The Story

At home, we've always had dogs, but my first contact with real German shepherd dogs was when I was 16.  I got a 3 year old bitch from my brother. I spent all my free time with her.  We walked hours and hours through the woods, I learned her a lot of things and we had a lot of fun... 
A few years later, in 1980, I came in contact with the Belgium German shepherd club, VVDH, where I immediately became a member of.  
In 1980, I ordered my first puppy, Eve v. Muikenshof (picture in the header and on this page).  The breeder was a tough guy, and we built a great friendship.  I worked several of his dogs to sch I, II or III.  On advice of the breeder, I only did shows with Eve in the beginning, with very good results. He won several ones.

Eve 14 months, winner of the suntrophy 1981                                                                  At the Belgium beach, 1981
                      

On the age of 18 months I started to work for Schutzhund with him, so I came in contact with Laurent Baens, a top dogtrainer and still a very good friend of mine.  He learned me everything about working with dogs.  It is here that I found the love for the SCH dogsport and since then I only did shows when necessary.  I played many trials (more than 80) with Eve and was 3 times Belgium championship competitor, 4 times provincial competitor and 1985 winner of the cup Snels Belgium.

      
Eve in obedience                                                   Eve in protection                                                         and   waiting for the results

After Eve I've worked with a lot of other dogs. I will list a few of them :
Jip v. Muikenshof Sch III , twice Belgium Championship competitor, many times "excellent" in protection, my first breeding bitch, mother of  World and Belgium champion Link v. Muikenshof
Ondra v. Muikenshof Sch III, sister of Onex, daughter of Link,mother of Rani, moved to the USA (David Puzzo)
Ruth v.d. Daelenberghütte Sch I with 94-96-98, sister of Rani, moved to taiwain
Thäi v.d. Daelenberghütte Sch III, Brother of Tell vd Daelenberghütte, winner of several trials
......
click here for an ( almost ) complete list of my past dogs

In the mean time I have been awarded the bronze, silver, gold en brilliant dogtraining badge, in VVDH. 

maribor 1989
Very quick after I joined the club i get involved in the protectionwork there; several times a week on the training days, and in between for bringing some particular dogs ready for a trial,....... in 1985, I did my exam as VVDH-trialhelper and I succeeded. Till now I was helper on a lot of clubtrials, but also in the  big trials like, regionals, nationals, selectiontrials... and one of my best memories was in 1989, when I was helper for the Belgium WUSV-team in Maribor, Yugoslavia.  Frans Hannes became World champion there with his Fado v. karthago. 
For me, there's a lot of difference between a helper on training and a helper in a trial. On training you can do everything to build up a dog, but in a trial a helper must do his job. Correctly, powerful,without helping the dogs, for all dogs the same, ..... Now, as helper, I don't do a lot of trials anymore, but I still do helperwork in our club on training, 2 or more times a week.  I enjoy the work to build up young dogs and their drives in protection work.

Link v.Muikenshof
WUSV Champion and belgium champion
winner  interland belgium - netherlands                                                                                                                                      

In the early 80's most of the Belgium breeders were showline breeders and the dogs that didn't expect to become topprospects  for the showring were sold to the people to train with in schutzhund,....with that in mind and cause it was difficult to find breeders than that made the right combinations IMO, or you were so far back in line to choose, that made me decide to start breeding myself and I bought  myself a bitch out of real workinglines, Jip v. Muikenshof.    In 1987 was my  first breeding. I had no breedername so I used my friend's name.  It was a fantastic litter with the dogs Lou, Loi and Link v. Muikenshof (World-champion 1991, belgium champion and several times winner Belgium-Netherlands), but more's the pity, they don't wear my name.  From then I bred together with my brother under the name "van het Basjes Huis", and again the first litter we bred,  brought us the female  "Nelleke v.h.. Basjes Huis", who became first Best sch I of the region and a year later Regional Champion in schIII, and several topplaces at the         nationals as well...After a few years, my brother stepped out of the dogsport and we moved to a new address where me and my wife started to breed under the name"von der Daelenberghütte".  It is and was always my intention to breed good working dogs, not as much as possible, but as good as possible. I try to breed dogs with a lot of temperament, high balldrives and very hard serious dogs with, full and calm grips in protection.  Till now, with good results.
I only breed once or two times a year with very good bitches, and the studs I prefer from working lines.

To keep myself as good as possible informed about everything involved with the German Shepherd , schutzhund, studdogs, breedings and  everything related to that, I readed books, watched video's and visit lots of events , inside and  also outside Belgium ,... so I also became  member of  SV Germany in 1989 and from United Schutzhund Clubs of America in 1997

In 2003 I also passed in my last test as FCI-judge and I had the luck and honour to judge also already in some big trials as regionals , nationals and selectiontrials...As judge my special  attention goes out that the dogs showing or work in the different phases as discribed ..
TRACKING : with a deep nose, independent,intens and concentrated work .....
OBEDIENCE : fast, happy , cheerfull and correct work...
PROTECTION: independent, selfsure, courageous work with hard , calm and full grips combined with intens guarding..

Ronny with his 2 worldchampions
Tom v.h. Leefdaalhof and 
Eros v.d.Mohnwiese (father and son)
In 2001 I was also asked the first time to be the teamcaptain of the WUSV team that is send out by the VVDH, and that's an honour and great experience as well, to go with these toptrainers and dogs to the worlds biggest German Shepherd competition....while i'm sure that we competed every year with a great team, good handlers and 
dogs, some little things, mistakes or some bad luck kept us the last years from the podium, everyone involved knows that a few points makes a lot of difference in such a competition....We were very close a few times and I'm convinced we deserved it earlier but in 2004 , my fourth year as captain the team put VVDH and BELGIUM back on the map of working dogs, Ronny van den Berghe became for the second time in his career worldchampion , with Eros v.d. Mohnwiese. With 5 points ahead he convinced everyone that he was the best and on top of that we also won the teamcompetition...This means also that we have again the most German Shepherd worldchampions of all, one more than Germany, the main and foundationcountry of the breed, and that's not to bad for this little country  , I don't say to much if i say that we are proud on that....watch us in 2005 :-) :-)

Belgium , winner of teamcompetition
WUSV 2004

with kind regards,

Rinus Bastiaansen