Norwegian Buhund

Breed Notes 9th July 2021 Margaret Deuchar

NORWEGIAN BUHUNDS

Last year we had our AGM and fun afternoon arranged for 4th April then of course the pandemic happened and we all went into lockdown in March. The KC said that 2020 AGMs could be carried over till 2021 and be held on the same day as the 2021 AGM but had to be different events. They said that they would rather this than for the AGM to be held on line, as some members might not have a computer. It was decided that we would have them with the club show in April at WELKS this year, but then we had another lockdown and WELKS was cancelled. So, it was third time lucky with the AGMs finally going ahead on Sunday 4th July. We did think about having them on line as by now many clubs and the KC’s own AGM was on line, as Covid had caused so many problems, one being able to find a hall that could be hired, but once a hall had been secured running a covid safe event seemed to be the most favourable option. Mind you as I set off in torrential rain to drive up the M1 to Burton On Trent, I did think that perhaps a Zoom AGM might have been a better option!!

The first AGM started at 10.30am with 15 members present. Most of you will know that our chairman Anne Smith stood down from the position earlier in the year, the meetings were full of praise for her leadership over the last years 4yrs, which has left the club in a great place.

Our new chairman is Lorraine Bolton (Rikarlo) probably better known to those who have been in the breed for a long time as Lorraine Smart, who with her mother Moira started in the breed in 1973 having previously had Elkhounds. Her first Buhund was Thordown The Bold Vandal bred by Mrs Rosemary Bridgman he was originally going to be an obedience dog, at which he did compete at successfully, but he also did well in the show ring winning a CC and 4 RCCs, he was by Thordown Thor x Witchavon Heidie. Over the years Lorraine has bred and made up many Champions in the breed.

I will give a full report on the AGM next week.

When I was at school many years ago now! I loved history not modern history but ancient history. In my notes of 28th May I told you how skeletons of Buhunds had been found in the graves of Vikings and possible even Romans, and how the breed had developed over the years. In recent years I have been fascinated as to how dogs were descended from Wolves. With the improvement in DNA testing and Genome sequencing so much more is being learnt about the ancestry of dogs. The modern thinking seems to be that dogs are not the direct descendants of the Grey Wolf but of a wolf that went extinct about 20-40 million years ago. No one seems to be quite sure as to when dogs actually paired up with humans, but there have been several reports of when this may have happened, there was a skeleton of a dog found in a grave of a human buried 12,000 years ago in Palestine. Also, a report of a large bone of a dog found buried with a couple in Germany 14,000years ago. It would seem that bones found in caves in Belgium and Russia date back 31-33,000 years ago, and show that the first dogs were very large not far removed from wolves. Whether domestication started in one part of the world or became common practice we will probably never know, but it does seem about 30,000years ago dogs became attached to humans, probably they started by eating scraps left by the humans. In Russia in 1950 an experiment began with wild Silver Foxes which showed that wild animals can change by only breeding from the friendliest ones, it is said within 10 generations the foxes become more like dogs, which is called the ‘domestication syndrome.’ Although as so often happens this experiment has now been under the spot light with it being said that true wild animals were not used but some from a fur farm in Canada.

Spitz type dogs it would seem appeared all over Europe in prehistoric times accompanying early humans, it is likely that from these dogs the Buhund and other Northern spitz dogs such as the Elkhound, Finnish Spitz, Lundehund and several others developed. In the Viste cave on the west coast of Norway a Skelton of the same type as the Buhund was found and is now in the Bergen Museum.

Now that shows are starting again, I hope to being seeing many of you in person with of course your Buhunds, in the meantime stay safe.

Margaret Deuchar    margaretdeuchar@gmail.com

The 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.