What happened at the IFEZ meeting 2025

Late in October 2025 I went to the yearly IFEZ meeting, which this time was held in my native Austria close to Salzburg, as the ECA, the Austrian Eurasier club, holds the current presidency. Live and online meetings alternate every year. IFEZ has 10 member clubs all over the world and SEA is proud to represent the UK.

These live meetings are very enjoyable as well as being hard work (especially if you are doing a lot of translating!), but are also extremely valuable for getting to know new people and renew old (sometimes VERY old, ha ha) relationships. There is nothing quite like a proper live chat and discussion in the time ‘around’ the actual meeting. This year I found it hard to travel with my injured right hand, but it was worth it. Sadly, no representative from either the Finnish club or the German club (EKW) turned up in person, which the rest of us all deeply regretted.

 

The new database was found to be tricky to work with, but slowly it is getting more familiar and even some parts have been translated into English – yeah! This will be so useful for our data officer, Ray, who is a fabulous help putting in all our UK data.

 

Unfortunately, the new IFEZ agreement, which we thought would be finalised at the meeting, is still being discussed. SEA was one of only 2 clubs out of 10 who had sent extensive proposals as requested, so a big thank you to our committee for putting in all that thought and work. We shall see what happens next and when. The over-all consensus was to have IFEZ as a data community with additionally the exchange of health problems and issues around breeding, but without binding commitments. SEA had opted for a closer collaboration, originally.

 

To help us with communication during the year, we decided to hold online meetings 3 times a year in addition to the yearly one, which will also be held online in 2026. The hosts for those 3 meetings are Paul Spoelder (EVN, Holland), Bettina Franz (Scandinavia) and me (SEA, UK).

 

Bettina’s name might be familiar to most of you, as she is a long-standing SEA member (and a dear personal friend of mine). We have been on the IFEZ health committee for many years now, and we are grateful for her input in the SEA breeding committee. When Gisela Aach, the longstanding IFEZ secretary decided to step down from next January, Bettina seemed the obvious choice for a successor. I am sure you will all join me in wishing her the very best of luck with her new job, whilst at the same time extending BIG thanks to Gisela for all her work over the last decades. 

 

Health is always the central topic at these meetings. A small number of Eurasiers have been affected by a disease called PCD or Primary Ciliary Dyskinesia, which is a disorder characterized by chronic respiratory tract infections and sometimes abnormally positioned internal organs. A genetic test has been developed very recently but has only been applied successfully to 1 family of dogs. Other cases of PCD did not show the mutation. The affected dogs’ immediate ancestors go back to dogs living in Austria, so the ECA very kindly offered to look into 9 ancestors and see if the said mutation can be found. This will be very interesting to know and will likely be discussed at the next online meeting!

 

You might recall the case of what was described as Polioencephalopathy in a litter of UK Eurasiers; many of you will remember sweet Eric. There the situation was very similar. It has only ever been described in that one litter. Some ancestors were found to have the attributed mutation, but no other case has ever been seen and a representative sample analyzed by another German club (EZV, not in IFEZ) could not find the mutation either. Those who know me know that I am very skeptical of the findings and genetic test for various reasons, and the recent findings have reinforced my belief that it is seemingly not something we need to worry about at this point.

 

Aurélie Pradeau from the Belgian club, who is an IT specialist, offered to use the new database to extract statistics on Eurasier health. As we have over 36.000 dogs in that database (which really is amazing!), going back several decades, it will be so interesting to see what she can elicit, especially for me as I did similar work with ‘hips’ and ‘elbows’ a few years ago from the old database, with help from Georg Petermayer (ECA, Austria) who had written that database. Her findings will most likely help IFEZ demonstrate the efficacy of our efforts to improve breed health over time.

 

As you can see, the meeting is a very intensive couple of days and extremely valuable for people in our breed who truly care and want to do the best they can for our Eurasiers.

