Who are we
On these pages you can read something about who we are, what it means to buy a puppy from us, what our ideas with our breeding is and how our dogs are living. Follow the links underneath if you want to jump in the pages.
Sarah Kathrine Brandes
Is primus motor in Kennel Lapinlumon. Got her first dog when she was 11 years old when her mother bought the lapinkoira Sirpa. When Sirpas breeder wanted her to go to a show it was Sarah who handled her and after this she was hooked. Shows, the dogs, juniorhandling and later genetics and breeding became her big hobby. When she was 14 she bought her first own dog Fidelis Uuriel whom she fetched in Finland together with her mother who was all the time actively participating in the dogworld. Besides going to the shows Sarah trained Uuriel each week in obedience and he passed the Danish kennel clubs class 1 oficially and trained in class 2 and 3. As the interest for the dogworld grew so did the interest in starting an own breeding program. Therefore a bitch was imported from Finland and in 1997 the kennelname Lapinlumon was bought. Since then it only went one way. One dog has become many and the showresults both at home and abroad speak for themselves. Most of the dogs have participated in some kind of training, several trained obedience on quite a high level. Sarah also did two years of training as a proffesionel dog groomer and she took care of several administrative jobs in the doglife; secretary and vicechairman in the board of the spitz breed club, breedrepresentative for the lapinporokoira as well as for the lapinkoira for several years and chairman of the club for hunting dogs with no other breedclubs in Denmark. Sarah passed the Danish kennel club breeders education and made numerable travels to Finland and Italy to learn as much as possible about the breeds. In 2003 the travel became more permanent when she moved to Finland, more specifically 600 km North of Helsinki to Oulu where she under the northern lights studied Nordic languages at the university there.This gave an unique possibility to learn more about the Finnish breeds in their country of origin and to work closely with the Finnish breeders. When she got pregnant with Esther she decided to move back to Denmark after 2 years in Finland and she came home in 2005. Here she started studies at the university of Southern Denmark and has a bachelor in litterature and did her master studies in culture. In 2008 she met Jesper and they got married in January 2009 and in 2010 she had her second child, Valdemar. In 2011 the entire family took the big step of moving to Sweden to a lovely farm with a lot of room for dogs and children. Sarah will here be working with the dogs and the kennel and as a groomer.
Esther Kathrine Brandes
Esther was born the 31st of March 2005 and has naturally since she was born been the center of our world. She loves the dogs and is a great help when walking, feeding and playing with puppies. She makes sure that all puppies in this house are very used to children. She is also training intensively for child and dog competitions and already have some great wins from there.She has really proved to be of great value to us and to our puppy buyers as all puppies from Lapinlumon are very fond of kids.
Jesper Brandes
Jesper has had dogs most of his life, but the real dog life started when he met and married Sarah in 2008. He is a big part of kennel Lapinlumon and the daily life at the kennel where he is normally the one in charge of all daily maintenance, feeding, cleaning, caring etc. He has a bachelor in German languages from the university in Denmark, but now he works full time with the dogs.He is an outdoor person who loves the walks, snow, mountains and the new environment in Sweden. And then he is the most caring dad in the world to both Esther and Valdemar and spends a lot of time with the two of them.
Valdemar Jon Brandes
Valdemar is born New Years eve 2010 and is a gorgious, happy and friendly little boy.
To buy a puppy is a
matter of trust. It is an important decision which will affect your daily life
many years ahead. The first 8 weeks of the dogs upbringing are essential as this
is when the first and important socialization is done. Therefore it more than
pays off to examine thoroughly where to buy your dog. Buying a dog from us
includes several things.
We don´t breed "just" to make puppies that we can ship off out into the world
and not care for anymore. We want very much to follow the puppies in their
further development, to see photos of them every now and then, hear how they are
doing etc. This desire we have both for personal and proffesional reasons.
