For Brooke, dogs have always been an integral part of her life.  Since she was a small child, her passion has been animals, nature and all its intricate, yet immense beauty and wonder. Growing up, Brooke always had canine companions in her life, mixed breeds and purebreds alike.

At Lykosia, our 5 dogs live inside with our family and have free range of our large backyard. They are cherished family members. We are very active with their training and take them hiking, camping, to our local beaches and forests. We feed our dogs a combination of balanced raw (vegetables, organs and fruit) as well as premium kibble. They are our life and the biggest loves! Our Lykos dogs are only bred once (or twice) and we continue the next generation with the pick of the litter puppies to continue to progress our bloodlines.

Breeding is not our 'job'. It's our passion and hobby to develop our bloodlines, which we have enjoyed for many years. We own our business running an art and home decor brand. We feel that no breeder should be breeding for an income - a controversial opinion (and hated by some who partake in this kind of business), but we believe dogs deserve more than being used as "breeding machines".

The Lykos is made up of several purebred dog breeds but contain traces of (but not limited to) the German Shepherd Dog, Alaskan Malamute and Siberian Husky as predominant breeds, selected for temperament, health  and trainability.

More about the history of the breed and it's developed can be found on the webpage of the Lykos Wolfalike Council of Australia here. 

Lykosia do not endorse breeders who keep kennels full of dogs and breed them for commercial profit. We strongly oppose over-breeding and unethical breeding and have been very outspoken in our views surrounding this. In Victoria, our Animal Welfare Laws are strict, and rightfully so, as it aims to stop puppy farming which is rife, particularly in other States of Australia.  Animals cannot simply live their best lives when kept like livestock in small cages/enclosures. We strongly believe dogs should be cherished family companions, given the best opportunity for a wonderful life - raised, developed and trained the right way. 

No puppies bred by Lykosia will ever end up in a rescue organisation or shelter. This is written into the puppy sale contracts, which are legally enforceable. Lykosia will always take puppies back and find them a good home if owners cannot keep them for any reason. We care for our puppies and their wellbeing - for LIFE.

Brooke has also rescued, rehabilitated and facilitated rehoming of dogs in need, as well as also fostered for rescues and continues to support these organisations.

She has trained in a myriad of dog sports, including sheep herding, lure coursing, tracking, agility, obedience and protection work. Over the years, Brooke has also shown dogs in conformation and had her pups have achieved numerous working and conformation titles in Australian and overseas.

HISTORY

Since 2000, Brooke has been involved with developing her White Shepherd bloodlines and also been heavily involved in many disciplines in dog training and behaviour.

At this point in time, Brooke embarks on 9 successive generations (25 years) of hard work and research with her unique, generational bloodlines. 

With a history of intense genetic research, no expense was been spared in sourcing the world's most quality, reliable foundation dogs which made up her White Shepherd breeding program.  Their ancestors and relatives excelled in jobs as guides for the blind, therapy, service, police, and search & rescue.  These bloodlines have purposefully been selected as the foundations of the Lykos.

During her time involved in dogs, Brooke has:
* been on National television for breed interviews
* a guest on 3AW radio
* written articles in several national dog magazines
* been featured in the Herald Sun newspaper
* held prefixes with the ANKC and been a member of Dogs Victoria over the years (not current)
* run her her own professional pet photography and art and wallpaper businesses in Melbourne.
* hosted and judged the Swedish Aptitude Testing and Dog Mentality Assessments during her time with the White Swiss Shepherd Dog Club, which she founded in 2000.
* written many articles on behaviour, training and breeding which have been shared around the world on many websites over the years in the early days.
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Brooke was an Australian Representative for the White Shepherd Genetics Project in 2001 and kept a National database of all health records for White Shepherds in Australia. She is also keeping the same type of database while developing the Lykos breed.

Dogs bred by Brooke are on record for having the best hip/elbow/DNA and temperament results in the country while breeding purebred White Shepherds.  This took decades of hard work, money. extensive research and sacrifice, all while having fantastic relationships with puppy owners - all working together as a team for breed improvement.

Brooke's extensive experience with White Shepherds has also included leasing stud dogs from abroad, importing frozen semen from America, Germany and Italy.  She has also exported them and frozen semen to Italy, Hawaii, Sweden, Netherlands and Finland, as well as helping other breeders in Russia by providing them with new bloodlines (for free), solely for the improvement of the breed on a world-wide scale.
 
Brooke's White Shepherds were the first Australian exports to be accepted by the World Kennel Club (FCI) as the worldwide new breed, the White Swiss Shepherd Dog.  Brooke continues to breed White Shepherds every few years to preserve their legacy and continue the quality of the purebred bloodline.

Brooke believes a breeder's goal should always be to improve/develop their chosen breed, with correct conformation, temperament, health, type and overall soundness being top, equal priorities.

This requires a lot of research, acquired knowledge, networking, continuous learning and a lot of dedication.  If you put enough time, money, knowledge and determination, with a willing attitude of continuous learning into your passion, you can succeed in your visions and goals.