 

Lastly, I would like to thank SEA for covering half of my travel and meeting costs, and my husband Peter for keeping my back free so that I can do these things. :-)

by Brigitte Mordan-Grimm, SEA Chair and IFEZ Representative

HEALTH-TESTING YOUR EURASIER

Why should you heath-test your Eurasier, even though s/he seems completely healthy?

Well, there are lots of benefits from health-testing, not just for your own dog but also for the breed as a whole.

·       It is important to know the state of your dog’s joints so that if there are problems, you can adjust your dog’s life accordingly and allow it to enjoy it to the full.

·       Your dog will also benefit from you knowing whether they have developed, or are in the process of developing, any conditions such as hypothyroidism, so you can act swiftly to ensure your dog maintains the best possible quality of life.

·       You may have promised your breeder to undertake health tests as part of your puppy contract.

·       Testing would have the additional benefit of giving your breeder a good insight into the health status of their breeding stock, so that they can best ensure they are producing healthy puppies.

·       You may have already paid a health-deposit that would cover much of the cost.

·       Finally, your club’s Code of Ethics might require the parents of your dog to return good health results in their puppies before they can be bred again.

Hopefully you will agree that our wish is to breed dogs that will, to the best of our knowledge, have bright futures and live long and healthy lives. If so, you would certainly expect your breeder to have undertaken all the recommended tests on the mother, and the stud dog owner to have done the same on their male. These results do give us a lot of information, but this really is the minimum. The more we know about the health of the relatives of dogs that are being bred, the greater is our knowledge of what is likely to be carried by the parents of a litter. This is a bit like in humans, when diseases in close relatives increase your risk to develop them. Therefore, even if you have no plan to breed your dog, please, please do get your dog health-tested; it’s important in so many ways!

• What can you do VERY easily and (usually for FREE) – at any visit to the vets: 

    Check: patella (for luxation), eyes (ectropion, entropion and distichiasis/double eyelashes)

• What can you do EASILY (cost about £120)– at any visit to the vets: 

    Check: Patella, eyes, a LARGE Thyroid panel (including TgAA antibodies)

• If you can, please get your dog’s large joints (hips and elbows) checked as well. 

    This will need SEDATION only and not anaesthesia (!) and could cost from £350 - £500, so         shopping around is a good idea

FOR ALL OF THE ABOVE, PLEASE SEND RESULTS TO YOUR BREEDER AND OUR BREED HEALTH COORDINATOR (for entry into the international Eurasier health database, unless you ask for it to be kept confidential)

All the recommended/required tests are also listed here: https://www.southerneurasierassociation.co.uk/thinking-of-breeding

Our recently published ‘Looking for a puppy’ page on the SEA website can give you more information on health deposits and health-testing in Eurasiers, as can the dedicated ‘Health’ page. However, we have a vast range of experience within our community of members and our committee, and we are all willing to help where we can. If you have questions about health-testing, health deposits or anything else, please don’t hesitate to reach out. 

At the upcoming AGM, there will be lots of opportunity to chat about health tests, so please come and fire away!  

DOBO - The Beauty of Dog Balance - experienced by a Eurasier

Cojanne is a Eurasier owned by SEA member Giò Taddei, who takes Dobo classes with her teacher, Siria Palazzo, a 3* degree instructor in Italy. Siria wrote an article for the Italian Eurasier Club newsletter in 2021, and Giò has kindly shared it with us.

Dog Balance, also known as ‘Dobo’, has a lot of physical benefits, but it also helps emotionally. That’s right. It is a discipline that is truly suitable for everyone, dogs of all ages, of any size, of any breed, or otherwise. 

I have had and am lucky enough to work with Cojanne, a wonderful Eurasier female, a breed still not very common in Italy. 

Cojanne at her DOBO class

“Cojanne, what struck me when you entered the gym, in addition to your beauty, which is unquestionable, was your gaze, which had so much distrust, but was also open to a lot of curiosity so as to understand where you were, what were all those coloured balls, and to me, as I was moving and handling the gear.