Personally as we can´t help not to bond with the puppies in the eight weeks they
spend with us and it is therefore a great pleasure for us to later hear from the
puppies and make sure they are doing well. Profesionally as we would like to
hear how they are developing both in good and in bad ways so we can use this
data later on in our breeding. It is therefore important to us that the people
who wish to buy a puppy here are ready to keep some kind of contact with us in
the future. Of course this goes both ways! We have soon 20 yers of experience with
dogs in general. We know the breeds we are breeding very well, have experienced
them in all ages, types and both sexes. We have trained obedience, tracking,
agility, been going to dogshows, bred and raised many litters, is educated in
grooming etc etc. All these things benefit our puppy buyers. There is a big
chance that we can guide you and help you if you later get questions in relation
to a puppy bought from us and we are of course always at your disposition if it
is needed. You can always draw on our knowledge and experiences;
if we don´t know the answer ourselves there is a good chance that we can guide
you in where then to ask.
We don´t sell a puppy to just anybody. If you want to buy a dog here you must be
ready to give some informations about yourself. We would like to be as sure as
it is possible to be that the dog you are buying is the right one for you - for
the dog´s as well as for your sake. Therefore we always ask why you chose this
breed, question you to hear if you did some research and know what the breed is
like and if this type of dog is suitable for you. We also ask you how many hours
a day the dog will have to be alone, which plans you have for activation of the
dog and if you have children and if yes, how old they are. All these questions
we don´t ask to cross the line of privacy, but in order to secure both that we
can feel safe in selling you a puppy and also very much in order to feel sure
that you will be happy with this kind of dog. Everybody should fit together in
order to make things well!
If everything goes well and we agree that we would like to sell you a puppy and
you would like to buy one from us we put you on the list and contact you when
the puppies have been born. We are very happy if the puppy buyers are able to
visit us before the puppies are born so that we can meet eachother, but we know
that this is often impossible if they live abroad. Also after the puppies have
been born buyers are always welcome to come visit and see the puppies, but again
this can be difficult if you don´t live in Denmark.
We never let any puppybuyers chose their own puppy for the simple reason that we
are the ones who live with the puppies for eight weeks and see them every day
twenty four hours a day and it is therefore us who knows them best. We have a
big experience in looking at the puppies and see which puppy suits which family
best. An elderly couple does not need the most active and dominating puppy in
the litter and an active family with four children does not need the most quiet.
If somebody wants to show and breed they of course need the puppy who looks most
fitted for this. Etc. We normally talk with the buyers and come to terms
together with what we think is important. All the questions we ask prior to the
purchase of a puppy helps us deciding which kind of puppy is suitable for you
and we try to make everybody happy. It worked out so far. It must here be
underlined that it is not possible to see anything for sure in the puppies
neither in temperament or looks before the puppies are minimum 5-6 weeks old and
we therefore never decide anything about which puppy is going to where before at
this age. So you can not expect to know when the puppies are two weeks old which
puppy will be yours. In our opinion this is a major benefit for the puppy buyers
as they could otherwise end up with a puppy who is not fitting for them at all.
Our puppies are always born and raised inside the house and are used to many
different things. The first time they spent in our bathroom with their mother. As soon as they
start to move around they come into the kitchen, here they hear
the everyday sounds of a normal household, meet our children, our cats the
other dogs etc. They come to the garden where they play with eachother, our
children and meet the cats and see the older dogs.
A puppy from us is always sold with a Danish Kennel Club pedigree ( FCI ) and a
buyers sellers contract. The puppy has had it´s first vacination and has a
health certificate from the vet. It has been de-wormed when it was 3, 5 and 7
weeks old. With the puppy comes some food of which it is used to eat. We are
selling dog food and products so it is possible
from us to order additional food and products such as brushes, leads, bowls,
crates etc with the guidance from us regarding which products will be suitable
for the breed and your specific puppy.
For us
breeding dogs is an exciting hobby on a high level. A hobby which took an
extreme amount of our time in our search for getting as much knowledge as
possible about mainly the breeds we are working with, but also about breeding
and genetics in general. We participated in several seminars about dog breeding,
passed the Danish kennel club breeders education, bought and read numerous books
about genetics and inheritance and least, but maybe most importantly, studied
pedigrees and photos from the breed´s countries of origin untill we knew it all
by hard.
