"Some people think we're crazy and spending too much money, but we don't mind," laughs Mohan Janakarajan, one of two brothers who devote their lives to breeding and showing pedigree dogs.
"Maybe we are a little crazy, but this is our passion. It's like an addiction, once you're involved in it, it's impossible to stop."
And like many addictions, it isn't a cheap one.
Over the past 20 years Mohan, 38, and his brother Dharani, 41, originally from Chennai, India, have competed in dog shows across the world, but now focus most of their attention on India, Thailand and the UAE. As well as the expense of travel, they also import pedigree dogs from as far away as Argentina, South Africa and England. Dog food alone costs them Dh80,000 a year.
But their hard work - and hard cash - has paid off, and most of their pedigree pooches have each won a number of prizes, including the holy grail of dog show awards, the Best in Show.
Their dream is to attend Crufts, the most famous dog show in Britain and the biggest in the world.
"Every year we say 'let's go to Crufts'," Dharani says, "but then our work gets in the way and we miss it. But I know we'll do it."
This weekend their attention is closer to home, concentrating on training eight dogs for the 25th anniversary Pedigree Whiskas Dubai Pet Show tomorrow at The Sevens Stadium.
Last year the event attracted more than 35,000 visitors, but was marred when a poodle was killed by an American Staffordshire terrier.
Organisers have now banned certain breeds - including the American Staffordshire. Sadly for Chandra and Dharani, the banned list also includes the doberman, which dashes all hopes for their two-year-old doberman Kissme, who won the event's Best in Show last year.
"She's such a friendly dog," Dharani says, as Kissme comes bounding out of her kennel with her docked tail wagging. "It's a shame we cannot take her this year. There is a lot of miseducation about breeds, but rules are rules.
"She did so well last year, she is a beautiful dog."
The Janakarajan farm is not exactly the glamorous setting you might expect, considering it is home for tens of thousands of dirhams' worth of prize-winning canines. The two-hectare plot sits up a long and windy dirt track about five kilometres outside of Al Dhaid, a city in rural Sharjah.
The brothers employ six handlers to live on the farm so the dogs are never left alone. Many of the animals that stay with them for training belong to the country's royal families, so it is important that they are protected at all times.
The animals sleep in air-conditioned kennels and exercise in a large dirt field. They all socialise together, but Mohan and Dharani are very careful to separate the males and females when the dogs are in season.
Every morning they set forth from their Sharjah homes to train the dogs from 4am to 9am, and again in the evening. In the two months before competition, they train them for just three minutes each, five times a day.
Closer to the show, the training intensifies and the pair take a more strategic approach which they call "setup situation".
"We find out what time the individual events will be at, and we bring the dogs out at that exact time to train so they get used to it," Mohan explains. "It helps them get used to the temperatures and routine. So if the show is at 1.15pm, we train them here at 1.15pm."
Most of the Janakarajans' most prized dogs were imported, as there are very few pedigree breeders here.
A miniature pinscher called Spicy, who cost more than US$3,500 (Dh12,800) plus shipping from South Africa, has already proved she is money well spent.
As well as being crowned Best in Show at the Dubai Pet Show in 2010 and 2011, and runner-up last year, she had a litter of puppies that were sold on to other collectors.
"We sent her to America for mating, then brought her back," says Dharani. "For the mating you can pay between US$3,000 and US$5,000. Or you can import frozen sperm - technology has advanced a lot."
Their other favourites include a two-year-old male German shepherd named Faro, whose father is a world champion, and a two-and-a-half-year-old dachshund called Daku, who was imported from England at seven months.
The brothers usually breed their female pedigrees a maximum of two or three times before having them spayed.
There is a complicated science to breeding prize-winning dogs, they say, and it takes years of dedication and studying to master just the basics.
When buying a dog, they demand to see the genetic information of its parents, grandparents, great-grandparents, and great-great-grandparents.
This gives them the best idea of whether the breeding line will be susceptible to career-ending problems such as hip dysplasia - which is the most common - and eye abnormalities.
With their German shepherd, for example, they consult a 446-page anatomy book that shows the ideal angles of the all the dog's bones.
"If you follow the guides properly," says Mohan, "you can avoid any health problems. It is when people do not do the breeding right, like in puppy mills, where they just let all the dogs mate, even if they are closely related, that problems happen.
"Proper breeders are totally against this."
The Kennel Club banned interbreeding - mother-son, brother-sister, or father-daughter - in 2009, barring anyone from registering the puppies of such a match.
This interfamily breeding was common when breeders wanted to exaggerate certain characteristics such as a flat face or small head, but it left some of the breeds with long-term health problems.
The Kennel Club website, based in the UK, now prints Breed Watch information for breeders to check any particular points of concern regarding a breed. For the German Shepherd, for example, it lists "weak hindquarters associated with excessive turn of stifle, cow hocks and sickle hocks."
Dharani says the problem with this breed, which is his favourite, is the show dogs have been bred to an anatomical standard too far removed from their natural working dog peers.
"The ideal thing was to have very low back end, a sort of curve, so breeders aimed for this, but it is different to the normal, working dog anatomy. But now they have identified that this is causing problems so the show dogs need to be bred with working dogs to bring them more in line. The Kennel Club is trying to save the dog and educate the people.