Carlo, your owner, presented you as a dog wary of people, reluctant to do new things; especially if you don’t like them, and don’t see the point in them. From there I said to myself: “A new experience begins for both of us”… 

You approached the Dog Balance Fit for the first time, and I was confronted with a breed that I had never worked with before. There, we were tuned from the first moment; we had given ourselves space to get to know each other, understand each other, and like each other… And then, off we go, we started working. 

The beginning of our work started right from the baseline, I built you low, ad hoc proprioceptive sensory paths to put you a little on the edge, and try to figure out your body knowledge, your skills, your temperament, your challenges and your ways of overcoming them. You used your physical abilities and intelligence to face everything, but avoided what you did not like; and I, more stubborn than you, knowing that you could do it without any problem, I urged you to persist until you got over that mistrust. 

Every new Dog Balance Fit lesson with you has always added progress, each time increasing the difficulty, so that you bring out the best skills and knowledge of your body, where you must focus on yourself, your movements, and your trust in me. 

What you take home at the end of each lesson is great results, because you face new things; first with your hesitant approach, but then you put your distrust aside, you believe it, and you know you can do it. Not only do you perform the proposed exercise, but you also perform it very well, as you have since the first moment, bringing home really good results. 

I really believe that the Dog Balance Fit is also helping you to deal with different things in everyday life, managing situations that bring you unease, and you overcome them with the skills you have acquired, and the greater self-esteem that this wonderful discipline gives you. 

We still have a long way to go, and new challenges to face together.”

By Siria Palazzo, Cojanne's DOBO trainer

Short Minutes of the 2020 Eurasier Conference - IFEZ

 
Short Minutes of the International  Federation for  Eurasierzucht 

on 31/10-01/11/2020 

 

Since 1996, each year at the end of October, the IFEZ clubs have met to exchange information about breeding and about any necessary measures to keep our beautiful breed the  "Eurasier" healthy as well as sound in temperament. 

In 2020, everything was different. That meeting was also affected by Corona. We quickly came to the decision to hold the meeting online, so that the exchange of information would not stall.

 

Three conference modules were created for the weekend. With some variation in the clubs’ participants, the content was competently discussed and worked through with the help of the online platform "MS Teams" by John Stegman, the current IFEZ Chair.   

The most important topics covered were: 

• Further collection of ideas on the redesign of the joint agreement on cooperation between the clubs 
• Our database will be cloud-based, backups, GDPR, hits, etc. was discussed; first concrete information was provided 
• The new homepage will now also be made available in English  
• Many new insights about breeding and health of our Eurasiers gained (breeding requirements, thyroid problems, popular sire syndrome, inbreeding problems, etc.) 
• Information about fees in member clubs, requirements of different kennel clubs etc. 
  

Will we be able to meet in person again in 2021? Let us hope so! 

 

©Gisela Aach   

Translation: B Mordan-Grimm  

My Visit to CRUFTS 2020

My name is Helena Jansson, I am from Sweden and have been breeding Eurasiers since 2007 under the name Fridlyckans. Back home I have three Eurasier girls, and in 2019 my puppy boy Love Bug Lux found his way to England and is living with my friend James and his new brother Lumen. So what would be nicer than combining a visit to Lux and Lumen with a trip to Crufts and meeting some Eurasier friends and seeing some British Eurasiers showing? Isn’t it just lovely with all the friends we have on Facebook and Instagram through our beloved dogs and then to finally get a chance to meet them live?! It was just amazing to arrive at Crufts and find the Eurasier ring and discover friends all the way from Finland as well as local folk. Most impressive might be Johanna and Anna who had travelled all the way from Tammerfors, Finland, to enjoy Crufts to meet 2- and 4- legged friends.

