Happy Halloween

Icelandic Sheepdog Puppies -The Whole Litter!

Hello Folks, wow, almost a week old already, and Growing-Growing.. the puppies are doing wonderful.. what a colorful pretty litter, I just love these wonderful typical Icelandic Sheepdog white markings, as per the Breed Standard. These are going to be very flashy Adult Icelandics.

Have a great day from the waggy tailed Icelandic Sheepdog Gang.

Icelandic Sheepdog Puppies for Sale - 3 Females and 1 Male Available.

New Barn Babies and updates on a this and that..plus Icelandic Sheepdog Puppies

Hello Folks

Wow, were has the time gone, first between storms-Snow Storms-Wind Storms-Freezing Rain Storms- Power has been off at least once and the drifts are so bad this year..

We have new lambs and new kids in the barn, all are doing well but keeping me very busy, my bottle lambs and kid are just about getting big enough to be weaned, so within a short time hopefully that will be one less chore to be done a number of times per day.

The new litter of bunnies are doing well and growing well but also require regular checks at this point as one of them got out of the box and its just way to cold to have this happen so we raised the height of the ledge that keeps them in the inside box. Its working well so far.

The puppies are amazing and when I am not doing chores inside and outside on the farm, I seem to be spending a great deal of time by the whelping box, and have started the neonatal stress tests for the puppies and they are doing great. Everyone will have doubled their birthweights by total, almost there last night on the daily puppy weigh -in.

I had to laugh at Jason last night because we were snuggling puppies on the bed, one each and Jason said, o my god look at how light it is behind this puppies ears, normally its a deep dark red starting at this age behind the ears, but as these are Chincilla factor puppies, they are in fact going to lighten as they grow up, and become a wonderful rich cream color (think heavy really cow's cream) and as they are our first Chincilla puppies, this was the first time Jason had seen this and he found it quite amazing. Blackmore's Tan is already coming in, she is showing her tri markings under her tail, on her legs, and one her face already, she still appears to be a long hair.

What pretty puppies they are, so flashy and I must admit to being thrilled to see just how even this litter is in all ways, I have a feeling they are going to turn out to be a litter to watch.

So Greenstone Fire an Ice really needed to get out and get some show training so we slipped off the farm for the ottawa kennel club show on March 16th, and I put a photo of Duchess with her Handler Linda in the show ring, she is just six months and this was her first show.

Greenstone Fire an Ice took Best of Breed, Best Puppy in Breed and Group 2nd..

Well, I had better get back to work, I will be taking new photos of the puppies on Thursday, and will post them then.

Have a great day from the Waggy Tailed Icelandic Sheepdog Gang

Icelandic Sheepdog Puppies for Sale - Three Females and One Male

For more information contact isdpuppies@hotmail.com

Icelandic Sheepdog Newborn Puppy Photos!

Hello Folks,

Newborn photos of the babies on? What else, a sheepskin rug.. So cute.. Enjoy their photos.. so cute..

Have a good day from the Waggy Tail Icelandic Sheepdog Gang

Icelandic Sheepdog Puppies for Sale- Please contact for more information.

isdpuppies@hotmail.com

Icelandic Sheepdog Valentine Litter is HERE!!!!

Hello Folks,

What a long! night but we have new puppies..

We are pleased to annouce that we have been honored to have four new Icelandic Sheepdog Puppies join our home.

After making me wait all day, they were indeed determined to be born on Valentines Day..

First Born is Greenstone Blackmores Knight - A stunning Black Tri Female, she is very much her father's daughter with typical white markings, Blaze, collar, Chest, socks and white tail tip, she appears to be a long hair, and has Double Dewclaws on both back legs.

Second Born is Greenstone Rudolf Valentino - A HUGE lovely Chinchilla Male, this boy is a whooper! He just screams MALE, in his head and chest even as a newborn. Very striking markings, Blaze, Collar, Chests, Socks and a small white tail tip, Double Dewclaws on both rear legs. Appears at this time to be a Med Coat

Third Born is Greenstone Cinnamon Girl - A nice big female Chinchilla, she has the same markings as Grandma Ima, Ch Belglen Risna, and Greenstone Fire and Ice , right down to her swing of color on her collar. Appears at this time to be a Med coat. Nice double dewclaws on her rear legs.

