A bark worth DM2,000

The white and graceful silhouette stands quiet in front of the house’s door. Unlike its aggressive ancestors, Angelo el Beso Mortal is a self-restrained dog, which seldom barks and never bites.

He is too smart to behave like a stray dog and seems to be aware of having been awarded the world championship title last year in Budapest. Consequently, in the yard from Satu Nou, Angelo gets separate treatment from his noisy mates, as he is allowed to sleep in the house.

A crowd of white heads rush near the wire fence, smelling the dog owner’s presence. Kovacs Csaba calls them by their name: Tosca, Misti, Lulu, Mimi and so on. He never mistakes their names, although they are about one hundred.

Kovacs Csaba is the first Oradea inhabitant who brought an ostrich family to Romania. He now has five ostrich families, 100 dogos (Argentinian dogs) and 200 homing pigeons.

Csaba started to raise dogos five years ago, “by accident.” “I liked them very much and especially the dogos seemed very smart. In the beginning, I didn’t think I might make a business out of it. I bought a dog from Austria and then another one and so I came to have four dogs. I invested DM30,000.”

Csaba had no profit in his first year of activity as a dog breeder. “I gained exactly the amount I had invested, nothing more.” Things improved over the second year, when the number of cages in the yard increased.

Csaba had to hire two helpers as he could hardly feed them or clean their cages. Besides, he had to get the food, so he joined the Canine Association and then struck a deal with a slaughterhouse supplying him with 40-50 kilos of meat daily.

The dogo females bear puppies twice a year. “Only those with the full features of the race (pigmentation, dentition and so on) are kept, while the others are euthanised when they are still very little,” Csaba says. The puppies are hosted in separated cages and the pedigree with the entire “family tree” is then drawn.

Csaba has attracted an elite clientele. As one puppy costs between DM2,000 and 5,000, the clients are mostly foreigners: French, Hungarians, Austrians and very seldom Romanians.

This is the only patented race in Argentina. Dr. Antonio Martinez, who was not satisfied with his hunting dogs, in 1920 crossed a Spanish mastiff with a bullterrier bulldog, creating a race fit to hunt jaguars.

This is an excellent watchdog, with a stable behaviour. It likes children and will always play along with them. It has special physical resistance and short white hair.

The small black stains appearing after birth may disqualify them in competitions. The male dogo can be 68.5 centimetres tall and weigh 45-50 kilogrammes.

Csaba has recently acquired a husky and two French bulldogs. He intends to expand his business by planning to grow 10 races of dogs “Ostrich breeding is a more profitable business, but I like dogs best.”