Over the past 25 years, Brooke has been an outspoken figurehead in responsible dog breeding, promoting responsible ownership and training.  She also actively promotes and mentors other breeders, as well as advocating against backyard breeding by using puppy sale contracts, which protects them from ending up in the hands of backyard breeders, rescues, pounds or shelters. 

In 2014, Brooke had an accidental Husky x White Shepherd litter. These pups did not form part of the Lykosia breeding program. Brooke was doing rescue and fostering at the time and was assisting dogs anywhere she could. 'Charlie the Houdini' Husky, (who fathered the White Shepherd x Husky litter), was not one of the rescues. Brooke wanted to help the owner find good home for Charlie, as he was escaping her property and being tied up 24/7 - which is no life for a dog, especially when the owner did not have time for him. Charlie was a stunning wolf grey and white, wooly coated boy with such a loving and beautiful nature. He passed his hips and elbows with flying colours, but had the common Siberian Husky escape artist trait.

Being a purebred preservation dog breeder, mixing breeds was horrific to Brooke at the time and in former years had been very outspoken and negative about mixing breeds.

Contrary to common belief, "purebred" does not always mean "well bred". We have known purebred, registered  breeders breeding dogs with poor temperament and poor health and who have raised puppies in terrible conditions, while also constantly having puppies available. It is also a well-known fact that even dogs with championship titles may not necessarily be sound in conformation and temperament.

There is no such thing as the "perfect" dog. The only way to know is meet the parents yourself and do your research.

Brooke began researching what this unexpected White Shepherd x Siberian Husky mix would look like... and discovered (on Pinterest of all places!) other wolfy breeds overseas, such as the Northern Inuit (1980ies) and Utonagan (est 1987). She also researched about the Tamaskan (est 2006), Blue Bay Shepherd (est 1990ies) and Native American Indian Dog (est late 1990ies/early 2000's), which are also not officially recognised by any major kennel club. 

In 2014, Brooke reached out to people who had advertised they had imported Tamaskans into Australia. They said the dogs were timid and had other undesirable traits, which was not something Brooke wanted to adopt.

Brooke loved the look of the type of all these dogs from overseas, but later discovered that importing one was off the table as they all had wolf content, and the Australian Government prohibiting wolf content into Australia.

After considerable research, Brooke opted to develop the breeding program in Australia without any wolf content. She was the first breeder to do this in Australia. 

Brooke adopted the name "Lykos" due to its contemporary feel, which also means "wolf" in Greek (liekos/lyk). The breed name is also trademarked - a first for any dog breed in Australia.

Priority is always given to excellent health but also high trainability and calm, easy temperaments, with the versatility to perform service work and dog sports. The purpose is to breed healthy dogs, in their original historical form, that make great family pets and easily fit into the average Australian family lifestyle.

With so much going on in the news regarding the declining health of many purebred breeds, the Lykos is selectively bred, using all available scientific methods of health testing including full DNA screening and hip/elbow x-rays as the bare minimum. From the commencement of the Lykos breeding program, dogs were hip/elbow x-rayed and DNA tested.

Brooke's first generation Lykos litter was born in 2015 after formulating the Breed Standard for the Lykos in 2014.  This  2015 litter surpassed all expectations, both in looks and temperament!  Even when they were still babies, Brooke noticed they were very different to her purebreds she had bred over many years. They were quieter, much more laid back and easy-going - exactly what she was aiming for.  From the first two Lykos litters from this combination, some went on to service work, scent detection dogs, sport dogs and dogs that played wolves in commercials/advertising.

In 2015 Brooke was offered a female Czechoslovakian Wolfdog for the Lykos breeding program, called Kita. Her breeder was the original person who imported them into Australia. After their import, Australia made it illegal to import  Czechoslovakian Wolfdogs into Australia.  A couple of other breeders have continued these original Czech bloodlines, breeding brother and sister and diluting out the breed by crossing them with other breeds. Kita was a lovely girl, but Brooke found she had concerning traits such as severe separation anxiety and wanting to escape. Kita's other littermates were also advertised for sale at the time by owners due to their difficult breed traits. Due to these traits and knowing that temperament traits are highly inheritable , Brooke decided not to use Kita or any other Czech Wolfdog in the development of the Lykos breeding program.

In 2017 and 2018, Brooke further researched overseas Northern Inuits and Tamaskans, hoping to find some with no wolf content that may be able to be imported into Australia. This endeavour proved fruitless, as they all ended up having wolf content or recent wolves or wolf-dogs in their lineage.

Breeding is not just a matter of breeding a couple of attractive dogs together - even if they pass health test results. It's a combination of knowledge about conformation and structure, pedigrees, canine behaviour knowledge and genetic science learnt over the course of over two decades. This, also combined with selective breeding for a specific temperament, structure, conformation, type and other qualities bought the Lykos to life.

This is also what makes our breeding program so unique, our long-term dedication to our dogs, multi-generational breeding and consistency of type, health and temperament.