Fourth Born is Greenstone Sugar an Spice - is a very pretty refined chincilla female, she has the very same white color pattern as her Uncle Ch Belglen Riddari, in terms of her wide collar and full white chest and front legs, she is a lovely Ying/Yang in face ,with a Tinni Spot on her head and two full colored ears, she has a white tail tip, and appears to be a med coat at this time. She has double Dewclaws on both rear legs.

All the puppies are doing wonderful, they were all born very close together in birth weights for the females and as expected the big male is heavier. All are nursing and content, now if only I could get some sleep..

Happy Valentines Day Everyone, Photos are coming later today..

Have a great day from the waggy Tailed Icelandic Sheepdog Gang..

Icelandic Sheepdog Puppies for sale- please inquire if you are interested in learning more.

isdpuppies@hotmail.com

I want my Whelping Box!! LOL Icelandic Sheepdog Momma Dogs can be SO demanding LOL

Hi Folks

I love momma dogs, why is it that if they have their heads in a nice dark spot that they think I can't see their butts and big old belly out the rear end..

Well, I think that Vaskur really knew what he was doing and that Runa was ready on their first breeding, and that we will have puppies a bit early..

I was a bit surprised this morning, when a certain (always Staving MOM!) momma dog to be didn't want her breakfast.. hmmmm tip off number one..

Then came the walk up and give you the "STARE"- I want something from you.. hmmmm Tip number 2 that something is up...

Then comes the I will check out every corner and dark spot on the main floor, even though I have already checked them before and declared them not good enough for MY pups.. but still tip off number 3.. digging on the bare floor with a look at me.. like.. hello where is my Blankets!!!

Finally as if I needed it, I was already setting up the day bed, and was in and out of the laundry room and who comes out with a big towel between her teeth that was stole from the clean laundry basket on the floor- Tip Four.. If you don't give me bedding I will just take it!

LOL... So now she has her very own den in the living room, complete with cover, tons of dog blankets to dig and move around to her hearts content, and when it was all put together, she walked in.. and settled down.. and nothing now.... so now we wait!

Needless to say, I am going to guess that we will have puppies today or tomorrow, will keep you posted..

Once she is alot closer, we will move downstairs to the real birthing box in our Master Bedroom, but I don't want to be tied to the bedroom all day and I do want to be able to keep a very close eye on her, so this is the middle ground, she is happy and I can still do my chores and housework, while listening for the sounds of digging etc.

I really hope she waits for Valentine day!!! How cool would that be...

Count down for puppies--- SOON-VERY SOON!

Have a great day from the Waggy Tailed Icelandic Sheepdog Gang.

LOL Icelandic Sheepdogs at Play- My Stick, My Stick...

Hello Folks

BRRRRRR its cold today.. my goodness what a bright sunny but COLD morning has arrived on the farm..

Well we had to bundle up to watch the space station cross the sky last night.. very cool indeed.

So I had to share this photo.. here is Freyja who has managed to steal the stick, and Freyja and Olof in the dance.. I am sure you can tell they are playing, and having a ball at it.. man, the wind at that time.. it was coming in at about 45 kms an hour with gusts of up to 80 km.. and despite the cold and the wind, they still are out playing.. got to love those wonderful double coats.. Got to love Canada and its amazing winter weather.

A new Icelandic Valentine name came in last night..

21) Rudolph Valentino

Only five more days till the birth of our newest litter of Icelandic Sheepdogs puppies.-I have to put a side note.. I was counting movement yesterday and I as always am amazed when the puppies push back.. I swear one of them.. put all its feet out and said Hello.. I can't wait to meet them in person.. soon.. soon... soooooon.

Have a great day from the Waggy Tailed Icelandic Sheepdog Gang.

Greenstone Cool Hand Luke Photo Update- New Names Idea's Added for our Icelandic Sheepdog Valentine Litter

Hello Folks

It was a nice weekend despite the cold/snow/winds, these things never bother our lovely eqaully weather proof double coated med or long haired Icelandic Sheepdogs, they think playing out in a snow storm is a treat indeed.

Now got this lovely photo of Olof, but directly behind him was another dog sniffing the butt of a different dog, so if you think that the top looks wiggled with, thats because it is.. I refused to put the photo with the sniff going out, so I deleted it so I could put up the rest of the photo.. LOL

Names for the coming Litter -Thanks for the folks that wrote in the new name ideas, I have now updated the list.. keep them coming and I will keep adding them..

