Who are we:
The members of the Game Keeper family are Trude, who works as a veterinarian, and Rune, who works as a prison officer, our Bullmastiffs and French Bulldogs. We have been involved in the breed since 1994, and have been breeding under the Game Keeper prefix since 1999. We are a very small kennel and do only breed a litter or two a year. We only breed when we really belive in the combination and when the dam and sire fullfills our requirements. The Bullmastiff population in Norway is also rahter small, and to achieve our goals we need new blood to improve the genepool. Most of our litters have of the above reasons been out of imported frozen semen and stock.
Goal:
Our goals are to produce healthy Bullmastiffs with excellent temper, construction and without loosing the breed type. In this work we feel that the single and most important decision we can make, is to breed towards structurally and sound enough specimen, that can produce ofsprings which can do what we ask of it in its liftime. Wether the hope is for the showring, tracking or just a companion, we have a great responsibility and owe each individual the possibility to live a healthy life.
How:
We are constantly on the travel to be updated on the development in this breed. On a regular basis we do visit the American National Specialty (USA), Crufts and other bigger shows in Europe. We feel that through seeing the individual dogs live, and how the different breeders work with their stock, we are able to be selective when choosing future material to breed from. Screening is also a very important part in our work. We do screen and document: hips, elbows and heart. Secondly and perhaps just as important, we do also belive in looking at lifespan to each individual in the pedigree, what quality the individuals had with increasing age, and finaly, what the cause of their death were. Cancer, skin and temperament problems are issues which can not be focused enough on, and unfortunatly, many times, also so difficult to document. Of this simple reason, we are very selective with whom we work. Honesty and openess around these issues are key factors for making good choices. Our method for selection is very simple and all individuals are not for breeding: identify geneticly inherited diseases as good as possible and exclude those individuals with problems from the breeding stock. It only requires that you identify a problem through screeing and then are willing to exclude an individual.
How do our dogs live:
All our dogs are family members and not kennel dogs. They are not created at regular basis, and sleep in our sofa or bed. To have several dogs at home take all our spare time. We have built our house on the country side and have access to forest and rivers just outside our house. All of them get a daily walk in the forest, and each dog's special needs is also taken care of. When the weather is not good enough we do swim them at the veterinary clinic where Trude works. This breed is also a very sosical breed so all of them get a lot of cuddling - a must for the bullmastiff breed!
Trude and Rune