The kennel

Maritsa Rottweilers is a family kennel on the riverside at the edge of Plovdiv, Bulgaria. The dogs live in the house and the yard, there is no row of runs, no separate building where the breeding stock sleeps. The name comes from the river: the fields behind the house run down to it, and it is where the dogs walk morning and evening.

How the dogs live

The adults share the house, the yard and the day. Puppies are whelped in a quiet room of the house and move to the yard as they grow, they hear the radio, the hoover, the neighbours' dogs, and they are handled every day. Nothing in the raising depends on equipment that a family home does not have.

Who keeps the records

The kennel is run by Elena Vasileva, who keeps the studbook and raises the litters, and Kiril Stoyanov, who handles and trains the adults. Every mating, every health result and every puppy's evaluation is written down; the records on this site are drawn from that book.

What the kennel answers for

A dog bred here is answered for its whole life. That means a contract that says so in writing, a phone that is answered years after the puppy leaves, and a standing promise to take a dog back at any age rather than see it pass through a shelter. It also means saying no: the kennel refuses a home when the match is wrong, and says why.

The kennel breeds few litters. There is a waiting list rather than a stock of puppies, and a mating is announced with the pair's health results before it happens, the same openness the studbook keeps internally.