1) Be mine Valentine

2) Cupid's Arrow

3) Lady in Red

4) Sharp Dressed Man * This is a great name but was used for our kennel already.

5) Romancing the Stone

6) Saint Valentine

7) Ima Sassy Vixen

8)Sugar N Spice

9)Venus Icelandix

10)Moondance

11)Moon Shadow

12)Brown Eyed Girl

13)Heart of Gold

14)Royal Velvet

15)Vitta Red

16)Valentina Loverly

17) Love Me Tender

18)Bella Donna

19)Puppy Tail Kisses

20)Roses are Red

Only seven more days till the cutest litter of Icelandic Sheepdog Puppies are due!

Have a great Day from the Waggy Tailed Icelandic Sheepdog Gang.

Getting Ready to go to the Shows- Icelandic Sheepdogs have 4 Shows to go to in Feb.

Hello Folks
Well, its that kind of soft snow, kind of overcast but sort of warmish weather and the dogs are loving it!! My goodness, I wish that it would stop snowing just a bit more, as I don't want the Camera out in snow,

Well, we got our Ring times for the coming shows, all early morning times, looks like four days of getting up early, not a single day of sleeping in, but It would appear that I get out early enough on the last day, that I can drive home the same day, Group is starting at 1pm, so depending on weather and road conditions, I hope to head home right after.

I was watching the kids play yesterday and my goodness, does Duke remind me of AJay in movement, and overall outline, I can't wait to get him out into the show rings.

Check out Father to be of the litter showing off his wonderful coat/outline/type on the snow bank with Starpine Lily of the Tundra, this is one of my favorite photos from Iqaluit, Nunavut. Vaskur is so young here.. but so handsome

Countdown to our newest litter of Icelandic Sheepdog Puppies only eight more days till due date!

Have a great day from the waggy tailed Icelandic Sheepdog Gang..

show terminology.... humor involved..

For those new to showing and breeding some essential terminology you shouldknow!!!

Dog Show Terms Explained!

Angulation-Degree to which dog handlers will bend over backwards to impressjudges.


Balance-

(a) How to arrange the checkbook so your husband won't know how muchmoney you spent on dog shows last month. Usually done in the bathroomwith the door locked;(

b) Ability to hold coffee, danish, leash, treats and entry form allat once.

Bitch-(a) Proper name for a female dog;

(b) Name often heard at dog shows, not always to describe a femaledog.

Blind Retrieve-When you can't see the toy under the furniture.

CGC-Canine Gastrointestinal Catastrophe {aka GAS}

Coat-The hairy covering of a dog that usually falls out about one weekbefore the Specialty show.


Crabbing-What you do when the judge doesn't like your dog.

Dam-

(a) A female dog with puppies;

(b) Expression frequently overheard at dog shows as losers leave thering.


Distemper-Shown by those competitors who just lost to someone they can't stand.

Dog-To chase a judge from show to show in an effort to attain more breedwins.

Double Bind-Finding two toys under the furniture.

Elbow-Method of getting to ringside quickly when late.


Expression-"Sweet" look adopted by hungry dogs while staring ravenously at chunksof liver.


Fancier-Degree to which some gentlemen handlers dress more than others.


Feathering-What winners are accused of doing to judges' nests.


Force Fetch-Dog drops the toy under furniture, scratches at the carpet until you'reforced to "fetch" it.


Front-Part of the dog often facing the outside of the ring.


Guard Hair-An activity in which one watches intently as the dog's hair falls out, inclumps, just after entries are mailed.

Heel-(a) What you feel like when your dog beats the one you had just sold to aneager novice;
(b) Expression often screamed to attract the attention of deaf dogs.


Hock-A way of financing your dog shows by the use of jewelry such as weddingrings.

Kennel-Where you go when the kids fight and your husband is in one of his moods.

Litter-Trash left all over the building and parking lot after a dog show.


Mask-What to wear when you have to show your gorgeous pick of the litter thatfell apart a week before the show.


Muzzle-What to put on your kids at a dog show to prevent them from calling yourcompetition what they overheard you call him last night.


Noseprints-Cute marks left all over your French doors.


Outcrossing-What your husband tells the minister you are doing out in the kennel withthe dog and the bitch.


Overshot-Running so fast as to pass the 1st place ring marker and plow into the judgeand the stewards.


