Fidel Lae's kennel combines a registered dog-breeding business with a concealed operation in the forest. Its remote location and guarded enclosures help hide the illegal Argentine mastiffs, but the same isolation becomes decisive when Sonny Lofthus arrives: Fidel is left locked inside an empty cage, while the dogs remain beyond the reach of anyone who might hear him.

Setting and Business

The farm is approached by a track that leads nowhere else. Fidel maintains nine Dobermann pinschers in a cage: seven females produce litters sold for twelve thousand kroner per puppy. The official business presents the dogs as traceable and professionally supplied, with microchips, insurance against latent defects, and pedigree registration with the Norwegian Kennel Club.

The kennel also has an unadvertised side. Deeper in the woods, Fidel keeps two female and one male Argentine mastiff, a breed banned in Norway and several other countries. The dogs are unregistered; their rarity and reputation as effective killers allow Fidel to charge 120,000 kroner per puppy. He has moved their enclosure farther into the forest so their barking cannot be heard at the farm, making concealment a practical feature of the operation rather than a mere description of its setting.

Security and Isolation

The farm’s gate is kept shut to prevent trespassers from entering; Fidel considers everyone except his customers a trespasser. A small shed near the gate contains a refurbished Mauser M98, ostensibly explainable as an elk-hunting rifle. He keeps more elaborate weapons in the main building. The arrangement gives the kennel a guarded threshold, but its protections are designed around controlling access to the property, not around protecting Fidel from someone who gets past him.

When a rental car arrives, Fidel notices it by sight before hearing it. He studies the driver, a hoodie-wearing city visitor, and does not open the gate. The encounter establishes the farm’s distance from ordinary traffic and the care Fidel takes over who enters. That remoteness also means the hidden dogs’ barking is unlikely to bring help.

Sonny Lofthus's Visit

Fidel cannot get his rifle into position before Sonny Lofthus restrains him and throws him to the ground. Sonny then points a gun at him. Four minutes later, Fidel is locked in an empty cage beside the enclosure where Ghostbuster lies watching. Sonny has filled Fidel’s water bowl and left four boxes of raw dog food, then taken Fidel’s mobile phone, keys, and wallet.

The details make the kennel’s layout part of the outcome: Sonny uses its cages and padlock to confine the owner, while the deep-forest enclosure keeps the dogs’ response from carrying beyond the farm. Fidel is left behind as Sonny walks away across the moor in the fog. The encounter turns a site built to conceal and control animals into an instrument of Sonny’s escape and Fidel’s isolation.

Narrative Significance

The kennel’s double structure mirrors the boundary between respectable business and criminal enterprise. Its documented Dobermann trade fronts an illegal mastiff operation, and its controlled entrance disguises the vulnerability of the person who controls it. In this setting, concealment cuts both ways: Fidel has placed the dangerous dogs where outsiders will not hear them, but that same separation leaves him without an effective alarm when Sonny turns the kennel against him.