We were nominated for an award!
By Jennifer Stoeckl, MAT - Dire Wolf Project CEO, July 18, 2023
What award, you ask?
Was it the “Breeder of the Year” award?
Nah… AKC would never recognize a strongbred breeder who actively admonishes their outdated, closed studbook, eugenics beauty contest for dogs.
(whoops… did I say that out loud?) *ducking my head from the rotten tomatoes my AKC Irish Wolfhound breeder aunt is going to throw at me.
Was it the coveted, but ever elusive, “responsible breeder” award?
Nah… No one would ever nominate us for that one. After all, I wrote an entire book on why we would never want such a silly fake award. If we ever received such an award, I’d wonder what we did wrong to deserve it.
Or maybe… just maybe… it was the “Proggy” award!
Nah… People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) would never recognize the Dire Wolf Project’s animal-friendly achievements in commerce and culture. Why wouldn’t they applaud the fact that no American Dirus dog that I know of has ever lingered in a shelter/pound for more than 12 hours before we traveled over hill and dale to claim them? Well, it’s simple. We commit the ultimate sin of bringing more animals into the world.
Mostly, we put our heads down and work hard each day to bring you only the healthiest, long-lived, loving giant family companion dogs on the planet. We don’t pay any attention to what others think of us.
But, today.
Sitting as quiet as you please in my email inbox.
No fanfare or bravado.
Sat a little email… tucked away amid the other pressing emails from new puppy owners who are going to meet their new puppies soon.
There it was. Plain and dull-looking.
Entitled “Dire Wolf Project’s Nomination”
As pretty as you please.
“Nomination for what?” I asked myself, just like you did above.
I certainly didn’t enter any contest or anything.
My mind flittered back to 2010… or thereabouts… when a similar email popped onto my screen.
At that time, out of the blue just like this one, my DireWolf Dogs website received a “Great Website” award.
You should have seen Lois’s face when I told her the news.
She shook her head and laughed at me. In all her years of website building, she never received accolades from some unknown giver of website awards.
“Ultimately, pretty websites don’t mean a hill o’ beans. It’s the dogs themselves that matter the most.”
I can still hear her now as I reflect on the memory.
But this time it wasn’t a “Great Website” award.
This email came from Laura Hunter.
She is the awards manager for AI Global Media, a corporate business to business (B2B) content creation company owning 14 separate brands. Each affiliate brand covers the latest news in its sector and publishes a digital magazine and newsletter which is read by a global audience. Some of their brands include: LUX Life Magazine, BUILD, and APAC Insider.
Quite the impressive resume!
She reminded me that the Dire Wolf Project was previously nominated for the “Pet Products and Services 2023” award.
Oh yeah… in all these “head-down-work-hard” days we’ve had this year, I forgot about that email she sent me earlier this year.
In my busy-ness, I forgot to reply, apparently. (…which is why I am so thankful for Jody-Lynn’s invaluable administrative assistance!)
So, we were passed over for the award because I never got back to them. (You snooze, you loose.)
But Laura didn’t want to give up on recognizing the Dire Wolf Project’s achievements.
She wrote this email to inform me that she felt we “would be suited to [their] Global Business Awards 2023 hosted by Corporate Vision.” She would automatically nominate the Dire Wolf Project for this award and I could expect to hear from the campaign manager in due course.
How neat!
I looked into the award a little bit after I replied to Laura Hunter.
It appears there is an environmental component to the award.
While we aren’t climate alarmists, Dire Wolf Project breeders do respect life on this beautiful planet we have been granted the pleasure of residing on for a few years.
We are committed to long-term, sustainable breed preservation and are keen observers of God’s Breeding Plan™ as our founder, Lois Schwarz first defined.
Being nominated for a prestigious award is an honor. While it doesn’t change one thing about providing our wonderful families with the best dogs or caring tirelessly for the animals in our life, it is nice someone from the outside sees the extremely challenging work we do.
And… even if nothing ever comes of it… it’s still a thrill to receive it.
And perhaps someday the Dire Wolf Project will be able to say “award-winning” in front of our name.
The American Dirus dog has a unique temperament as the world’s FIRST large breed companion dog.
We must always give sole credit to our founder, Lois Schwarz, for her incredible lifelong sacrifice. She dedicated her entire life to breed FIRST for a calm, loving, gentle, intuitive, and smart dog before any outward appearance traits.
This fundamentally changed the inherited nature of the original working dog ancestry that began the breed.
Many dogs can be calm.
Many others are sweet or gentle.
Still more are loving.
A few are intuitive.
Lots more are smart.
But, never before… in the history of the world… has an entire dog breed embodied these exact traits.
Tailor made… or you could say… designer bred… specifically for our busy modern lives.
I often try to explain in words how incredibly unique and special this breed is.
It’s hard to put into words because there hasn’t been anything like it in an entire breed of dog before. People can hardly believe what we say.
So, it’s nice to hear what owners have experienced.
One American Dirus owner recently posted an update to his review on our Google business page. “We've had the dog for two months now, and he's the best dog ever. Calm, smart, attentive and friendly. He's the perfect dog.”
And if a picture is worth a thousand words, perhaps a video is worth a million.
See for yourself.
Watch how incredibly calm, gentle, sweet, loving, and respectful Vlad (Tsar/Florin) is with me as we work some mind puzzles together.
Here’s the link:
Jennifer Stoeckl is the co-founder of the Dire Wolf Project, founder of the DireWolf Guardians American Dirus Dog Training Program, and owner/operator of DireWolf Dogs of Vallecito. She lives in the beautiful inland northwest among the Ponderosa pine forests with her pack of American Dirus dogs.