Pedigree-Dog food with lots of coupons.


Points-Minute, invisible awards for winning which you cannot convince your spouseare more important than cash prizes.


Puppies-Small, dog like food-processing machines with the ability to stink up anentire house and collectively deafen a band of magpies. (These creatureshave not yet been perfected, as they come with leaky systems, and can alsobe dangerous to weak hearts and bank accounts.)

Qualifying Score-Justifying the 170.5 you got in obedience today.


Ribbons-What competitive exhibitors with distemper (see above) will cut you intowhen your dog places over theirs.


Specialty-Whatever your dog is good at, like bringing home branches or chewing on walls.


Type-What your dog has... if you turn down the lights and squint a little.


Utility-The kind of vehicle you need to haul around your dogs.

Posted by Jackie Linke

Spoiled Icelandic Sheepdog Mama to be

Good Morning Folks

Well if you are like me, then you are always on the look out for new things for the dogs, new toys, new chew toys, new recipes for treats or meals, new leash/collar ideas, new dog beds, basicly anything and everything that can make my dogs life more interesting/comfortable I will try it at least once.

Well, I saw this ad in the farm store, for this heated bed, now it was not cheap and I drooled a bit over the idea of it, but the cost was high..and as my first thought was that would be great for in the whelping box for puppies to sleep on, my second thought was.. hmmm can it get wet without having issues.. Well a little research later and it turns out that while it can't get dunked, it is designed for outdoor living and getting a bit damp it is to be fine..

So this week a new flyer came out and it was on sale! Well that was what I was waiting for, and off to the store we went, I got the biggest one they had, and its still only the right size for a ISD.

Well I had to plug it in and set it up and see if any of the dogs liked it.. so Bella loves it, loves it enough that i might have to go back and get her one of her own in the future.. I am sure that the gentle warmth helps her sore older hips etc.

But the main dog that has "claimed it" is Runa, she first sat on it, then layed down and then leaned over and closed her eyes with a Ahh does that feel good, now it seems everytime I turn around she is laying down on it.. so I just had to get a photo of how cute she looks on her heated bed..Do you think she will share with the puppies?

Puppy countdown only nine more days till we have new Icelandic Sheepdog puppies Due

Have a good day from the Waggy Tailed Icelandic Sheepdog Gang..

Icelandic Sheepdog Puppies More Valentine Names

Names idea so far, please send me your name ideas for the coming litter-Countdown is now on the way.. only ten more days till the litters due date.

1) Be mine Valentine
2) Cupid's Arrow
3) Lady in Red
4) Sharp Dressed Man * This is a great name but was used for our kennel already.
5) Romancing the Stone
6) Saint Valentine
7) Ima Sassy Vixen
8)Sugar N Spice
9)Venus Icelandix
10)Moondance
11)Moon Shadow
12)Brown Eyed Girl
13)Heart of Gold
14)Royal Velvet
15)Vitta Red
16)Valentina Loverly

Hello Folks, well another wonderful letter came in with name idea's and I wanted to say thank you so much for folks that are taking the time to come up with names, and to send them to me. Keep the names coming and I will keep posting them to inspire folks..

Have a great day from our wonderful Brown eyed, Waggy Tailed Icelandic Sheepdog Gang.

Just a few Icelandics Sheepdog Hanging out!

Hello Folks

It was a just around 0 kind of day yesterday with big fat christmas snow, and as you can guess, the dogs wanted to spend most of their time outside playing in the fresh snow or in watching the world go by..

I had a blast watching them playing and finally thought, I should try and take a few photos of them.. anyway, these two are my favorite, mainly because they don't involve a great deal of colorful blurrs in a big mass running across the photos :)

Can you tell who is who??

Have a great day from the Waggy tailed Icelandic Sheepdog Gang..

Icelandic Sheepdog Valentine Names Update

Hello Folks

Got my first letter with name idea's and thank you so much for them ;) so I thought, I would list the names and keep adding new names as they come in..


How neat having a Valentine litter....here are a few names that I thought of.....
1) Be mine Valentine
2) Cupid's Arrow
3) Lady in Red
4) Sharp Dressed Man * This is a great name but was used for our kennel already.
5) Romancing the Stone
6) Saint Valentine
7) Ima Sassy Vixen**
**(my personal favorite!)you can take out "Sassy" and put in anything that suits the pup...Naughty, Frisky, etc.

