Wo Wer? Who we are...

Where

Our home is the beautiful so called „Sonsbecker Schweiz“ situated on the left hand side of the Northern Lower Rhine area, in a little village called Sonsbeck-Labbeck, which is part of the city of Wesel, very near the city of Xanten. Wide open fields, forests, artifical lakes and many little villages are typical for this region. Sonsbeck is also well known as „the green pearl of the lower Rhine area“.

Who

We are Sue and Michael with our two almost grown up children Gian-Luca and Robin. In 2010 we have seriously started wondering which type of dog could fit well into our family and into our life in general. Very quickly we had a list of characteristics that our future dog would have to have and also a summary of what we would be able to offer a dog.

With this in mind it was soon clear that our new family member was going to be an Airedale Terrier. Once we had finished the theory, we started the big search for good breeders to exchange thoughts and ideas. We visited some of these breeders to get a picture of their experience with this breed and to meet some of the four-legged friends in person. We drove quite a few kilometres and every kilometre was well worth it. The information we gathered cannot be replaced by any book but most of all we met a lot of breeders who breed out of love for the animals and who are not part of the „dog multiplying system“ that produces hundreds of puppies just to make a profit.

We hope that this breed will never be the focus of such „multiplyers“. We want to make sure that the characteristics of this breed will be found in each and every single one of our puppies and we want to educate these dogs with love so that they can enjoy a happy life with their two-legged friends. This is also the reason why our dogs live inside the house with us. We don’t want to have our dogs grow up in a kennel and will refuse future buyers who want to keep the dog in kennels.

The name of our kennel „Dassendal“ derives from the nearby narrow pass. The „Dürsberg“, a terminal moraine of the Ice Age with its popular lookout point, is one of the highest elevations of the Lower Rhine ridge with a height of 100 metres above sea level. The „Dassendal“ narrow pass runs west of it. Its aisle was formed by a constant downhill flow of water and has connected the municipality of Sonsbeck with its district of Labbeck since the Middle Ages.

Because of its rare shape and its geological history the narrow pass of „Dassendal“ is a registered monument.