Besides this we put an honour in going to the breeders we thought we could learn
something from and we have gratefully and with joy listened to all their stories
and experiences. All this of course together with 15 years of work with the dogs
in itself has made us the breeders we are and given us the opinions we have
today. We can still learn - as everybody can - but we know pretty well
which type of dog we are looking for and we know what we shall do in our
breeding to try to get to this result.
For us it is a sure thing if you are breeding dogs with an FCI pedigree and you
ask a certan amount of money for the puppies you are selling that the dogs you
use for breeding are healthy, physiscally as well as mentally. For us it is a
rule that before any dog is used for breeding it needs to have a temperament
which is worth passing on. The temperament is passed on from parents to puppy
and it is therefore important to select dogs for breeding who posses a
temperament according to the standard for the breed. We have excluded several
dogs from our breeding program who were topwinners and had healthy hips and eyes
because their temperament was not as we wanted it to be. No matter if the dog is
ment to be a showdog, working dog or a pet the most important thing is that it
functions mentally in it´s surroundings. Therefore we never compromise with this.
It is also important that the dog is fresh and healthy. A dog who is burdened
with different illnesses will both itself have a more poor quality of life and
will also be an issue of worry for the people who loves it. As with the
temperament it is therefore a rule for us that the dogs we use for breeding must
be as fit and healthy as possible.
When these two basic things have been fulfilled comes the real work with
breeding, to find out which dogs and pedigrees fit together. Some say "we are
just making puppies because we think it is fun" or "we don´t care so much how
the dog looks as they are all cute" or similar things. We don´t say like this!
Alle breeds have an official breed standard in which it is described how an
ideal dog of this breed ought to look. This standard is the breeders tool which
they should work with. We as breeders have an enourmus responsability on our
shoulders. We have taken over the work with breeds which are already shaped and
created in their country of origin through the work for which they have been
used; a shaping which has often lasted for hundreds of years and which is often
a part of the history of a specific people. Our job is therefore if we
start breeding to do our best to preserve the breeds as they were originally and
to breed for the characteristika typical for the breed. We need to make sure
that there will also in twenty, in fifty and in hundred years from now be dogs
of this breed to find and that they will be typical individuals who live up to
the standard which was originally made for the breed. If we don´t care about the
dogs looks, type and pedigrees or if we don´t do the effort to learn about these
subjects and don´t know anything about it before we start breeding we influence
the breed in a negative way and in the worst case it ends up with that the breed
is changed from what is was originally, that it looses it´s type.
For us it is therefore very important to know what we are doing when we are
breeding. We know which type of dog we want and we do our outmost to find dogs
who we think live up to this. As already mentioned it is a basic nescecity that
the dog is healthy mentally and physically. But does it matter if it at the same
time is beautiful and looks typical for the breed? We think not and we therefore
do our best to try make the three things unite. No dog is perfect and no dog
should be, but we have learned and are still learning what happens if we put two
different dogs together and our long study in type, pedigree, lines and mostly
our honesty benefit us. We look honestly at all our dogs and are not afraid to
admit their mistakes. Because all dogs have mistakes no matter how beautiful
they are and knowing the mistakes makes us able to work on and find out which
dogs to match in order to minimise the mistakes in the next generation. If we
are blind to the mistakes we will never move on. Luckily we often succeed, but
of course dogs are living animals and we can not control everything in advance.
And this is the way it should be.
Furthermore of course we can only control our breeding in the phase of planning
the litter, mating the dogs and while the puppies are in our place. Once they
move to their new home it is the puppy buyers´ responsability how they continue
our work in meens of correct feeding and training and sozialisation if the dog
needs to have all chances to develop well both physically and mentally.
But we hope and believe that we do everything possible here to give the dogs the
very best chances for a good start and a later succesfull result.
We live on an old farm in Sweden in the middle of nowhere surrounded by forrest and mountains. With no neighbours and a lot of land all dogs can run free on our property and we get to walk everyday in the forrests around us.