I have to admit that I love number 3, Lady in Red, for a nice Red and White ISD, that is a wonderful name indeed.

Countdown on the new coming litter of Icelandic Sheepdog Puppies-- 11 Days to GO!

Have a great day from the Waggy Tailed Icelandic Sheepdog Gang.

Icelandic Sheepdog Litter coming- Valentine Litter! Help Name that Litter!

Hello Folks

Well the count down as began, only Twelve Days till my baby girls Due date... Of course, its just a due date but its the first time we have had puppies due so very close to Valentine..

So its only fitting that this litter have a Valentine Thyme to it, and I thought it would be alot of fun to enlist all my fellow ISD lovers and pet owners in helping put together a list of names to look at.

Now clearly once the puppies are born, and start to get their temperments in, that will be part of the naming process but I would love to have you or your children think up some very cool names for us to look at.

So we are thinking anything to do with Valentine, we don't normally use Icelandic Names or words, so an examples would be

Greenstone Be my Valentine

Greenstone Happy Heart Waggy Tails

Now I would perfer if possable that all the names have V's in them but I am aware that it will take some work to make that happen... so let the fun begin.

You get the idea..

Have a great day from the Waggy Tail Icelandic Sheepdog Gang...

Greenstone Outlaw Josee Wales‏

Hello Folks

Got a wonderful update on OJW, and just had to share a few of his new photos.. my goodness, is the type in this litter just stunning..what a lovely puppy, and I understand that he is very clever and is doing great in his formal training.. I am greatly looking forward to seeing him out at the shows this year.. A huge thank to his family for the update and for giving him such a wonderful home, he is a very lucky boy.

Barks

New litter has arrived......

A wonderful new litter of seven has arrived, there are tan/white and Black Tri's, and they are so cute.. they are all good weights, and look very healthy...

Yes, we are thrilled to annouce our newest litter of BUNNIES..

Did I get you :)

LOL... yes, Miss Orange has had her first litter, and now has what appears to be a nice healthy litter of seven kits..

It was very exciting to peek into that big fluffy fur nest box to see what we have..

Have a great Day from the Waggy Tail Icelandic Sheepdog Gang...

Pupppies Due to arrive on Feb 18th.

Dreaming about Icelandic Sheepdog Puppies

Hello Folks

Thanks for the lovely letters about my updates yesterday, I am so glad that folks found the Journey as moving as I did.

Well, as most of you know Runa( CERF Normal 08/OFA-Good) and Vaskur (Pennhip .39/.50 and CERF Normal, Heart -Normal) are having puppies coming in the next two weeks.

Runa is starting to get bigger and bigger, and her milk glands are getting more noticable and her belly hair is starting to fall off, she is hungry for her meals now (more small ones per day) and she sleeps alot more..always on one of the soft spots now.. and she is so snuggly, she likes to have full body massage and full body hugs, and she closes her eyes and lays her head down ever so gentle with this.. no don't stop gently touching me.. So that is how I feel asleep last night.. and so it was only fittnig in my mind that I dreamed about ? What else.. Puppies! So had to look at some puppy photos this morning.. thought I would share one with you.

Barks to all from a snowy Canada.

Icelandic Sheepdog --Getting Older--Grey in muzzle

I was snuggling in a warm bed this morning, and the dogs were taking turns getting snuggles and I was cuddling Oppa and cracked a eye open and realized.. she has grey coming in her muzzle.. It seems like only yesterday that she was a young pup but in truth is was seven! years ago..and of course we have older Icelandic Sheepdogs but they don't have the grey starting yet.. Got me to thinking about this letter I had saved, and so I thought I would share it with you.


THE JOURNEY
by Crystal Ward Kent

When you bring a pet into your life, you begin a journey - a journey that will bring you more love and devotion than you have ever known, yet also test your strength and courage.

If you allow, the journey will teach you many things, about life, about yourself, and most of all, about love. You will come away changed forever, for one soul cannot touch another without leaving its mark.

Along the way, you will learn much about savoring life's simple pleasures - jumping in leaves, snoozing in the sun, the joy of puddles, and even the satisfaction of a good scratch behind the ears.

If you spend much time outside, you will be taught how to truly experience every element, for no rock, leaf or log will go unexamined, no rustling bush will be overlooked, and even the very air will be inhaled, pondered, and noted as being full of valuable information. Your pace may be slower - except when heading home to the food dish - but you will become a better naturalist, having been taught by an expert in the field.


