An Introduction:
Darkstone Kennel is owned by Betty and Byron Osing, and is located in Calgary, Alberta, Canada.   We live on a very private acreage just west of the City.  Our home is situated on eight acres, with approximately four acres of lawn, with more than an acre of lawn fenced in with six foot steel mesh fencing.   Our dogs do not lack for room to safely and securely play and exercise.

First and foremost, we are not “commercial” breeders.  We are simply “dog lovers.”  We are passionate about our dogs, and we consider them to be a part of our family.  Our dogs live in our house with us as our “hairy kids,” and they are a central part of our daily lives. We do not have a traditional kennel set up or dog runs, we are simply a hobbyist or “passionate” that shares our home with our family of dogs.  Dogs that are co-owned by Darkstone Kennel are always placed with friends or close associates that we have come to know and trust to a very high degree. 

We do not breed for money, and in fact, are willing to invest money that we do not expect to recoup into each breeding if necessary. We have been fortunate in business, and certainly do not need any income from the breeding and selling of dogs.  In fact, given the amount of time, money, and emotion we spend on our dogs, it can be said that having a “hobby kennel” in the way we operate Darkstone would be a great hedge against accumulating any personal wealth for the average person. We spend what anyone who is not a “dog person” would consider to be ridiculous amounts of money on our passion, which is our family of canine companions. We will only undertake a breeding when we believe that the off-spring of that mating will potentially produce phenomenal examples of the breed, and both the breed and future adoptive family of those off-spring will be made better for the same. To breed with only this goal in mind, requires a significant investment in many ways, not the least of which is monetary. In our minds, nobody who is breeding at a high level, and on a small scale, could even contemplate the same as a profitable past time.

In the Beginning:   We bought our first Rottweiler pup in 1990.  Frankly, like most first time “working breed” owners, we did not have a clue what we were getting into.  Byron had been raised for most of his life with purebred Samoyeds on the farm where he grew up, but loved the look of the Rottweiler, which at that time, was not yet a highly popular breed in Canada.  Like many first time buyers, we simply answered an ad by an out of town breeder placed in the Calgary Herald newspaper, and picked out a male puppy.

“Panzer” became our first male Rottweiler pup, and in many ways, we simply “lucked out” when purchasing him.  He was purchased as a companion, never shown, and received a minimal amount of training and socialization.  Despite our lack of knowledge in selecting him, he turned into a very handsome example of a show quality Rottweiler in terms of his overall conformation. He was from strong German lines, and demonstrated as “hard” of a temperament, and as high a degree of pain tolerance as one can imagine.  In many ways, that made him quite a handful for first time Rottweiler owners like us. However, in the end, Panzer turned into a wonderful family member, who welcomed a number of additional new Rottweiler family members into our household over the years….both pups and adults.  He was with us for eleven years, and it was his fierce love and devotion for us that made us fall in love with the breed, and officially turned us into “dog people.”   

Darkstone Kennel just grew from there, and we have both purchased and bred a limited number of beautiful Rottweilers over the past twenty plus years of being involved with the breed.  Subsequent to acquiring Panzer, all of our dogs have been conformation champions, and we have always purchased the finest genetics available, seeking temperament, health, structure, and movement as the pillars of our program. In the past few years, our participation in the Rottweiler breed has diminished to some degree, as we have been highly focused on our Cane Corso.  However, regardless of “if” or “how many” Rottweiler we own or breed in the future, we intend to be involved in some way with the Rottweiler breed for our lifetimes. Once a Rottweiler lover…..always a Rottweiler lover.

Introduction to the Cane Corso:   Sometime in the year 2000, Byron was reading through a magazine called “The Robb Report” and saw an advertisement for a stunning looking breed of dog that we had never seen or heard of before….the Cane Corso.  Byron was intrigued, and began to research the breed on the internet, and to call up breeders to learn as much about the breed as possible.   In all, we researched the breed for nearly a full year, and talked to many breeders prior to purchasing our first male show/breeding puppy from Sentinel Cane Corso’s in Chicago, Illinois.  Dori Vronch, the owner of Sentinel, clearly understood that we had been searching all over North America to make our first Cane Corso acquisition, and that we only wanted a puppy that had every chance to be an outstanding example of the breed.  She just happened to have on the ground what she felt was the finest male Cane Corso puppy she had ever bred, who’s father Ch. Bel Monte Grappler, was on his was to becoming the #1 ICCF/CCAA Cane Corso on the rare breed show circuit that year. 

