Story about Baron Nike Renewal

  Baron Nike Renewal... I think this name will be remembered by many dobermann lovers. I can say that I'm very happy to be the owner of such a great dog like Nike. He is now 12 years old^*1 and he is still healthy and happy boy.

Story about Nike starts 12 years ago. First Nike's owner was Mr.Milan Radivojac, owner of "Sawages" kennel. At the time, I already had few dogs descending from Nike: Vento Sawages, Gomez Sawages and Vanja Sawages who later became my foundation bitch. First time I saw Nike he was 3 months old. After the show that was held close by Mr.Radivojac's residence, I was guest in his house and that's when I saw Nike for the first time. Mr.Radivojac had 2 litter brothers: a black male and Nike. Nike was a really beautiful puppy. Very strong bones, nice and strong head. He was the best puppy I've ever seen.

Next time I saw Nike he was 7 months old and I didn't like him at all. He was very tall and he needed a lot of development especially in chest area. His ears weren't lifted properly, they were completely down. Three months later I saw Nike again on a show. He looked better but he still had his ears flopped, no chest, head was not parallel. Around that time Mr.Radivojac offered him for sale but nobody was interested.

One of my friends, Dejan, liked Nike very much and he repetedely suggested that I should buy him. He said that such a big dog could be very influential stud in the future. I laughed at that, asking him why would anyone come to mate with Nike when his half brother famous Alfa Adelante del Citone was in Italy. This story with Dejan repeated, very often he called me asking me what I've decided about NIke. Then came the biggest show in Serbia. It was November 1996 and Nike was the same as the last time I was him but this time I studied him patiently and concluded that he indeed has a lot of potential, so I decided to buy him.

Three days later, with my 2 friends, Mr.Stevica Velickovic owner of "Ginga House" kennel and Mr.Marko Radicevic our veterinary, I went to pick up Nike. I remember an incident related to that day - on our way back home, I was in the back with Nike just getting to know him. He was 12 months old, big and tall and he looked like a dangerous dog. During the trip Nike saw himself in the rear-view mirror and started to bark like crazy. He wanted to jump to the front seat to bite this dog. We almost had a car accident!

Nike was dewormed, vaccinated and I started to train with him. As his trainings progressed he was looking better and better. The biggest problem were his ears - I continued to tape his ears until he turned 3 years. In March 1997 was a specialty show in Novi Sad, the judge was Mr. Pezzano. Nike was youth class winner and I received very good comments about him. Mr.Pezzano also said that he could be very important for the breed in the future.

I took him to many shows across Europe (I calculated that we have travelled more that 50.000km together): on Euro Sieger show in Dortmund he was vize Europa Jugend Sieger and 4 months later on IDC in Italy he won the working class but he lost to his half brother Alfa Adelante in the finals. It is very interesting that he didn't do well on shows in Yugoslavia. I remember one of our "experts", judge Zoran Brankovic, said he deserves only VG but that he will give me a V nevertheless.

1998 was very successful for Nike. He was class winner on Europa show in Genova, then Europa Sieger in Dortmund. And than came IDC in Belgium - Nike won the champion class under Mr.Pezzano but this time he also become IDC Sieger. An interesting thing on that IDC was that his daughter, Come As You Are Alabama, was also IDC Sieger. Owners and breeders of Alabama were Danijela Fiala & Muris Hadzic and she later also became World Winner. Alabama was from the first litter sired by Nike. I even got very high offers for him: on one occasion I was offered 35.000 Euro and on another 50.000 Euro but I haven't ever meant to sell him.

After that Nike was used as stud more and more. I calculated that he had 243 matings. He couldn't be tried for ZTP because his mother died before her owner made her HD score. Nike had many puppies on all continents in more then 50 countries. Nike produced another IDC winner Fedor del Nasi and many champions, winners of the important shows around world.

Nike is now retired, enjoying his much deserved pension. It has always been a great pleasure to live with such a great dog. He is now very old and I try to spend as much time as possible with him.

Slobodan Maksimovic