Too many times we hike on automatic pilot, our goal being to complete the trail rather than enjoy the journey. We miss the details - the colorful mushrooms on the rotting log, the honeycomb in the old maple snag, the hawk feather caught on a twig. Once we walk as a dog does, we discover a whole new world. We stop; we browse the landscape; we kick over leaves, peek in tree holes, look up, down, all around. And we learn what any dog knows: that nature has created a marvelously complex world that is full of surprises, that each cycle of the seasons brings ever-changing wonders, each day an essence all its own.


Even from indoors you will find yourself more attuned to the world around you. You will find yourself watching summer insects collecting on a screen (How bizarre they are! How many kinds there are!), or noting the flicker and flash of fireflies through the dark. You will stop to observe the swirling dance of windblown leaves, or sniff the air after a rain. It does not matter that there is no objective in this; the point is in the doing, in not letting life's most important details slip by.
You will find yourself doing silly things that your pet-less friends might not understand: spending thirty minutes in the grocery aisle looking for the cat food brand your feline must have, buying dog birthday treats, or driving around the block an extra time because your pet enjoys the ride. You will roll in the snow, wrestle with chewie toys, bounce little rubber balls till your eyes cross, and even run around the house trailing your bathrobe tie - with a cat in hot pursuit - all in the name of love.


Your house will become muddier and hairier. You will wear less dark clothing and buy more lint rollers. You may find dog biscuits in your pocket or purse, and feel the need to explain that an old plastic shopping bag adorns your living room rug because your cat loves the crinkly sound.
You will learn the true measure of love - the steadfast, undying kind that says, "It doesn't matter where we are or what we do, or how life treats us as long as we are together." Respect this always. It is the most precious gift any living soul can give another. You will not find it often among the human race.


And you will learn humility. The look in my dog's eyes often made me feel ashamed. Such joy and love at my presence. He saw not some flawed human who could be cross and stubborn, moody or rude, but only his wonderful companion. Or maybe he saw those things and dismissed them as mere human foibles, not worth considering, and so chose to love me anyway.
If you pay attention and learn well, when the journey is done, you will not be just a better person, but the person your pet always knew you to be - the one they were proud to call beloved friend.


I must caution you that this journey is not without pain. Like all paths of true love, the pain is part of loving. For as surely as the sun sets, one day your dear animal companion will follow a path you cannot yet go down. And you will have to find the strength and love to let them go. A pet's time on earth is far too short - especially for those that love them. We borrow them, really, just for awhile, and during those brief years they are generous enough to give us all of their love - every inch of their spirit and heart, until one day there is nothing left.


The cat that only yesterday was a kitten is all too soon old and frail and sleeping in the sun. The young pup of boundless energy wakes up stiff and lame, the muzzle now gray. Deep down we somehow always knew this journey would end. We knew that if we gave our hearts they would be broken. But give them we must for it is all they ask in return. When the time comes, and the road curves ahead to a place we cannot see, we give one final gift and let them run on ahead - young and whole once more.


"Godspeed, good friend," we say, until our journey comes full circle and our paths cross again.

Peter Oleihoek Study Page 30- Icelandic Sheepdog Family Groups

Hello Folks, Thought it was a good idea to show what the family groups looked like when the study was done ten years ago.. It will give you a idea of just how small all the other groups beside A1 and B23 are, now I have no doubt that some groups have more dogs in them, but in keeping with that, so have the large groups also grown.

Now the interesting things that happens is that each country has its own pools of lines, and in this way, they create their own pools of bloodlines..

Right now near as I can see, we tend to have in Canada - A1, B1, B3, H1, J1, M1, M3, O

If there are other dogs with other families, I am unaware of them, and do not mean to leave them out, please if you have a dog with a different family group, I would love to hear about it and will be very happy to add their bloodlines, please remember that your dog must have more then half of its bloodlines related to any one bloodline to claim it, otherwise, the dog carries that bloodline, and with linebreeding it could be brought out in future generations.

