Binti and mum Lhotse, January 2011

My uncle Tom Moller kept bullmastiffs on his farm near Molo in the white highlands of Kenya during colonial times in the ‘50’s and ‘60’s; he was my first real introduction to this incredible breed. He had three beautiful dogs called Briggs, Biffo and Nancy. I remember Biffo as being a very heavy dog with a lovely nature, and I recall his bitch Nancy meeting an untimely and unfortunate end when a swarm of vicious African bees attacked her on the farm one day. Rosemary has also had decades of contact with bullmastiffs through friends of her family, the Bateman’s in Woodbridge Suffolk.

Our own first bullmastiff was Salaama, a lovely fawn Graecia bitch whom we imported to Saskatoon Canada in 1975 from England. The winters in Saskatchewan are harsh but Salaama enjoyed walks on frozen lakes at minus 35deg Celcius and was a marvelous family pet until the ripe old age of 11 years. She even came with us for 2 years when we returned to Kenya on contract, both working in Mombasa from 1981 to 1983. Salaama spent many happy hours there walking on Bamburi beach and paddling in the warm Indian Ocean. Our next bullmastiff Benza (from Goodacre, Manitoba) back in Canada was our most perfect bitch; she had a magnificent 47kg physique, and loved the acreage that we lived on through the mid-80’s just outside Saskatoon. She had a litter of 6 pups.

Then we moved to Brisbane Australia in 1988, to the leafy inner-city suburb of Norman Park. It wasn’t until our house got ransacked by burglars in 1991 that we realized we were missing our bullmastiffs and their capacity so effectively to work as a deterrent.

That’s when we met the Spierenberg’s at Runderkraal Kennels and journeyed up to Crow’s Nest on the range above Brisbane, a spectacular part of the world near Toowoomba to pick up our next fawn bullmastiff pup Stuky. We have not been burgled since. We registered our PARADIGM prefix in 1994 and Stuky had a litter of 5 pups; we kept one, Porscha, and Rosemary’s sister in Ballarat took another thereby perpetuating the bullmastiff tradition in another part of our family. Porscha continued on to produce a small litter. Rosemary’s nephew Jolyon in Melbourne took one pup. Stuky then became ill with lymphoma and we sadly put her to sleep on the front lawn of her own beloved home in Norman Park. Some years later Rosemary came back from her veterinary work at the RSPCA Yeronga one day and said there was a beautiful apricot bullmastiff bitch that had been brought in as a stray. We decided to foster her and that’s when our lovely Girlie came home. She was street-wise, looked as though she had spent much of her 5 years either pregnant or on the back of a ute, and initially there were big fights between her and Porscha. But after a few months they settled down and became the best of friends. Girlie was one of our all-time favourite bullmastiffs. Eventually Porscha also contracted lymphoma and died tragically after a bushwalk at the age of 8, while Girlie went on to ripe old age.

That brought us to where we are now with our lovely fawn Lhotse, bred from Anmenta Zulu Queen, a beautiful brindle girl http://www.dogzonline.com.au/breeds/profile.asp?dog=11074 in the magnificent Northern Rivers region at Maclean’s Ridge by Andrew and Melissa Smith with whom we have since become good friends. Rosemary then came across Mutley one day at work again in December 2006. He has been our one boy, a beautiful big apricot lad of 58kg who had been surrendered to the RSPCA, exactly the same age as Lhotse. He was Lhotse’s bosom pal at home in Norman Park for 6 months, but we felt we couldn’t keep him. And that brings us up to date with our bullmastiff saga. Lhotse has to be one of our best-natured bullmastiffs of the last 36 years, with good looks and a great stance. She loves being petted by children on walks in the parks around Brisbane and is the perfect companion for us. Her first litter with Scottie, of Saturnbrook Bullmastiffshttp://www.dogzonline.com.au/breeds/profile.asp?dog=14003arrived on March 20th, 2008, with 8 bouncing pups. Then in September 2009 Lhotse's second litter was again sired by Scottie, 5 beautiful girls born on 23.11.09.  Miss Binti has stayed on with us from this litter.