We had plenty of time before the judging of the Eurasier to meet and talk to some friends. We found Leo and Mishka Boots or Cewpark Creamy Chiffon which is her pedigree name. Can you believe Mishka was once a very shy and tufted rescue? And today she was shining like a star together with her owner Leo. At the age of 11 this miracle girl entered the ring at Crufts! Quite an achievement and credit to you Leo for the work you have done with Mishka. We went on to meet Harriet and her handsome boy Luca, Albionspitz Rigel. Luca is a nice boy and had a very lovely sweet temperament and did so well in Post Graduate class. Yay and congratulations, well shown and you are a nice team! And finally we met Sheeba, Alphacanis Betsheba and Brigitte. I don’t know how many years we have been friends on Facebook without ever meeting live. So it was absolutely lovely to meet you Brigitte and steal a kiss from Sheeba, this adorable veteran lady.

  
It is always interesting as a breeder from another country to see the types of our breed abroad, as it seems most countries have slightly different types. And like in Germany, even dogs from different clubs differ slightly. We all have different tastes and prefer different types and since we have 3 different breeds going into the Eurasier, we sometimes see quite different types such as build, heights, heads, coat and temperament. It can be quite fun at shows back in Sweden to guess the breeder without looking at the names in the catalogue, and quite often we guess is right. I for one am known for (or infamous for depending on taste ;-) ) having a soft spot for reds or creams with a reverse mask and Samoyed smile.

At Crufts 2020, a little bit to my disappointment, most Eurasiers originated from maybe 2-3 breeders. It would have been fun to see Eurasiers from more kennels.  So I can’t say we really got to see that much of your beautiful Eurasiers that I know are out there, but hopefully there will be more entered in 2021 from different breeders. This year, I must say, I felt some of the Eurasiers were maybe a bit petite, both height-wise and type-wise.  I am used to bigger and more powerfully build dogs than some of the adult dogs shown today.

But I know there are a whole lot of very nice Eurasiers in the UK, so once again I hope to see more of you guys in the ring next year with your great-looking dogs that I see here on Facebook :-) 

Finally the judging started. This year’s judge was Mr Mark Cocozza. First out was a single male puppy, Kaydanmy Deluxe Edition. A nice young boy for his age and he was of course Best Puppy.

4 males entered in the Junior class and a very well deserving winner here was French male Phyre Des Origines de Faid’drone.

Harriet with Luca

Post Graduate dog had 4 entries and I could have taken the winner Silmoralbion Llewellyn back home with me. A big bear with a reverse mask and a ‘pawsome’ temperament. 2nd was lovely Albionspitz Rigel with Harriet. Both males were so well shown and presented; both beautiful young boys! 

Open class was won by Albionspitz Blue Moon. A very well balanced and well presented male.  Good Citizen dog was won by Caromarda Just One Look.

First out when it was time for the bitches were the Veteran Ladies. No less than 5 very well presented Veteran bitches were shown. The winner was Albionspitz Beloved, a lovely looking 9 year old bitch. And Alphacanis Betsheba and Brigitte were placed 3rd! Lovely to see such a well kept and good-looking almost 11 year old lady like Sheeba. And 5th was Cewpark Creamy Chiffon or Mishka Boots as most of us know her. ‘Pawsome’ to see a former rescue happy, safe and shining in the ring with her owner Leo.

Leo with Mishka Boots

5 Postgraduate Bitches and class was won by Silmoralbion Undomiel.

7 entries in Open class and the winner was Caromarda Okey Dokey.

Good citizen dog 5 Bitches entered and the winner was Albionspitz Tanzanite. 2nd place was awarded to our Alphacanis Betsheba and Brigitte. And if there had been a prize for happiest tail, Sheeba would have been the indisputable winner. Well done and happy tails Brigitte and Sheeba!

Best of breed was Albionspitz Blue Moon and Best bitch was Albionspitz Beloved. She was also best Veteran bitch and it's quite an achievement for a 9 year old veteran to be best bitch at Crufts.

Congratulations to SEA members Harriet and Luca, Leo and Mishka and Brigitte and Sheeba! Well shown and well done.

