Why did I fall for this combination?

Searching...

After we lost Morris, I quite soon made a list of Finnish bitches that I liked and who met the criteria (I used the retriever database and made a search on females in a certain age with a passed retriever test, certificate quality in conformation etc). Kia was an option as I had seen her pass the retriver test (I was the secretary and she was the only dog who passed that day!) at a young age and was very impressed by her ways. I've learnt somewhere that if you like a dog, you should look at his or her parents, so I thought I'd check out Kia's mother. Kia is imported from Sweden so I asked the breeder. They gave me a hint about another Swedish breeder (Bella Nova), one who was having a very interesting litter on its way, combining Sockan's half sister (same mother - Rossi) and Sockans half brother (same father - Rocky). I was very enthousiastic and now that I was already asking in Sweden I thought I'd check out other possibilities too. And I surfed the websites, checked the pedigrees, asked the breeders. I researched probably every option and the ones that interested me I researched extra thoroughly. Of course, in the lack of knowing the dogs personally I had to settle with website descriptions, results from different tests and trials. It's possible, and also probable that one misses a lot of info this way, but then again that was already a lot of work. Several interesting candidates came up and I was already in the process of choosing between two Swedish upcoming litters when I heard that Kia had been bred with Ferro.

What was I actually looking for?

What was I looking for? Quite simple. I was looking for a good temperament combined with physical health, good working abilities and good looks. Actually working abilities and good looks are just bonus. If the temperament isn't right or the dog is sick there's not much use for the other traits. Good temperament for me is things like happy, contact seeking, relaxed, on/off ability, will to please, eager for action, easy-going, a certain amount of "softness" - I don't want an overly stubborn and independent dog that does (just) what he wants. A dog slightly on the tougher side is a diamond in the right hands, and even though I like challenges I just wouldn't mind "getting away" a little easier (mind you, everything is relative, with a toller one never gets away easy). Of course the dog can't be too soft, a dog that's too soft has its own problems, get frightened easier, doesn't recover very fast from bad experiences. Many traits are of course products of the environments, and impossible to see them all in a puppy. These are naturally just my humble opinions and impressions.

Ferro

I didn't know much about Ferro from before so I had to find out. The pedigree told of course already a lot. The father Nitro is just unbeatable in my mind, he's an amazing living legend. Stella has been very successful and her parents are really special too, Pamela the foundation bich of the Siphra's kennel and Oscar, who based on what I've heard was a really special boy for Mirja Tuominen at the Kitimat kennel. Well, back to Ferro. At first it bothered me a bit that he hadn't passed the retriever test, had never even tried. I found out that the reason was that he had been in quite a terrible accident (ran into a tree) as a youngster and after the accident and the recovery he hadn't liked working with birds, altough it was fine before. So, I figured that wasn't so bad. Then I met Ferro! And we fell in love! We got to take him home for 10 days. He turned out to be a very sweet boy! There are just so many kisses in him, and he's eager to share! Very relaxed everywhere, even when being a spectator at an agility trial! But as the perfect toller, he also has an "active mode", very easy to switch on. The very next day after bringing him to our home we took him to the agility field and he was very easy to connect with. He isn't very experienced in agility and neither am I, but we worked together quite well anyway. I also took him to an inofficial trial a few days later but unfortunately the jumps were a lot higher than expected and he ran under them, a lot... Embarrassing, but understandable if you know the situation.

In the shopping centre he was a dream, just followed us quietly and wasn't disturbed at all by the crowd. A nice lady at the pet supply department tried to tempt him with some yummy doggy biscuits, but he preferred staying by my side... He's a bit reserved, he doesn't care so much about strangers.
The dummies are another key to the "active mode". When we trained he performed very well, was steady when the dummies were thrown and marked the retrieves well. Working by the water almost made him a bit too eager, but he was still stable.

Kia's relatives in Sweden

In August 2002 we went to Sweden, to watch the Swedish Specialty. I knew it's an incredible event, with hundreds of tollers (200+ tollers in conformation, 100+ in hunt tests, 70+ in obedience, 90 in agility) but there was another "pull": Kia's breeders with Sockan, Skrållan (Kia's sister) and a big bunch of other Bushunden dogs with owners would be there too, and I would get a good opportunity to get to know them.

Sockan was perfect, she didn't care so much about strangers (an ok trait actually, a dog that loves everybody is quite a handful in big events - trust me, I know). She was in season, so she didn't compete in obedience, but we did get a chance to see her in real action, in the hunt test. She worked very nicely, although it had already been a rather long and hot day. She failed to find all the game from the search area, so she failed the test, but we really liked what we saw anyway. Nice co-operation and a rather calm but eager working toller. The Bushunden dogs (Sockan is the mother of them all) were overall nice well behaving dogs, no problems what I heard between the males or things like that.

It was a big thrill to meet Robin, the now 10-year-old father of Kia! He's got a tumor in his gom, so that was of course a bit sad, but he looked healthy. The judge seemed thrilled too "Strong, elegant, wellbalanced veteran. Fantastic teeth, excellent legs and paws, good front, excellent body for his age, well angulated, well musculated hindquarter, slightly steep lumbar region, very beautiful color and coat, good back, moves extraordinaly well for his 10 years, all glory to the owner". The breeder's of Kia had chosen Robin because they had seen him in a show and really liked his type and also how he behaved at the ringside when the other dogs were barking and misbehaving. Benita had told us that he liked Robin because despite his age seemed very much ready eager for action. When we saw Robin at the Tollerspecialty it was hot and he didn't do much, which is understandable. He did anyway seem to enjoy being there, just as we did.