United Daily News, Yang Chin Kong/1997.3.15
Brother Native dog breeds Taiwan Dogs.
Hsiao Wu Fong and Black Spirit are superior dogs than German Shepherds.
Even the airforce has considered them as guard dogs.

Without regret, Chen Ming Nan, a.k.a. “Brother Native Dog”, spent 20 years and his life savings to realize his dream of breeding Taiwan Native Dog.

The 46-year-old Chen has a special feeling towards Taiwan Native Dogs. His father gave him one to look after when he was in the third grade; the puppy disappeared in less than a year.

Chen was devastated. Later, his father died when Chen was serving in the military. After the service, Chen began the idea of doing something for Taiwan Dogs as a way to give tribute to his father.

Against his mother's and wife's objections and supported by his youthful enthusiasm, he closed the shoe factory where he co-managed with his friends and started his search for Taiwan Dogs.

He was unsuccessful for a long time. One day, he drove to Miaoli to look for Taiwan Dogs and met an old man who told him there was no more Taiwan Dog on the developed plain areas. he might have better luck trying the aboriginal tribes in the mountains.

From here, he began his quest of eleven years. During these eleven years, Chen visited almost every aboriginal tribes. He finally found one pure-bred in Wufong Hsiang in Hsinchu County.

In memory of his mother scolding him all the time for his crazy mission, and also the location where this dog was found, he named the dog Hsiao Wu Fong. He spent yet another long period of time to finally locate a mate for Hsiao Wu Fong, 3500 meters above sea level, in the mountains of the Central Mountain Range; the bitch was named Black Spirit.

The breeding started. Chen used the roof of an apartment building for breeding these dogs, but the space was obviously not enough and might also make the dogs lose their natural fierce and tough instincts.

As a result, Chen rented a 400-ping hill land on Tahu Road in Yingo for 10000 dollars a month to continue his work properly. In order to find out about the dogs he bred, whether they still possessed what their ancestors had, he took the adult dogs to aboriginal tribes in Taoyuan and Yilan to be field tested.

He is now successfully breeding the fourth generation. Having extensive experience with dogs, Chen is especially impressed by the agility and loyalty in Taiwan Dogs.

One night, as he was taking a walk with Hsiao Wu Fong near the Sport Dome in Taoyuan City, two motorcyclists tried to rob him. They were attacked by Hsiao Wu Fong and escaped.

Another time, when he made five trips to the mountains of Fongbin finally to have persuaded the hunter to let him breed Hunter , the dog had tears streaming down its cheeks at the moment of saying goodbye to his master.

Although Hunter is no longer alive, his loyalty and attachment to his master made a long-lasting impression on Chen. The military also find the traits of Taiwan Dogs useful.

The airforce often train German Shepherds as guard dogs for the airfields. However, they find that the paws of German Shepherds are easily hurt on hard concrete surface, and their sense of smell is also not good enough, they can only detect enemies at a close distance.

When the airforce learned about Chen and his dogs, they tested his dogs as guard dogs. After half a month, the test proved that Taiwan dogs were superior in their sense of smell, hearing, agility, and responsiveness than German Shepherds; their paws did not hurt easily either.

The airforce is still experimenting with them, but the guardian angels for our future F-16 and Mirage fighters will very likely be these Taiwan Native dogs.

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