Brigitte with Sheeba

I think the UK Eurasiers and this year’s Crufts have nice temperaments. Sometimes we see some ‘sharp’ temperaments especially in the male ring, so it was nice to see such well-behaved and well-presented Eurasiers. One thing that really made me frown though was the stacking of dogs from some handlers. Eurasiers are a free-standing breed and should never ever be stacked! Let's hope this is just a passing thing and not something here to stay from some handlers who don’t know how to properly show a Eurasier.

I enjoyed every minute of Crufts 2020. All the ‘pawsome’ Eurasiers; the other classes and shows going on. Then a nice cider with friends. And the shopping…. oh my, the shopping! I am glad I was flying back with only a cabin bag, so I couldn’t shop much ;-)  It was absolutely amazing to meet so many old and new Eurasier friends. To each and everyone of you ‘thank you all so much’ for the lovely, warm welcome I received and I can’t wait to be back in 2021 to see you all again. Hopefully I will meet even more of the beautiful SEA Eurasiers out there. If you have the chance to show at Crufts next year do it. It is a great experience to be there at that show. And who knows… maybe your dog is the Best of Breed 2021!

Best wishes,

Helena

The Updated Eurasier Standard (FCI)

click here: The text of the updated Eurasier Standard 291

Short minutes of the 2019 IFEZ Conference 2019 - with some important news for the UK

Beat Kempf, President of Eurasierfreunde Schweiz (EFS), as the current President of the International Federation for Eurasier Breeding (IFEZ), greeted those present at the IFEZ meeting with a short statement on the fundamental intentions of IFEZ.

The initial main part of the conference concerned information and questions about innovations and problems of the IFEZ members:

In a first round of discussions, the IFEZ clubs presented the changes in personnel in the committees of their clubs. Even if in some cases there have been many changes, it is very positive to note that it has been possible to get younger people to adopt an active role in a Eurasier club.

The questions and problems surrounding the membership of the Eurasier Society UK (ESUK) in IFEZ (now dormant for a year) were discussed and evaluated in detail. As the requirements of IFEZ have not been met for more than 12 months, a final reasonable period for fulfilling these obligations was decided by the full members of IFEZ. ESUK will be automatically excluded on the scheduled date if the multiple requirements have not been met by then.

Since the English club "ESUK" did not fulfil its obligations as an IFEZ member by 20/11/2019, the IFEZ President Beat Kempf sent a notification to the club committee, dated 23/11/2019, that the Eurasier Society UK, following the vote of the IFEZ full members, is, with immediate effect, no longer a member of IFEZ and must stop advertising IFEZ in any communications or advertising.

The new homepage of the IFEZ is almost finished and is very successful. After the latest revisions, it can be activated safely at the beginning of 2020.

The conditions under which club officials could participate at meetings via Skype was discussed.

A second main part of the conference was again devoted to a variety of topics about the Eurasier:

The moderate changes in Standard 291 presented by EKW (in co-ordination with KZG and ZG) and approved by VDH, are again to be considered for approval by the FCI.

Underactive thyroid is one of the autoimmune diseases that have a large hereditary component and develop gradually. Various thyroid values are tested in all clubs for as many animals as possible, but is mandatory for the breeding dogs. The problem of comparability of reference values of different laboratories was discussed. Not all clubs can use Biocontrol as a laboratory. An assessment of all previously recorded anonymized values is highly desirable.

Other health issues addressed were: epilepsy and the problem of correct diagnosis and recording; ways to prevent the popular sire syndrome IFEZ-wide; meaningful genetic tests; and state of genetic diversity in our breed.

The discussion of all these topics was lively and engaging!

Information was also exchanged about regulations such as different breeding fees and health deposits, and puppy prices were compared and discussed.

From January 1^st, 2020 the presidency of the IFEZ passes to the Eurasier Vereniging Nederland (EVN).

After working through the usual formalities, there were many interesting, exciting chats about Eurasiers during the evening of the meeting, as well as on the Friday evening and Sunday morning. This large, international group only meets in person once a year. Throughout the year, communication is usually only possible by phone or email. It was an all-round successful meeting for the good of our beautiful breed.

