NORWEGIAN BUHUNDS
Jacqui Walmsley tells me that the Buhund flag was kept flying on December 6th at the Exonion Christmas Premier Show, held at the Matford Centre in Exeter. The breed judge was Nigel Price, and he awarded BOB to Jacqui and the Frostisen’s Bunny aka Trelowen Amelia at Frostisen. RBOB was the same owners Birdie aka Frostisen Blakk Zeta. BOS & BP Mary & David Dosson’s Ola aka Kimura’s Ola Norman (Imp Nor), he was later 3rd in the Puppy Group under Tim Ball qualifying for Crufts at his 2nd show. Anne Marie & David Taylor & Addrienne Frost -Treadwell’s Penny aka Frostisen Blakk Zitter who is Birdie’s litter sister won AV Pastoral Open also under Tim Ball. Congratulations all.
When I had my first dog in 1950 an Airedale Terrier there was showing,and obedience had just started to become popular, and I did local shows and obedience competition with her .Then came agility and now there are so many activities you can do with your dog, there is something virtually for every type and breed of dog. Probably one of the most recent is scent which started as an activity for pet dogs around 2010. Before that of course the armed forces and police had and still do use dogs to detect explosives drugs, track people live and those that have passed, the list is almost endless. For pet dogs it started as a mental and physical exercise helping hyperactive dogs calm down, reducing stress and anxiety, as 10minutes searching is more tiring than an hour’s run. The dogs look for small pieces of cloth or small items that can hold scent It quickly became popular as a fun exercise for dogs and owners alike with it strengthening the bond between dog and owner .The first national organisation was Scentwork UK (SWUK) with trainers all over the country ,they also held trials ,there were and still are mostly held in village halls as it the training .The scent used to start is cloves or sometimes small pieces of Kong, working up to adding gun oil and then Truffle oil in the higher levels The levels start at 1 and go up 12 being the top at the moment. The winner is the dog that finds the greatest number of hidden hides in the quickest time. A certain number of hides must be found in a given time for the dog to qualify. Sarah Stonton’s Pixie (Wheatshade Snow Dreamer) and Jack (Ch Arnscroft In Di Ana Jack) both compete in SWUK. Pixie is already in L5 and Jack L9 having gained his Excellent in Level 8 (20points obtained at that level) Time gained his Ex in Level 6 in August 23. A year earlier in 2022 a new scent organisation had started National Nosework Organization. (NNA). The idea of this organisation was much the same with the dog looking for hidden hides, but time was not so important, with the dog being marked on how they worked, indication to scent and how the dog and handler worked together. The venues were also away from the village halls, the first one we did was in a football stadium. That was Entry level and dogs needed to be working at SWUK L5 or 6 and had to pass a scent test before competing. This is still the case an Order Recognition Test (ORT) must be passed before going up to the next level. The organisation became very popular very quickly and for some time it struggled to find enough trainers and trial judges, as they had to trained you could not just decide to judge NNA trials. They also brought in two new levels for beginner dogs (puppies could compete from 9months), Foundation and Pre- entry then onto Entry, Enhanced, Excellent, Elite and the top one now is Spirit. You compete for badges and must gain a certain number of badges at each level before moving up to the next Leve. Badges also gain you points and NNA has a league table with dogs going into their KC groups, and one for X breeds. Sarah also competes in NNA with her two Pixie is in Pre Entry and Jack excellent and Time is in Elite. Last year Sarah was 2nd in the Pastoral Group with Jack and Time was third. This year at the moment Time is 9th in the Pastoral Group and 21 overall from all the breeds. Of course, when you move up the levels it is not so easy to gain points as there are not so many trials at the higher level, unless you travel all over the country which could end up as being very expensive! The most common breeds are as you would imagine Collies, Labradors and Spaniels, but there are Chihuahuas, a French Bulldogs, Dalmatians, Rottweiler and of course Buhunds to name but a few. The other nice thing about NNA is the variety of venues where trials and training workshops are held. We have been to football stadiums, museums, heritage railways, schools, farms, market gardens, a wood yard, Newmarket Racehorse Museum, an old Abbey and farmland museum, a stud farm, a caravan park, army barracks and Gulliver’s land complete with dinosaurs ,and some lovely people have even allow their houses to be searched, and along the way you make some great friends. Now I am very pleased to say Lillian Rumsey is now doing scent with Hallie (Wheatshade Iriduium Sky) Pixie’s litter sister passing her UK Sniffer Dogs Bronze Test. For this Hallie had to find 8 hides in an allotted time,1 hide was in a bag 2 in garden chairs 3 in a stack of crates and 2 hides in a vehicle search, she was looking for small pieces of Kong. Hallie and her mum Darcy (Kata Syndattir Av Fjeldvidda At Wheatshade (Imp NLD) also do Mantrailing where the dog is given the scent of a person, the person then hides and the dog finds them, based on search and rescue dog searches. I have done it a few times with Time, and it is amazing how quickly he picked up the idea.
One kind of scent dogs I have not mentioned is the Medical Detection Dog, I am sure you know that dogs can be trained to smell out various diseases ,some do this in a clinic environment, but some go to live with a person who could have been housebound for several years due to a medical condition that may suddenly happen without warning, so a fully trained dog on that condition is able to warn them, they become pet dogs with the added purpose that the person’s life is not restricted to four walls, and they can live a fairly normal life again .
A dog’s sense of smell is estimated to be anywhere from 10,000 to 100,000 times stronger than a human’s. This is due to a higher number of scent receptors in a dog’s nose up to 300million in a dog compared 6 million in a human.
Margaret Deuchar margaretdeuchar@gmail.com
Any views expressed in Margaret’s Breed Notes are hers and hers alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Norwegian Buhund Club of the UK