The big day came, and “Roscoe” arrived on an airplane at the age of eight weeks, complete with his ears still intact.  He came out of the shipping kennel, quite possibly not thrilled with his first flight experience, and wrapped his front paws around Betty’s neck so hard he nearly choked her out.  He clung to his new “Momma” for dear life, and the bonding was nearly instantaneous.  Roscoe has been a “Momma’s Boy” since that day, and has spent his entire life sleeping between the two of us on the bed. 

Once again, we were incredibly fortunate in receiving “Roscoe” (AKA Sentinel’s Blue Chip) as our first Cane Corso.  Had we by luck of the draw received a poor example of the breed as a first dog, we may have never fallen so in love with the breed, and ended up immersed in the same today.  Roscoe “set the bar” for us, and he is everything a first time Cane Corso owner could have hoped for.  His overall conformation and breed type are very strong, his movement is powerful and flowing, and his temperament is sound.  With the arrival of Roscoe, we fell madly in love with the Cane Corso breed after having him for some time, and decided to take the plunge. We next purchased a show/breeding quality female puppy from Gator Country Cane Corso as a future mate for Roscoe.  “Jynx” (AKA Gator Country Bond Girl) is the offspring of two ICCF/CCAA Grand Champions: Avalon Tiger Lil and Bel Monte Primo Padrino.  Jynx subsequently completed her ICCF/CCAA and Rarities Championships, and became our first breeding female.

As fate would have it, at a fairly early stage in our quest to build out a foundation of the highest quality dogs possible, we were fortunate enough to acquire two of what we have always felt were the finest young adult dogs in the entire Cane Corso world at that time:  Scandifio’s “Caesar” di Carfagna, and Carfagna’s “Samba.” Caesar was nearly three years old at the time we acquired him, and was multi-titled, being an ICCF/CCAA, ARBA, IABCA, Rarities, and Canadian Champion. He went on to become our first ICCF/CCAA Grand Champion.  Caesar was also the first Cane Corso in North America to become a titled “Iron Dog,” and demonstrate to the “performance dog” world the versatility and working ability of the Cane Corso breed.

Very sadly, we lost Caesar in late 2010, at nearly ten years of age. Our home will never be the same without his huge presence. Samba is now in her senior years, and to this day, is still one of the finest overall females we have ever seen.  She is a multi-titled champion, and has won some of the most impressive rare breed shows we have attended.  She is one of the best examples of a cross between traditional Italian and American blood lines that we have seen.  We had observed both dogs at the ICCF/CCAA National Specialty in previous years, and both times, considered them, in our opinion, to be in the top handful of Cane Corso in North America.  We are grateful to Anthony Carfagna for having entrusted us with the opportunity to raise Caesar and Samba as our “kids,” and to have had the ability to selectively breed them for the betterment of our foundation dogs, as well as the overall Cane Corso breed.  Along with Roscoe, the addition of Caesar and Samba to our foundation group of Cane Corso gave us an exceptional “head start” in the breed that we were very fortunate to enjoy.   

While Darkstone Kennel is relatively young in terms of age, having been involved in the Rottweiler breed for approximately twenty years, and in the Cane Corso breed for approximately ten years, we believe we have been both fortunate, and very diligent, in our quest to “get it right.” We have been fortunate to have been able to both purchase and breed to some of the finest Rottweiler and Cane Corso genetics available on the North American continent, as well as to import some of the finest genetics available from other regions of the Globe, in establishing the foundation for our kennel.  We hope to showcase both breeds in Canada and the U.S. via the show circuit in the years ahead, and to very selectively produce a limited number of litters of the finest quality offspring available within each breed, though it seems that we are trending at this time towards much greater involvement in the Cane Corso breed than in the Rottweiler.  We will only place puppies in the highest quality homes, both show/breeding and companion, as it is very important to us that each puppy we breed finds its way to a wonderful “forever home,” where they will truly be part of the family.  We typically do not supply other breeders with dogs, as the majority of breeders, good or bad, house their dogs in traditional kennel facilities, which is not where we want our puppies spending their lives.