Gisela Aach, IFEZ Secretary
Translation: Brigitte Mordan-Grimm

The IFEZ meeting (International Federation for Eurasier Breeding) in Stuttgart/Germany

  by Ian Cottrell, Hon Chairman SEA, Willowfalls Eurasiers   

I like planning, I love planning and having contingencies to the plan if the plan doesn’t work. So when Brigitte invited me to attend the IFEZ meeting in Stuttgart, I jumped at the opportunity and set about, well you know, planning. In the various conversations I thought it was for a day and a half, so over the Saturday and the Sunday morning. I was not going to go all the way to Germany without seeing something other than the inside of a hotel and booked an early morning flight so I could have a mosey around the town before meeting everyone for dinner on the Friday night. I had researched which S Bahn (Railway) to catch and how much it was going to be. A few weeks in advance I printed off all the tickets I would need. The plan was impeccable!

In my head I was catching the 21:30 coach to Heathrow on the Thursday. Pottered around, had a nice bath and a lovely dinner and doing my final check of the passport and paperwork and saw that it was the 19:30 coach I should have caught. Oh Bum!  I did manage to get to Heathrow Via Victoria and arrived at 00.30 on the Friday morning. My plan was to catch the free tube service between terminal 3 and terminal 5. Followed the endless walk to the free tube and found that stopped running at midnight. Retraced my steps back to the bus station and eventually found that the free bus ran all night so hopped on. On the very helpful Heathrow website it did say that “Areas have been designated for passengers to rest, lights would be dimmed etc” The website lied. The only chairs available had been specifically designed to offer no comfort whatsoever and actively encourage people to move on. As for the dimmed lighting, well I have been in operating theatres that have been darker. No chance of sleep then, crack on!

The flight over was great, no problems on the S Bahn and arrived in the City at 10:30 local time. Pulled the straps of my rucksack tight and went mooching. I did a lot of mooching. Stuttgart has one of the longest shopping precincts I had seen. Must have been close to a mile long and not one shop was open. It was a German Bank Holiday and boy do they take their Bank Holidays seriously! Plan A, had me eating sausage and chips with mayonnaise from the kiosk that was right outside the rail station. I don’t know exactly when they had started the station redevelopment, but the first casualty was that kiosk. Had to settle for Currywurst and a bread roll. Oh well I had been 31 hours without sleep so head to the hotel and get my head down.

Rail travel in Germany is cheap and on time. Caught the S Bahn to the University and then it was only a 2km walk to the hotel. In my research it proudly proclaimed that Stuttgart University S Bahn station is one of the deepest. I can attest to that as the escalators had been switched off. All I was missing was a Sherpa and oxygen for the accent. Having Google mapped the area I knew that I headed North from the station, get into the woods and hang a left. What a lovely forest and sooo big. At the 30 min point I should now be looking at the entrance of the hotel. Nope, just a lot more trees. Time to get the mobile out and look at the map. Walking back and forth to orientate myself a very nice German couple came to my rescue. They knew the area and set off through the vegetation and I went sliding down inclines like I was skiing. The conversation was about Brexit so I couldn’t escape it even over there. Finally, time to get to the room and have a coffee and some sleep. Unpacked bag and tried to put the adaptor into the circular electrical socket and it wouldn’t fit. It possibly would have if I had been in The USA or Australia. There was a distinct lack of kettle and no beverage making. Down the two flights of stairs back to reception. I could have as many coffees as I liked in the lounge area and they sorted me out a replacement adaptor. With only a few hours before Brigitte’s arrival I decided not to nap and pottered around.

Right on time Brigitte arrived, in a whirlwind of greeting everybody and being introduced to about a trillion people we had sat ourselves down and I treated myself to a large glass of the house red. Everyone was lovely and all had at least a few words of English and I truly felt welcomed. The dinner was excellent, but now at the 38 hours without sleep point, my brain was a little mushy and I decided it was time to head to bed. 

