don't we don't even use the clicker when we start because when we teach him the clicker first of all but when we start on that we throw the food and we throw the food we we start searching on the wall or whatever and when we throw for me by throwing and the tick that gives my piece of foot against the wall is in a matter of fact replacing my clicker true the sound the dog it's there time and then he gets away from his indication if we use the clicker we see the dog goes too much click and we check and say hey I will get it and now the noise is there and the food is also immediately there and you know I can take that's the thing that we use so that means you probably use like a like a kibble like the dog food or something hard right we use we use dog food we use the hard things that they eat that's and I can say we have very very good results with it do you have any preference male or female do you find any interesting differences or no I don't have really preference because we've both we see we have good results yeah I would be the same way but knowing the just the military and police industry a lot of times the you know the noise has to be a male you know like it's a it's a thing and there is there shouldn't be a difference because especially for detection I mean if we're talking some protection work sure some females just don't have that power but for detection there shouldn't be any concern of male or female right I always say I prefer a good female than a bad male

speaking speaking of females let's go back to breeding again because you know like again way back in I mean when I was in Bulgaria and we were you know I started with the whole Russian style military training and and the selection was very interesting then when I was in Belgium I started to hang out with Luke a little bit more and few other people something very interesting happened that changed my mind that you know if female has really she can do really good protection of course it's very good but for breeding purposes it's not like a necessary thing it's more important that it's a mother and that carries the genetics than her herself have that strong protection like Elgos or something yeah yes we see it also in the breeding in the history of the breeding most of the females that were used for breeding they were never trained just very good good character dogs but they because most of the time they breed I talk about good breeders like look when he was taking female female for breeding they did maybe some biting and something but they were not really trained right and they kept them at home and that's how it was now we see that more and more people start to compete also but it's it's not the training and the result of the training that will have a decision on the genetics right and people say hey we will breed with the world champion is he the best dog and he's a good dog that's for sure but is he the best dog for breeding he's lucky he has a very very good trainer and some dogs even dogs that never came to championships that were extremely good for breeding but people say no why you use that he was never in competition I had an example I had a dog he had three four handlers and nobody could handle him and I used him for breeding saying hey why you use him because he's a super dog sometimes people look too much to the results well because when you don't have the experience that like you and I have for just understanding then you start to rely on competitions and who is the champion today and very yeah it's a very common thing for somebody that starts to do breeding is the relying on championship scores to make a decision which dog is good and which dog is not and it's such an illusion yes yeah because you see it also in horse breeding if you see in horse breeding and jumping yeah the foes that are sold best that are the ones from where the mother is jumping 160 and the father is jumping 160 right yeah but we'll get to the horses in a moment I'm very curious about this because this is a whole different direction you're taking off I want to go to

what's happening with Belgian ring right now is it still maintaining some popularity and interest is it like what's happening in Belgium with the Belgian ring specifically I mean is it the old guys or are there any new kids that are showing interest I must say it's a problem yeah for me it's a problem because we see that the number of dog supporters in ring sport it's going down and it's going fast now like if we see that last year on the NVBK championships for the three championships together they had 30 dogs it's nothing wow when when we say when we say 20 years ago you had the three categories in every category you had 20 dogs and you had to fight to get in the championship now there's not one championship that is full and also in the Belgium ring St. Hubert now St. Hubert has taken a little bit again a little bit up than maybe 10 years ago because then it was very bad also but the problem for me is that they don't want to adapt their methods the way how they are training and I am very very sorry to say but they are killing sports by training still the same way as they did 20 years ago and they don't want to change and the results is now with animal welfare when they come on that it's a big problem and I am talking about that already very wrong because also when I was doing the seminar in the late 90s in Finland said yeah but the way you want us to train the way how Mario trained with stones if we keep on going that the government will make laws and they will supreme or support what is already happening in some Nordic countries but you would think that let's say some young kid starts to train and trains more in a intelligent way and become successful success always leaves these clues of well how did that happen and then they start to people would start paying attention do you think the phones start to have everybody is on social media and nobody really spends time outside play with dogs and have fun with dogs like the younger generation that's where I'm like I know like let's say IGP and not just IGP but even Mondi Ring in Eastern Europe seems to be and in the States I have to say also there are young people that are interested yes but how do we get young people interested today I must say I must say I'm quite surprised because the young people I think they have an intention to be interested in dogs and dog sports because every year now we go to schools because we want to recruit security agents

for our company and like my company name is Canine Detection we give a little demonstration and we see that these young kids from let's say 18 19 20 years old we have the most success with the demonstrations that we do and the way how we talk about the security and the security we do with the dogs because the security that we do with the dogs like searching for explosives on the airport or searching like we do in the harbor searching the illegal migrants that want to go to England that we search in the trucks and where we find nearly every day people so that is very rewarding and it's fun working like that and we see that these young kids they are really interested the only thing what we don't have is enough people that can give quality training teachers yes that's what we miss and it's there in my opinion that we lose quite a lot of young kids if they go to ring sport and it's one of my generation that will teach the young kids and he's teaching the kids the way how they were training 30 40 years ago the kids lose interest it's normal yeah yeah no I mean when even when you and I think about certain things that how training was done back then and you don't know better but somehow you know that that's not right you just don't know any better way now we know better ways you know yes exactly and and it's difficult because if you want to convince people to go to this way of training they they they laugh with you they laugh you away and if you show them then they turn their back and they don't want to talk to you anymore right yeah that is the dog world yes that is the dog world we it's a such a big shitty problem like we we have to we cannot agree on everything we have to have disagreements but we we have to be able to get back after disagreement you know instead of being this forever worse it's just not good for anybody but I will say I need to go now I get it I get it this was already very beautiful conversation my friend I'm super super happy but we can go on not not tomorrow or the weekend but next week we can go on sure we can do part two I think it will be interesting for people these are very interesting conversations you know because you hear that I really am very enthusiastic about talking but this weekend I have a monitoring competition and I need to go to the club of Valère to pick up my things tonight very cool and I need to go yeah I wanted to talk to you so we need to talk about what I want to do when we do part two I really want to talk about Mondiurink a little bit more in depth as far as where the direction of Mondiurink is going and the rules and everything and also FMBB of course and things like that but this was super cool super cool so I very much appreciate it and we talk again my friend yeah okay and I have my friend Philipp he asked also to have a podcast with you let's just send me send me absolutely okay absolutely hey and it's also a guy from the Mondiurink and he was his Belgium guy

he lived in Portugal for quite some years maybe 10-12 years because he was married there there he did dog sport he was world champion Mondiurink for Portugal but now he moved back to Belgium and he came to work for me and when he heard I was talking to say hey please ask I want to have a podcast with you also absolutely absolutely okay tot zins let me know let me know when we can go on absolutely thank you so much man okay and then I take care that I keep the whole evening free yeah no problem we are I'm the same way perfect Johan thank you