The backside of our house in Denmark and the garden with all the dogs
When we had only few dogs they were of course living as part of the family,
slept with us in the bed etc. But the more dogs we got the more difficult this
was. Of course there were the obvious difficulties as the cleaning and the dog´s
destructiveness on our house, but also for the dogs themselves it turned out
that there were several problematic issues in this. When the dogs went from
being two and three to being a group of four, five and more something happened
with their relationship towards us. Suddenly they were so many to share us that
they all started to seem stressed as they all wanted to do all they could to be
the one who got the attention. It became tirering for both them and us. Each
time we were sitting in the sofa it was a "fight" who could get to us. Often the
result was that it was the same to or three pushy dogs who got the wanted spot
and the rest of the group was sitting disapointedly in the background. Besides
the problem of dividing the attention actual dangerous situations occured.
When the dogs became a group they suddenly had a much bigger imagination than
they had when they were only one or two. We have tried to come home to wires
which had been bitten to pieces, a stove which was turned on as the dogs had
been jumping on it, a kitchen draw which had been emptied with the result that
big knives were lying on the floor etc. Our nerves had problems taking this. Not
only the outer dangers worried us, but also the dangers with the dogs as a group.
Even if our dogs never fight they are a bigger pack of dogs and we were
therefore always worried what could happen when we were not there as the leaders
of the pack. You could never know if two males would suddenly get angry at
eachother, if they would find some food hidden under a closet and start fighting
over it or similar things. If we were not there and the dogs were all together
something could easily happen to the weak ones in the group - the puppies or the
old ones. This we could not defend to ourselves. Last but not least there
started to be a hygienical problem. A lot of dogs make a mess nothing can change
that. They bring dirt with them inside and if you have many dogs there will
often be males who want to mark inside, a puppy who is not housebroken yet etc.
If so many dogs are all over your house and in the furniture it is therefore
almost impossible to clean and the risc of bacterias spreading among the dogs
can get big and in the end it is quite unhygenical to live in for both people
and dogs.
Some years ago we therefore learned by all these experiences and took the
consequence. We changed the way we and the dogs live. We have always been 100%
open about this and everybody is always welcome to visit us and see how our dogs
live their lives. We have renovated an old stable which is now fully isolated
and with new windows and doors and here we have seperate rooms for the dogs
where they can come in all of them if needed. Besides that we have made some
lovely big runs. Here there are lots of activities for the dogs, places to play
and hide, places to jump up and go in and isolated dog houses. Here they can be
divided into smaller groups and be outside in natural packs and get fresh air,
play and get excersise. Everyday we walk with almost all dogs. All our dogs are
taugth to run free and come when we call and we can walk with many dogs at the
same time in the forrest. All our dogs get cuddles every day and social contact
with us, the kids and the other dogs, they all learn their name, learn to come
when called, to walk on a lead etc.
When a bitch has been mated she always move inside our house and all our litters
are born and raised there. It is very important to us that puppies and youngsters get
the sozialisation they need and they can only get this if they live in a house
with people twenty four hours a day and hear all the sounds there are in a
house. When our puppies are old enough they go out too and follow on walks with
us and the older dogs, but they always sleep inside and spend time inside with
the family and the children so that they are used to living in a normal
household.
As it can be seen from the here described you can see that the fact that our
adult
dogs do not live in the house does not meen that we do not love our dogs. Quite the contrary.
We believe dogs to be natural pack animals who enjoy outdoor life. Of course we would prefer to have them all around us all the time, but this is
not possible. If you want to breed on the level we do it is nescesary to have a
certain amount of dogs.Some people pretend to live in a normal house with 15 or
20 dogs around them - we don´t. We say things as they are and have no problem at
all with this as we see how our dogs enjoy their life. Our
dogs live just like they would in the nature, in a pack. All our dogs sozialise
with a lot of other dogs everyday and they are running and playing here, digging holes and eating bones.
They are taken on walks and all have cuddles and kisses each and every day. And
as said, anybody interested is always welcome to come and visit us and to see
how our dogs live.
Morning walk with the entire pack in Finland
Our home in Sweden