Life's a strange thing, infinite choices, infinite possibilities.

I met my wife Ulla, in Australia I was living and working there she was on a backpacking adventure and I followed her back to Denmark.

In our wildest dreams neither of us would envisage that 24 years later after living in Norway, France and Spain, we would be back in Denmark sitting in a house that hasn't been touched since the 1970s with an avocado bath and 11 dogs.

It certainly wasn't the plan but what a road trip.

In '94 we were living in Copenhagen. When Sofia, our daughter, was born, I was working in construction, Ulla in the medical profession. The property market was moving, we were flipping property. Then we did something that, unbeknownst to us at the time, would take our lives into a whole new direction and adventure, we bought a bloody dog. Our first Berger Blanc, at the time it wasn't recognized under that name in the DKK, the breed was called a Beccaner.

Ulla was offered a job in Norway and we took the opportunity for new horizons and challenges. After a couple of great years, we grew tired of permanently being passed by geriatrics when out cross country skiing, not only did these venerable old age pensioners pass us, they were pulling their weekly shopping behind them Total humiliation.

New challenges, new horizons beckoned. We packed up the car and headed south, for the med. We ended up settling in the Pyrenees, Our neighbor happened to be involved in pedigree dogs and informed us that the white shepherd, Beccaner was now a recognized breed under the FCI and that in his opinion Shep, our dog, was a prime example and that we should take her in for confirmation.

For us it was nothing serious, just fun to meet other people with the same type of dog. The first show we went to, there were 5 white dogs, and they were as different to each other as night and day, the judge was enamored with Shep.

After another 4 or 5 shows, we actually started believing and round about this point, we met one of our biggest influences, Guy Mansanacle. His Mantra is a herding dog MOVEMENT.

The show bug started to take hold, we decided to have a new addition to our household and went to Denmark to a Kennel called Nyhvidholm. The Danes had not been slow, when the FCI pre recognized the breed. There were a very strong breed club already in place. The breed was already recognized nationally as a Beccaner. It was a very small step for confirmation and the adoption of the FCI standard to Berger Blanc Suisse.

It was through the Danish breed club we came into contact with kennel Horsebo, harmony, and then the Dutch kennel 'Nice of you to come bye' character development. Those three things MOVEMENT, HARMONY, CHARACTER together with HEALTH are the cornerstones of our of our kennel and philosophy. You can't have one without the other.

Good healthy open competition is what makes a breed strong.

We spent many happy years in France learning the ropes in the most competitive nation in Europe.

Not speaking the language funnily enough made us better and stronger and more competitive we couldn't sit down and discuss a result or ask for advice because we did not understand a word being said, the only thing we had to refer to was the Breed standard.

In 2009 we left France, competition had, we felt, become unhealthy. The French breed club and French Kennel club decided to allow the use of white German shepherds in the Breeding program. This broke every FCI rule and we were left with 3 choices, tow the line and be part of it, leave the breed club and be out of the system, or leave the country.

We choose the later and moved to Spain, where we were very happy and planned on staying. Then 2016 Brexit I have dual nationality NZ and UK. The UK passport allows EU citizenship. No one knows what is going to happen or when, but to ensure the future of Kennel Trebons, we decided to move back to my wife's Homeland, Denmark.

Bloody dog, the hassle its caused, but that's dog ownership.