We are Matthew and Monique Spinks and we live in a small village on a old farm with all our animals in the South of Holland.
We have both had animals our whole lives and our world still revolves around them strongly today.
On the farm we have as pets Old English Mastiffs, Bordeaux dog, cats, goats, rabbits, Guinea pigs and chickens.
We both have owned , breed and shown Bordeaux dog for 20 years and in the last 6 years extended our family
to the gentle giants that are Old English Mastiffs .We both have a active role in breed clubs for both breeds for many years.
Monique still being the treasurer for the Old English Mastiff Club of Holland.
Matthew was born in England and is a Kennel Club Judge for Bordeaux Dog.
As you can see our daily lives still revolves around our wonderful animals.
My passion for the Chongqing Dog
began around 10 years ago.
I was researching the worlds rarest dog and came
across photos and videos of the Chongqing dog.
I was instantly fascinated by its looks,
origins and ancestry.
In this period of time the world had not really opened up to social media.
China was a very beautiful and different land which made it very difficult to even think about getting involved in this wonderful breed.
I found the looks, health and history of the Chongqing Dog hard to ignore.
The Chongqing Dog for me became something i occasionally talked about but it was left there as hardly any westerns had knowledge of the breed.
Fast forward 6 years and slowly i started to see photos and stories of the Chongqing Dog.
Automatically my interest in the breed peaked again. I knew it would not be something i took likely so slowly i watched how things unfolded
for the breed in the western world.
My interest in the breed picked up pace and unable to ignore the looks and ancestry of the breed
i decide i would learn more about the Chongqing Dog. Having owned and breed Dogue de Bordeaux and Old English Mastiff
i was semi reluctant at first . At the age of nearly 50 i knew that being involved in a positive way with any breed took time and commitment.
In the end it was one of those things i could not ignore anymore i had decided i would buy my first Chongqing Dog.
Social media allowed me to track the progress in Europe of a pair of dogs.
Quietly i had arranged to meet 2 puppies with the intention of coming home with one puppy female.
Her name would be Mei-Li , meaning beautiful and graceful in Chinese. On the day we saw Mei-Li and her brother Zhu-Long,
It was not our intention to buy 2 puppies but we found him so special by the end of the day we had agreed to buy both brother and sister .
Something that seemed to happen quiet a lot in our house with regards to animals.
It was time to bring my two new puppies home and part of the process would be registering the puppies
with the Chinese Chongqing Dog Club in China.
As a result of this registration process i became very friendly with Xiaoliu.
He would help me and become a very important person for me answering all my question i had on the Chongqing Dog.
We talked about all aspects of the Chongqing dog both ancient and the present day dog.
During this period i became a member of the Club in China .
Fast forward 6 months, by now Xiaoliu and I had talked very much over the breed in my quest for knowledge.
It was Obvious the question would one day come "Can you help me find and import 2 puppies into my country".
Monique my wife and i was the first people in our land to own this breed.
If we were to have a future in this breed it would be nice to buy direct from Chongqing City itself.
The answer was yes, we would now work together to make this trip and dream come true.
Were better to ask than China itself. We have very few experts in the Western World so accessing China's wealth of knowledge for me was a must.
It seemed my new role would be to promote the Chongqing Dog in the Western World hopefully securing its place in the Dog world for ever.
Conversations, photos and videos flew back and forth.
We had found two new puppies, i was not disappointed they were both very beautiful indeed.
My trip would turned into reality. With the help of Xiaoliu and the Club we started to plan my trip to China to meet my 2 new puppies.
Xiaoliu asked me to trust him and i put all my trust and faith in his ability to make our plans come true.
He kept me up to date along the way and found solutions for any challenges we meet along the way with our plans.
If I'm honest he went above and beyond my expectations in everything he did for me.
He kept me updated with photos , videos and messages along the way, which helped throughout the process . .
Agreeing to buy puppies is easy, putting it all in place and becoming a reality would take some planning.
There is many rules and regulations with this type of process and Xiaoliu made sure it all fell into place along with some other very helpful people.
In our busy schedules we had managed to set a date that was both good for the breeder and i.
Xiaoliu was great, he thought of everything down to the small details.
I would have a hoist family to look after me for the duration of my stay in China.
For me it was important to spend a little time in China getting to know the people, culture and to understand the breed more in depth.
You can read more about my trip to china under the link at the top of the page.
Please feel free to look around our website and our link www.libertebordeaux.nl to learn more about us and all our wonderful animals.