"We would never want to harm a dog or breed an unhealthy dog. Our dogs are treated like kings."
munderwood@thenational.ae
In numbers: PKK’s money network in Europe
Germany: PKK collectors typically bring in $18 million in cash a year – amount has trebled since 2010
Revolutionary tax: Investigators say about $2 million a year raised from ‘tax collection’ around Marseille
Extortion: Gunman convicted in 2023 of demanding $10,000 from Kurdish businessman in Stockholm
Drug trade: PKK income claimed by Turkish anti-drugs force in 2024 to be as high as $500 million a year
Denmark: PKK one of two terrorist groups along with Iranian separatists ASMLA to raise “two-digit million amounts”
Contributions: Hundreds of euros expected from typical Kurdish families and thousands from business owners
TV channel: Kurdish Roj TV accounts frozen and went bankrupt after Denmark fined it more than $1 million over PKK links in 2013
Electoral College Victory
Trump has so far secured 295 Electoral College votes, according to the Associated Press, exceeding the 270 needed to win. Only Nevada and Arizona remain to be called, and both swing states are leaning Republican. Trump swept all five remaining swing states, North Carolina, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, sealing his path to victory and giving him a strong mandate.
Popular Vote Tally
The count is ongoing, but Trump currently leads with nearly 51 per cent of the popular vote to Harris’s 47.6 per cent. Trump has over 72.2 million votes, while Harris trails with approximately 67.4 million.
Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
Living in...
This article is part of a guide on where to live in the UAE. Our reporters will profile some of the country’s most desirable districts, provide an estimate of rental prices and introduce you to some of the residents who call each area home.
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
Is it worth it? We put cheesecake frap to the test.
The verdict from the nutritionists is damning. But does a cheesecake frappuccino taste good enough to merit the indulgence?
My advice is to only go there if you have unusually sweet tooth. I like my puddings, but this was a bit much even for me. The first hit is a winner, but it's downhill, slowly, from there. Each sip is a little less satisfying than the last, and maybe it was just all that sugar, but it isn't long before the rush is replaced by a creeping remorse. And half of the thing is still left.
The caramel version is far superior to the blueberry, too. If someone put a full caramel cheesecake through a liquidiser and scooped out the contents, it would probably taste something like this. Blueberry, on the other hand, has more of an artificial taste. It's like someone has tried to invent this drink in a lab, and while early results were promising, they're still in the testing phase. It isn't terrible, but something isn't quite right either.
So if you want an experience, go for a small, and opt for the caramel. But if you want a cheesecake, it's probably more satisfying, and not quite as unhealthy, to just order the real thing.
How green is the expo nursery?
Some 400,000 shrubs and 13,000 trees in the on-site nursery
An additional 450,000 shrubs and 4,000 trees to be delivered in the months leading up to the expo
Ghaf, date palm, acacia arabica, acacia tortilis, vitex or sage, techoma and the salvadora are just some heat tolerant native plants in the nursery
Approximately 340 species of shrubs and trees selected for diverse landscape
The nursery team works exclusively with organic fertilisers and pesticides
All shrubs and trees supplied by Dubai Municipality
Most sourced from farms, nurseries across the country
Plants and trees are re-potted when they arrive at nursery to give them room to grow
Some mature trees are in open areas or planted within the expo site
Green waste is recycled as compost
Treated sewage effluent supplied by Dubai Municipality is used to meet the majority of the nursery’s irrigation needs
Construction workforce peaked at 40,000 workers
About 65,000 people have signed up to volunteer
Main themes of expo is ‘Connecting Minds, Creating the Future’ and three subthemes of opportunity, mobility and sustainability.
Expo 2020 Dubai to open in October 2020 and run for six months
CHATGPT%20ENTERPRISE%20FEATURES
%3Cp%3E%E2%80%A2%20Enterprise-grade%20security%20and%20privacy%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3E%E2%80%A2%20Unlimited%20higher-speed%20GPT-4%20access%20with%20no%20caps%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3E%E2%80%A2%20Longer%20context%20windows%20for%20processing%20longer%20inputs%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3E%E2%80%A2%20Advanced%20data%20analysis%20capabilities%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3E%E2%80%A2%20Customisation%20options%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3E%E2%80%A2%20Shareable%20chat%20templates%20that%20companies%20can%20use%20to%20collaborate%20and%20build%20common%20workflows%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3E%E2%80%A2%20Analytics%20dashboard%20for%20usage%20insights%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3E%E2%80%A2%20Free%20credits%20to%20use%20OpenAI%20APIs%20to%20extend%20OpenAI%20into%20a%20fully-custom%20solution%20for%20enterprises%3C%2Fp%3E%0A
Dr Amal Khalid Alias revealed a recent case of a woman with daughters, who specifically wanted a boy.
A semen analysis of the father showed abnormal sperm so the couple required IVF.
Out of 21 eggs collected, six were unused leaving 15 suitable for IVF.
A specific procedure was used, called intracytoplasmic sperm injection where a single sperm cell is inserted into the egg.
On day three of the process, 14 embryos were biopsied for gender selection.
The next day, a pre-implantation genetic report revealed four normal male embryos, three female and seven abnormal samples.
Day five of the treatment saw two male embryos transferred to the patient.
The woman recorded a positive pregnancy test two weeks later.
