ABOUT US
Maribeso Papillons is a collaboration between two good friends, Shana and Carla, who share a love of all animals and particularly the Papillon. While this site is primarily about Papillons, their extended family also includes cats and various species of parrot, whom you will meet as well.
Carla’s love for animals was evident from very early in life. As a five-year-old living in Ahwaz, Iran (where her father worked for the oil
industry), she saw a lot of suffering in the animals around her, and felt a strong need to take care of them. She began to rescue animals
in need–sometimes to the dismay of her parents. Luckily her parents were actually very understanding, and nurtured her love for animals.
What they couldn’t keep, they found loving homes for.
One such incident occurred when Carla and her sister brought two puppies home from a construction site, where the mother had dug a hole for
them inside a pile of dirt. The mother dog and another female followed the children home as well–the adults seemed to be quite tame, and
very likely had been abandoned by someone else. Homes were found for the puppies, and the adults remained with Carla’s family. Those dogs
resembled Pointers, and upon returning to Canada, Carla pursued her love for them by getting into German Shorthaired Pointers.
Attending dog shows as a child, Carla had also seen Papillons, and decided that someday she would own one. Although the Pointer breeds still
hold a special place in Carla’s heart, her dream of owning Papillons has now come true, and she enjoys sharing her life with several
members of this amazing breed. She is constantly striving to learn more about them; her theory is that you can never know too much.
Shana has loved animals for as long as she can remember. Her interests include any and all types of animals. Her family always had a cat
and a dog or two, and over the years she also brought home stray cats, injured birds, mice and other rodents rescued from the cats, and even
made pets of snails and lizards. When Shana was six her family relocated to Germany due to her parents’ military careers, and upon their
return to Canada, Shana began a quest for a dog of her own. After volunteering at the local SPCA, saving up all her babysitting money, and
constantly begging, she managed to convince her parents that she was responsible enough for a dog of her own. Her first dog was an amazing
pup named Nikki, a Border Collie/German Shepherd mix. With Nikki, Shana’s passion for dogs grew bigger still, and it was with Nikki that
she developed a desire to enter obedience competitions. Nikki excelled at obedience, but not being purebred she could not compete. Shana
brought another dog into her life, a purebred Siberian Husky named Spirit. Unfortunately this pup’s breeder wasn’t the most reputable, and
at 18 months of age Spirit developed severe epilepsy; once again, Shana’s wish to compete in obedience went out the door.
Shana became involved in dog rescue, and her canine family grew. Nikki passed away in January ’03, and Spirit passed away in May ’05 at
the age of 9½–quite a feat, as she was not expected to live beyond the age of five! It was when Spirit was nearing the end of her life
that Shana met her first Papillon–Carla’s first girl Maya. But with four dogs already in the house, three of them under three years of age,
Shana’s dream of obedience competition was still on hold. She had not even considered getting another dog, because in her mind a dog wasn’t
a dog unless it was over 50 lbs, and there just wasn’t enough room! Maya changed all that, and soon Shana’s first Papillon, and first
obedience dog and show dog, came into her life. Now she can’t get enough of this breed, and looks forward to many more paps in the family!
