A little bit about me (Russell Savige), and Training Dog Breeds, which is my first try at a real website. I'm a 57 year-old Australian, living in Bunyip, a small country town, south-east of Melbourne in Victoria.
I started breeding and training dogs in 1986, when I lived in Gladstone on the Central Queensland coast.
At the time I was operating a large Motel, the Arkana Motor Inn, which was becoming insolvent. There's nothing unusual in that, everyone was becoming insolvent in Gladstone at the time. A good friend of mine, Dave Smith, who was a local copper, gave me a greyhound bitch that was being retired from the racetrack. She had broken her hock the week before. Dave said "she would be good to breed with, because of her race form", and that she "had good blood lines".
I knew zilch about greyhounds. Like most people, I'd had pet dogs in the past, but I knew absolutely nothing about greyhounds. However, I had been to 2 greyhound race-meetings at Rockhampton a few weeks before, and liked what I saw. So being impulsive, I took this greyhound bitch to breed with... her race name was Chrisanna Miss
She came in season shortly after, while her hind leg was still in plaster. I flew her to Victoria to a stud dog, Royal Rumpus, and 9 weeks later she produced 8 beautiful pups. There were 4 males and 4 females in the litter. They were 4 blacks, 2 fawns, a fawn and white and a black and white.
This litter of pups went on to win well over 80 races between them, including 3 Cups races, and placing in some of the best greyhound races in Australia.
And so a passion was born. A passion that saw me, at the age of 40, leave a secure high paying job in a family business, and follow a dream to try and breed the fastest greyhounds in the land.
posted by Russell Savige @ 12:08 AM
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