Eu Amo O Fila E Por Isso Amo O Brasil

The heading I have chosen for this article was the slogan that guided me through Brazil. This ought to please my opponents, the breeders of Fila mongrels I have met and also assure my friends that I am a genuine Fila patriot!

This confession is easy to put into English: "I love the Fila, and that's why I love Brazil." This may sound simple but it clearly emphasizes the importance of my attitude towards constructive criticism. Holding views and criticizing only become credible when they are guided by the love of a thing, in this case the Fila and its country. As you know MM has often being critical and evidently in quite an effective way as I humbly realized by the fact that the 'young blond chap from good old Germany' was not completely unknown in most of the 50 Fila kennels that I visited around Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Campinas and Santos.

My 16 days in Brazil in August have advanced our case. It is essential to get acquainted with the local circumstances, particularly in the present situation with the Fila Brasileiro's since the quarrels about mixed breeding there are entering a new faze. More and more people in Brazil are realizing the errors of their ways in breeding mongrels, especially because it hasn't paid which was their original motive.

In the next issues of MM I shall deal with the whole situation in more detail. I saw, for instance, some 450-500 Filas, visited breeders from both sides and talked to the people behind the scenes.

Quick summary:

The line of MM's argument was confirmed beyond all doubts. Our portrayal of the problem of Fila type manipulation by breeders, of and with mongrels, is accurate. The same can be said of our articles about their opponents, i.e. the responsible breeders and promoters of the Fila, chiefly, but not only, grouped around Dr. Paulo Santos Cruz who feel an obligation towards their national dog and cynology. Moreover, MM was triumphunt in a special way, which would not have been possible without the teamwork of Dr. Paulo, Francisco Peltier de Queiroz, Airton Campbell, Americo Cardoso dos Santos Jr., Luiz Maciel, Roberto Mariyama, Luciano Cruz de Oliveira and many others, and which concerns something which a lot of Fila fanciers had been dying to hear but more about that later.

Publicity for a worthy purpose

To keep this brief even though it might sound provocative: 1.5 Million Brazilians, the readers of the ESTADO DE SAO PAULO, the biggest daily paper in South America, followed my movements around Brazil in the weekly CINOFILIA column written by the truly courageous journalist, Antonio Carvalho Mendes. It all began on the 11th of August when a two-column report announced my arrival and my itinerary to be followed up in the following week by various shorter pieces of news culminating on the 25th of' August in the publication of my two-column general ex post report. I just managed to get it finished on the night before my return flight in the editors' rooms of the ESTADO where I could quickly type it in English.
This publicity was evidence of two points: the quarrels about the crossbreeding of' the Fila Brasileiro are still of great interest to the public and second, the MM as an independent voice has had a considerable impact on this controversy. This could be seen in other areas, too.

Although the MM and ESTADO are like David and Goliath, Carvalho Mendes stressed in the first talks we had in Sao Paulo that on the whole it wasn't a question of sales but of a common attitude towards the treatment of this struggle. And this is where we have been partners since 1981, when MM started up, though Antonio had already been putting the Fila case in his Cinofilia column in the ESTADO for over three years. Non other than him was responsible for the publication of the mongrel list of the CAFIB, i.e. the first list of dogs which the CAFIB claimed were not genuine Filas. Since 1981 David and Goliath have proved that they complement each other, for MM is always up to date and my two weeks in Brazil were proof of the matter. So journalists do in fact occasionally have the chance to reveal instances of manipulation even at the risk of stepping on people's toes.

Meeting Dr. Paulo

There was no publicity surrounding my meetings with Dr. Paulo Santos Cruz, one of the "fathers" of the Fila, who sent to us in Germany this magnificent breed in 1954. We just had days of talks ranging from Adam and Eve to the future prospects of Fila breeding and spent hours touring around Fila kennels round his home town Santos, which is about 1 1/2 hours from Sao Paulo. In this first brief report on my trip I would like to put my experiences into a few simple sentences: Dr. Paulo really is the authority on the Fila Brasileiro and not only because he knows his breed by heart and has a great general knowledge of cynology, but also because he has the kind of personality which is necessary to be authority. Maybe one day we will manage to invite him to Germany! Next year, the 30th anniversary of the German-Brazilian Fila connection would be the suitable occasion! In the MM issues to come, I hope to make frequent references to the 'work of CAFIB towards the type stabilization of' the Fila Brasileiro and to my talks with Dr. Paulo Santos Cruz.

Breakthrough with Lucena

Something that nobody ever thought possible but which genuine Fila friends had been awaiting for five years actually happened on the 12th of August in Rio de Janeiro in a two hour conversation with the President of the Brazilian Kennel Club (CBKC), Eugenio Henrique Pereira de Lucena: he confirmed that there are Fila mongrels in Brazil and that alien blood has been bred into the Fila Brasileiro. Honest people the whole globe over have of course known this for a long time but it has been continually and angrily denied by the chairmen of most Fila clubs in Brazil and by the culprits themselves or their aids' aids, there as well as in Germany. The dramatic length that people went to in their campaign against me and attempts were made to tear the tongue out of MM even before it had got off the ground! In Brazil these have even led to personal vendettas and threats to life and limb, club expulsions for betraying "king and country" etc, etc. Now, at last, since the 12th of August this spell has been broken. It was on the 18th of August that CBKC-President Lucena's Open Letter to you, dear MM readers, confirming this was published in the ESTADO.
It is a curiosity, isn't it, that this bitterly and unfairly conducted struggle about the Brazilian national breed, that has been raging for years, the truth comes out in an Open Letter to an international German magazine. There has been no official written confirmation prior to this letter, which we will publish word for word in the next issue of MM, that those Filas in Brazil that do not look like Filas, are in fact not true Filas but mongrels.

My "audience" with Mr. de Lucena, about which the men behind the scenes of mongrel breeding especially in Sao Paulo, but also in Rio itself were not too happy as it has been announced in the ESTADO DE SAO PAULO as was the outcome which was read by millions of readers, this audience took place in quite a casual atmosphere. Francisco Peltier de Queiroz kindly interpreted for us.

A man like Lucena, who is President of an umbrella organization, knows the ins and outs of the affair. He has witnessed these developments from the outside and was not personally involved with the Fila problems. Abroad of course he would like people to get the impression that Brazilians know their own problems and endeavor to do everything to put things right. The future alone can answer this question.

Let's be optimistic

Let us role up our sleeves and get down to it to help the Fila where ever possible. We in Germany are in fact lucky to be in a comparatively promising situation as the Brazilians kept telling me. Apart from just one recent litter from an imported Fila bitch, whose pedigree is not pure as the evidence of the material indicates and my visit to her breeder confirmed, we have to date, only genuine Filas taking part in our breeding. We can build on this. What we now need are new imports from clean and typical lines, Since all Filas including those from CAFIB can be registered with the German Kennel CLUB (VDH), there are no formal problems.

. . . but still caution!

Caution must remain our motto! As we know Brazil is in a bad financial state at present. Inflation is running at 170 %. The export of dogs for hard currency in Dollars is big business for many. So, watch out! A good 3 month old Fila pup from a responsible kennel should not cost more than 150-180 US-Dollars. Their prices are different than ours. Let us ensure that it stays that way. Caution is also necessary because there is of course still mixed breeding taking place. Hence, pay particular attention when buying imports that the parents of your potential pup are truly typical. The safest way is of course to make sure that the parents have been approved by CAFIB. There will be more about this organization and the high cynological standard it applies and about my visits to kennels such as "de Siege", Alto Solimoes", do ABC", "dos Santos" in future issues.