CHILLI, THE DOG THAT SAVED MY DAUGHTER

When we purchased a house in Durban there was one key ingredient missing, a guard dog. Most of the houses are security conscious and the bare necessities today require you at least have an electric fence and a burglar alarm. I went a little overboard but when you are talking about your family's safety nothing is too much.

I put up a star shaped sensor which covered every perimeter of the house. These sensors would be triggered if the beams were broken and set the alarm off. I had the exterior wall raised and put a 6 strand electric fence on top. This is over and above burglar guards and security gates. One thing was missing though, I had to find a good guard dog. I love big dogs so was a good enough reason to me to go and find one.

The family and i eventually found two dogs from a breeder one a Boerbull bitch and the other a cross Boerbull/Bullmastiff bitch. They were rather small as puppies but soon grew into a decent size. The cross however was the biggest and when weighed at the vet topped 90 kg's. Pure muscle and teeth, and she had a loving temperament to go along with the package. When I played with her it would sometimes get out of hand and knew the red mist had set in and had to calm her down quickly.

We moved to Johannesburg and the first house had a big wall but no electric fence. As a rental we asked the landlord to put one up and we didn't mind paying extra rent to cover the costs. They refused and had to live with it but had already started looking for somewhere more secure. Chilli was strong and had buckled the security bars on the exterior gate by the front door. There was a thunder storm with lightning and she didn't want to be outside, so she made it inside her way. I tried to bend the bars back but couldn't, they eventually had to be cut and welded straight.

On one morning whilst at work ,there was an attempted armed robbery at the house and Chilli prevented anyone from entering the kitchen door. My daughter was at home and Chilli wouldn't let them near the door, eventually jumping up onto the kitchen counter to try and get at the criminals outside through the window. They left and I would hate to know what could have happened without our super pooch. They were eventually caught when they rolled their car in the driveway at another house in the street. It was a steep drive way as all the houses were on the side of a hill.

We never had any other issues as word spreads around the neighborhood with your hired help talking to each other. A good source for criminal networks targeting houses. We eventually moved to a more secure house that turned out to be another nightmare ,which I have written about previously.

Unfortunately Chilli has since passed and have replaced her with a male Bull mastiff called Chester, like her is a softy but has his protective side. I haven't come across another breed who are so loving but ferocious as well. I owe Chilli so much for that day I won't change and most likely will always have a Mastiff in my life.