About us
Michael & Gijs
My name is Gijs de Waard, together with my husband Michael Feij we own the kennel Echos of Fire.
My name is Gijs de Waard, together with my husband Michael Feij we own the kennel Echos of Fire. We are small hobby breeders who breed according to the standard of the FCI and the regulations of the Association of Breeders and Lovers of smooth-haired Miniature Pinschers and related breeds (VFLD).
Our kennel is located in Soesterberg (the Netherlands). We are fortunate that there are enough shows in the Netherlands every year where I can proudly present my dogs. In addition, I absolutely do not mind traveling for a show.
My first encounter with Miniature Pinschers is about 20 years ago. My parents liked this breed and the strength and passion of this breed has always stayed with me. Later, my husband and I purchased our first male dog in
2018. With this male we started showing and thanks to the many people around us, we learned a lot from those around us in the “dog world”. With in particular my “mentor” Bianca Smits.
Shows
As of 2018, we are occasionally competing with our dogs on dog shows. In the future we expect to compete on more shows with our second dog Dax. Until an age of 27 months, Beer achieved great results at the shows. After this, corona also started to move up in the Netherlands and showing became impossible. We have done some shows with Beer during this period, but the passion wasn’t there anymore. Beer is a nicely developed male with an expressive head, beautiful lines and a good character. Despite the fact that Beer got some nice results, we decided to stop showing him, also because of the negative outcome of his health examinations and the fact that he doesn’t always appreciate the hustle of shows and prefers to be at home with my husband. Now it is Dax his turn of showing the word his perfect lines and beautiful head, We expect a lot of him, and we have already seen the first great results on the first shows. For example, at the age of 5 months he became BIS Baby and has been several times BOS Baby and BOB Puppy.
Traveling
You can choose to travel without your pets, but this does not fit us. In Beer’s first 4 years, he was welcome to come along to my husband’s work every day, and even in that time Beer was already given the opportunity to see a lot of the world. We recently went to Norway where Beer joined us in a tent and traveled through the beautiful nature of Norway. Also Dax is not unfamiliar with traveling at his young age. He came by plane from Finland (accompanied by Bianca) to the Netherlands. Less than 2 months later he joined us on our little adventure to Germany. Now there are already planned trips to Italy, Denmark, Switzerland and Austria. Traveling with our dogs is something very special that we are very grateful for and hope to do in the coming years with the other dogs of our kennel as well. This breed is extremely suitable for traveling, they adapt quickly and can take a rough time. Beer is an experienced traveler, now we hope Dax will become an experienced traveler too in the coming years as we have big plans to see more of the world with these twoo guys!
Origin of the kennel
As of January 2023, the kennel Echos of Fire has been in existence. Something we never expected to happen. Now we can hardly wait to expect the first litter. In 2022, we registered the name of the kennel with the FCI and the Raad van Beheer (kennel club the Netherlands). Now, it is quite difficult to start a kennel without females, but this is a very conscious choice of us. The expectation is that we can start expecting our first litter in a few years, with a female in co-parenting. Until then, we want to present our dogs under our own kennel name and make nice collaborations with other breeders and lovers of Miniature Pinschers.
Rostelly’s Angels
Rostelley’s Angels Driven by Love is proudly bred by Bianca Smits. Bianca breeds 1 or 2 litters a year and does this with so much love that it is almost contagious (it is!). After she helped us with Beer we stayed in contact for a long time. It is always nice to have someone on hand to answer your questions once in a while. Also, thanks to our unique partnership, we were able to import Aurra Sing Meet Rostelleys new Dream from Finland. If you want to know more about Rostelley’s Angels and if they will have a litter soon, below is the link to their website.
We are very grateful to Bianca for entrusting Rostelley’s Angels Driven by Love (Beer) & Aurra Sing Meet Rostelleys New Dream (Dax) to us.
Our dogs at home
Of course, we are not always traveling and at competing at shows. Something we really enjoy is being at home together and relaxing on the couch with our dogs. They are also real pet dogs who like to be with us and also like to hang out on the couch. We do stick very closely to the rhythm of the dogs. The times we take them for walks, the times we feed them, the times we play with them are all pretty much fixed, no matter where we are. We try to keep as strong a rhythm in this as possible. Dogs need this, and it gives them peace of mind. This way they always know what to expect. Also, during trips we try to stick to this rhythm, this gives a certain form of stability, even though the environment sometimes changes.
