An article can be found on the website www.gesunde-dogge.de that deals with the work of the KyDD and individual members of the association. The author of this pamphlet is in hiding; is stated on the website "from Healthy Dogge". We are puzzling over how “von Gesunde Dogge” was able to put such a text on paper, which with all its populism and polemics tries to disguise its true purpose. We'll get to that later.

According to the site's legal notice, the “Healthy Dogge” interest group is represented by Ms. Ruth Stolzewski. The imprint does not provide any further information on the responsibilities for the content of the website. In this respect, in our article we take Ms. Ruth Stolzewski responsible and ascribe the responsibility for the article on the above website to her.

Ms. Stolzewski and the community of interests she represents claim to be particularly committed to the health of the Great Dane dog breed. Both on the website and in one of the print magazines that she publishes, the impression is always given that Ms. Stolzewski is particularly qualified to do so through her training or supposed studies. To underpin her missionary and salvation-related theories, she is all too happy to use pseudo-scientific statistics, which she then interprets adventurously and in her own way and sells these interpretations as facts. In the above article she cites statistics and graphics from the website www.danesworld.info. You have to know that Ms. Stolzewski does this on her own homepage on the said website:

“I also volunteered to work on the world's largest database for Great Danes for 8 years: www.danesworld.de. Since the administrator of this database unfortunately not only tolerates targeted incorrect entries but also actively covers them and restricted my user rights when I tried to correct them, I meanwhile turned away with a heavy heart from this database, which is actually so important and would be good, if it were directed accordingly. "(Original copy from the website www.doggen-irschener-winkel.de)

Of course, Ms. Stolzewski uses every form of training, because she says she has “bought every book about Great Danes available in stores” on her website.

Ruth Stolzewski is happy to take the successful breeders to her breast, and she does so in the above-mentioned article. Successful breeders both in monetary terms and in terms of their long-term breeding successes. She even goes to the trouble of calculating how many puppies have died there in the last few decades of breeding. Apart from the completely utopian prices that are supposedly achieved, she completely forgets that breeding also causes enormous costs. Sales and income tax are also incurred from a certain income level, with sales tax alone amounting to 19%. And that, depending on the litter size and sales price, possibly from the first litter. In any case, we are not aware of any breeder who has been able to generate wealth with his breeding. If one were to look at a pure Great Dane breeding only from a business point of view, 8 out of 10 breeders would probably have to file for bankruptcy immediately. Thank goodness breeders like Heiko Wagner and the Gilmer couple, named as an example because they also have to serve in the Stolzewski article, pump a lot of private money into their breeding and kennels, because this only serves their dogs.

And speaking of people: The KyDD did not fall into Heiko Wagner's hands, as claimed in the article, but Heiko Wagner was elected by the members, as is usual in democratic organizations, which also include clubs. "Falling into the hands" attributes something dishonest, something not clean and that is definitely not free, democratic elections. The fact that Heiko Wagner is also confirmed in office every 3 years by the general assembly does not require any comment, as it speaks in particular for his outstanding work as chairman of the association.

And here a perfectly perfidious system can be seen with Ms. Stolzewski, because the statement "Frank Gilmer was appointed FCI breeding judge in record time" insinuates friendship, nepotism and cheating and conceals that Frank Gilmer actually meets all requirements and entitlements in a very short time created and completed for the appointment. At best, this proves that Frank Gilmer, who is by the way a successful entrepreneur, pursues his goals with discipline and ambition. And it should only be mentioned in passing that the appointment of an FCI breeding judge is not only in the hands of the KyDD, let alone in the hands of Heiko Wagner.

And we also have to say something about the case of our member Peter Walk, which Mrs Stolzewski cites. Here, too, the insidious nature of the article becomes clear. The case cited in the Stolzewski article happened back in 2003, almost 20 years ago. Today Mr. Walk admits to "a serious mistake with far-reaching consequences in every respect", which was punished by the DDC with a two-year breeding ban after Mr. Walk reported himself. Peter Walk left the DDC after serving his sentence, and we cannot see why we should have refused him admission to the KyDD. At some point, especially after the sentence has been served, an incident is simply closed. One speaks here of rehabilitation.

And so it is with other breeding offenses of our member breeders. These are punished within the framework of our breeding regulations and the defined sanctions of a defined catalog of penalties. Incidentally, this catalog of penalties will be tightened very effectively at a general meeting in May 2021.

In the article, Ms. Stolzewski also complains about Heiko Wagner's behavior as a licensing master. It is interesting to mention that she herself was happy to use his services on December 16, 2018 with her dog Alma vom Irschener Winkel. However, the bitch was put on hold by the Körmeister for 6 months due to her development at the time, only to be presented again by Ms. Stolzewski to Heiko Wagner on December 28, 2019. At this date the bitch was granted the breeding license.

What reasons could there be that Ms. Stolzewski deals so intensively with the KyDD and parts of its members in the aforementioned article?

Could it be because the members of the KyDD had objected to their membership in the association, which Ms. Stolzewski had applied for in autumn 2019, and the board then rejected their membership in the KyDD, also in accordance with the statutes?

Could it also be because her efforts to become a contract breeder under the umbrella of the KyDD were rejected and her attempts to enforce this with various legal help remained fruitless?

The fact that Ms. Stolzewski with the tall bitch Alma vom Irschener Winkel, who, by the way, was mated in Switzerland, has now traveled to Sweden herself, where seven puppies were born and these were entered in the SKK's stud book, is only mentioned in passing, as Ms. Stolzewski has been accusing established breeders of this behavior of “redirecting” litters abroad for years.

There are other inconsistencies about this bitch, Alma vom Irschener Winkel, which are important in light of the self-portrayal of Ms. Stolzewski that she was particularly committed to the fight for the healthy mastiff. Especially since Ruth Stolzewski publicly opposes the insidious diagnosis of DCM and repeatedly tries to discredit breeders:

Alma vom Irschener Winkel was documented, although Ruth Stolzewski clearly knew that several DCM cases were known and documented in the dam line of this bitch and, and this is the reprehensible thing that happened to Alma's brother, the male Aatami vom Irschener Winkel, was diagnosed with subclinical DCM in February 2020 and died of it in August 2020.

Even if Ms. Stolzewski repeatedly emphasizes that she would not have used the mother of these two dogs, Jättiläisen Gaia, for breeding with the knowledge of the DCM cases, she continued to use their offspring for breeding.

Ms. Stolzewski does not seem to take it very seriously with her own demand to deal openly with illnesses and dates of death. Nor does she comply with her own demand to stop breeding with conspicuous lines.

We all in the KyDD want the healthy Great Dane. The breeders as well as the keepers. But dogs are living beings that cannot be assembled like a model car and some whims of nature trip us up. And mistakes are certainly made; We cannot and do not want to acquit ourselves in the KyDD.

Unfortunately, Ms. Stolzewski has made it her life's mission to sell her view of the Great Dane world as the only true view of things and to do nothing other than shoot at the pedigree dog breed clubs and discredit breeders, give them bad faith over and over again, Imputing negligence and lack of expertise.

We in the KyDD stand by the open discourse in our membership and always and exclusively lead it in the interest of our breed, the Great Dane. And we have been doing this successfully for over 30 years. Constructive and open-ended!

And in the end, we also document this openness by the fact that this article was not created "by the KyDD" and is not responsible for it. It is supported by the entire board.

Cynological Society for Great Danes e. V.

We stand up for Great Danes

Heiko Wagner Frank Voigtländer Doris Renz Andrea Gilmer

Anja Wittmann Olaf Larsen-Schmidt Kerstin Koller