WHY SHOULD WE HAVE A TIBETAN MASTIFF?

I do not know about you, but here is the story why (partly) we chose this breed.
We had thought for many years abut what sort of dog we would have. Not an easy task we can confirm!
We live on a farm on countryside with a very few neighbours and therefore wanted a guard dog. This dog must be able evev to stay outside in all weather conditions and still be a easy to take care of the coat and not drag all the mud inside the house.
Me myself I have been brought up in a kennel with many different breeds. We had Finnish hound dogs, one English Staffordshire bullterrier, many Lhasa apsos and West highland white terriers. All these are pleasant breeds but not the right breed for us today.

It was my mom who one day after many years of thoughts suggested that we should have a closer look at the Tibetan Mastiff. This we still owe her big thanks.

In general in the books referring to dogs you can not find very much information about this rather rare breed. But as there is today the fantastic WEB we could find many excellent homepages describing this breed.
I was able to find a breeder close to our own hometown in Finland, Oulu. From her, Teija, I got valuable information about this breed. This dog can only have puppies in the middle of the winter, we were too late to reserve our puppy. But we got lucky. One family cancelled their reservation and we could book our puppy- Santtu. She was born at a in Finland well known breeder of the Tibetan mastiff. The Rajakan kennel was the first in Finland to import the TM in to Finland and Mr Taisto Collanus is the chairman of the Finnish TM-association..

And it showed out that Santtu was like made for us!
There is only one small downside - the enormous appeal to run out in the forest after a rabbit or a deer. Luckily this seems to disappear with the years. Though it still is different for her to resist this feeling to run after the occasional deer when they come by close to our house and intrude her revere. The high fencing around the house is occasionally not enough, but the reason why she occasionally runs off is to be found among us humans -we simply forget to close all the gates, doors etc. She is clever enough to come and go, she can open the doors in to the house , but unfortunately she has not (yet) learned to close after her.
As guard dog she has been fantastic, but never showing any aggression against people.
Today we have four Tibetanmastiffs, Santtu and her three doughters and one male we are co-owner for.