To sleep, perchance to dream. Four hours after laying in bed, Oh, that feels strange. Oh, that’s not good. Normally I have the constitution of a horse, not on this occasion, Delhi Belly effectively wiped out any more chance of sleep, so the rest of the night was spent watching the German equivalent of Money from Nothing.

Decided the best thing was to avoid food for a day. Saturday 09:00 we gathered in the large room and the IFEZ meeting started. My German stretches to counting to a few hundred, getting a room, getting fed and basic directions. I can understand a little more but get hopelessly lost when the conversation is fast and about technical points. Fortunately, Brigitte was my Babel Fish and I loved the way after someone had been speaking for 10 min she condensed the meaning to me in a short sentence. I was actually having fun stringing the few words I understood into what I thought they were speaking about and bobbing happily when Brigitte relayed what it was actually about, and I had guessed correctly. 

Everyone was afforded the opportunity to contribute, and they did with passion. I may not be fluent in the language, but you can still glean a great deal from tone, inclination and pitch. The knowledge and experience around the table was immense and I am terribly proud of Brigitte, who is obviously held with great regard and was asked to undertake a study on behalf of IFEZ. Having so many nations represented it was a mini United Nations. I suppose the overriding impression I was left with was that collectively they wanted to be as inclusive as possible and not cause any upset. At 18:45 the meeting was declared closed and I asked Brigitte if the start time was 09:00 the next day. She stated it was finished and this year was only held over one day (which, in all fairness, was in the agenda she had sent out) . The look on my face must have been priceless.

With calm resolve I retired to my room and thought that it would be moderately easy to re arrange flights with the world’s favourite airline. The 19:30 flight back to Heathrow was the only time that day that BA was visiting this part of Germany. Oh Bum!

Sunday, I checked the forecast and it was cloudy with only a 40% chance of rain. Knowing that the town was probably still closed I had the choice of a walk round a local lake with a charmingly entitled Bears Castle or do something else. It was only a 14 km walk to the airport so decided on that. A great way of seeing a different country and a productive way of wasting time.

Arrived back early into the UK and the extra ordinarily helpful ladies at the coach station were adamant that I would have to wait for the coach I booked at 22:30. That pulled into the final destination at 00:45 on the Monday and my darling wife had parked the car 200 yards down the road. The God’s had one last jest with me, the rain was so heavy that in only a short space of time my waterproof jacket and clothes became drenched.  

Today I bought a blue duffel coat, a red floppy hat and had a sign made. It reads .....

PLEASE LOOK AFTER THIS BEAR  – Thank You.

This, I decided, was the safest form of any future travel.  

Ian Cottrell, Hon Chairman SEA, Willowfalls Eurasiers   

IFEZ (International Federation for Eurasier Breeding) for SEA

This October I travelled to Stuttgart in Germany to attend the yearly international meeting of the IFEZ member clubs. IFEZ is short for International Federation for Eurasier Breeding (Zucht in German, hence the Z). This is a collaborative organization that centres around a database which contains many thousand Eurasiers from the beginnings of our breed. The entries comprise the names of the dog and also all the available health data. This is an invaluable tool. Also, it is a network of Eurasier clubs word-wide who share a common philosophy of non-commercial, ethical breeding, in agreement with the Eurasier Philosophy, which is so central to our Association as well. They all share a dedication and feel a special obligation to care for the health and temperament of our beautiful breed. I was very pleased, and I am not ashamed to say, quite emotional, that after only a few months existence, SEA was accepted as an Associated Member of IFEZ and is currently the only active UK representative. We will do our very best to carry on working in the very best interest of our breed.

By Brigitte Mordan-Grimm

Vico - The New Kid on the Block

In October 2018, Caroline Allen and Brigitte Mordan-Grimm drove over to Germany to pick up their new import Vico vom Weiacherhorn.
They both instantly fell in love with the little man and his very cheeky nature. He now keeps Caroline’s dogs and family busy, when they try to keep him out of the water, as he is a real puddle duck.

Many thanks to his Swiss breeder Cornelia Suter for entrusting us with her precious boy.
The good news is that she has promised to visit!