Our house is built on 12 acres of what was once grazing land. An acre and a half has been fully fenced with very fine wire to prevent the snakes from visiting. We have many large fenced areas that allow us to separate the dogs into smaller groups. During the day, when we are home the dogs mostly wander and play in these areas, or lie around the house. When we are out and at feeding time they are "put to bed" individually in pens and runs.

During the night most of them sleep inside with us. Unfortunately a couple of them cannot be trusted to wake us up if nature calls so they sleep in the kennels.

We love our dogs, we love the things they give to us every day, so totally unconditionally and we try to return the favour.

Our Samoyed history
We have has always had animals in our lives. You know the sort of thing, as kids we were always bringing home strays or sick and injured animals, neither of our families were without a pet dog as well as the odd cat or two. But in 1991 something happened that started a process that changed our lives. We bought our first Samoyed CH. Zamora Royal Krystalmiss (Tess) from Glenda Hustwaite of Zamora Samoyeds. When Tess was eight months old we started showing her and a year later bought our second samoyed CH Elgianto Angel O'Arzmas (Angela) from Julie Oates of Elgianto samoyeds. We were hooked on this beautiful breed.

Tess produced our first litter of puppies in 1994. We kept two of the puppies. These puppies were Grand Champion Kaizen Mistafire (Brian) and CH. Kaizen Miss Kassandra (Sandy). Brian never produced any puppies for us and Sandy sadly passed away before any puppies were born. We repeated the mating that produced Brian and Sandy and were blessed with CH. Kazien To Star With Luv (Tasha). Tasha went on to produce CH. Kaizen Rupert Bear (Rupert) who is our current male show dog.

Angela proudly presented us with CH. Kaizen Angelas Amour (Sally). Sally was mated to Rupert in 2004 producing a lovely bitch Kaizen Arwen Evenstar (Princess). Princess brings together our two foundation bitches. She has been shown sparingly as she has been a very gawky puppy. She will be out and about soon and we are looking forward to campaigning her to her Australian title.

In our 15 years we have campaigned 11 dogs to their Australian title and 1 to his Australian Grand Champion title.

Ken's Passion
When we got Tess, it had been a long time since our last puppy, so, wanting to do the right thing, Ken started taking her to obedience classes. Unfortunately, in those days the methods were rather harsh and directed towards Obedience Competition trials. Not being comfortable with the training methods and not wanting to do competition obedience, neither Ken nor Tess were keen to continue.

As the number of dogs in our lives grew so did our interest in their behaviour and the way they interacted towards us and each other. When showing our dogs we travel quite extensively, occasionally we might be away for up to a week. The dogs left at home have to cope with a house sitter, or is it the house sitter has to cope with them, and the dogs who travel with us have to know how to behave, especially when we stay with friends or in Motels and Caravan Parks. They are all 'inside dogs' when we are at home so it is imperative that household manners are well up to scratch.

Our dogs taught us that they learned much better, had more fun and still loved us after a training session if we 'asked' rather than 'demanded' and we rewarded good behaviour. We did take one or two dogs back to obedience training at a club for some experience, but we found that the training methods and the aim of obedience training for competition hadn't changed much. We needed something more than just basic obedience and marching up and down a paddock. We were interested in well behaved companions with good manners. We new a little about dog behaviour and needed to understand more. Ken enrolled in an Instructors Training course with a local obedience club and gained his Level 1 Obedience Instructors certificate through the club.

It was then, in 2001 that Ken went to a 3 day seminar by Dr Ian Dunbar, veterinarian, author, and internationally renowned animal behaviourist. It all came together. The light came on so to speak. What we had been doing in our training at home actually had a scientific basis and a whole world of information was opened to us on positive reinforcement training.

Ken started reading 'training' and 'canine animal behaviour' books and we started going to more presentations, seminars and weekend workshops. As we were exposed to more and more, Ken's interest and thirst for knowledge and understanding of our dog's behaviour increased. He started looking for some formal, higher level courses that had more of a focus on animal behaviour and psychology.