Icelandic Sheepdog - Interesting information about Rare Family lines

More information from Monika in regards to the Peter O study and working with Rare Lines


It was 3700 dogs he started with according to my notes taken at a meeting we had with him in Denmark. I don’t know about the 4 family groups you talk about being the main ones. I think one of his first calculations gave him 5 clusters when doing a 7 generation calculation but he broke them down much smaller when he did the founder dogs and those are the family groups we talk about and have in the database. The ones you mention could be the main groups you have in USA although I do believe you started with a few dogs in the H or J groups as well (this is the Dutch group) and are still working with those groups. Now I really wish I had my computer to check this stuff but I’m using the good old paper copies I have that list all the dogs and their groups up to the year of the study. I have his original work and that’s the one I read along with the conversations I had with him and the info he gave at the first meeting after the study. I just checked the one from the website now and I found out I do have that in a paper copy as well and it does mention all the groups he found so I think the reports I have and the one on the website are pretty similar.


He broke down all the clusters he started with even farther and ended up with the following families that are used to label all the dogs in the database. Every dog belongs to one of these families but unfortunately a newer study is not finished so the dogs born during the years after the study are not labelled. A1, A2, A3, A4, A5, B1, B2, B3, B4, B5, B6, B7, E1, E2, F1, H1, H2, I, J1, J2, J3, K2, K3, K4, M1, M2, M4, M5, O, P, Q, S, U1, V, W. He has the diagrams as well in his work as to which countries each family existed in. I do know however that even though you use a dog in a rarer line the progeny do not necessarily end up being a part of that rare line. So dogs in the A family can be slightly less related to each other (hence A1-A5, five smaller groups inside the large A group) but still stem from the same family so they are not giving us any new genetic material. A1 had dogs in all Scandinavian countries, A2 was mostly Denmark, Finland, Netherlands and Sweden if I’m not mistaken, A3 was only in Denmark and A4 in Germany and Denmark, A5 only in Denmark.

The reason for this being that the dogs that each country brought in and started breeding from in a way started their own families but within the large family group just the same. The same with B, some lines in B are smaller although B3 and B4 can’t really be considered rare (there were still fewer individuals at the time than in the A group). The other main family groups that can’t really be considered rare are H1 and J1 which are found in Holland almost exclusively (up until the past decade). Others are less widespread, all of the B lines were in Iceland with few individuals in Sweden and B5 was only in Germany. And so on and so on. During the years following the study the lines have been interbred to a much larger degree but there are still main family groups in most countries that are being bred more than others.


I do know there were 7 dogs in the 0 line though. A mother and her 6 offspring. There was one single dog belonging to the E1 family and he is gone so that whole "family" has disappeared today. There were also only two dogs belonging to the P family so it was even rarer than the O. Their mother was the only dog belonging to the Q family and she only had two registered puppies, two siblings were the total P family group. One was the grandmother of the O family and the other was her brother who only had ONE single litter in his lifetime and that was with a female in Holland (done by AI) just a couple years ago. His line is EXTREMELY important! I think by doing this combination in Holland that the O line was probably widened rather than lost, maybe even a new family has been made by that combination I really would love to know for sure. But when we view the fact that his sisters offspring were O even though she was used with a dog in the A group then it makes you wonder how a litter out of a smaller family group J1 might be clustered with this P line. So instead of these two siblings making dogs in the P family they started their own family called O. I do believe the idea of this wonderful mating in Holland is to breed these individuals back to the O line that was imported to Holland as well. I think that will be exciting to see a family line arise from that since Holland is the only country now that can breed those two lines together! We don’t even have that line in Iceland anymore.


Now it has to be kept in mind that the rare bloodlines differ greatly in phenotype to the dogs in the larger family groups and so it should be, it means the breed is genetically healthy (alot of variation) to see that we still have so many "posibilities" for differing type as well as colours etc. The problem is that most people don’t recognise the differences in the larger families that they are used to seeing and the smaller rarer lines as a good thing which is sad because they may decide not to use important individuals in breeding just because of slight faults (like HD, less good structure, finer bone or smaller stature). Often people get talked into abandoning their goal of widening the family group because their dogs become "less popular" due to phenotype and possibly people don’t want to buy a dog that can’t "compete" with the rest of the population at shows! They should see and breed the differences with the goal to possibly bring the type closer together (not to breed out the older type but to keep it and improve on faults and vice versa) but keep the genetic variation at the same time. You don’t do that by throwing out the old type and breed solely to a fashion in the show ring in my mind. There are a few very courageous people in our breed and I do salute them for their efforts which they may not see the full results of in their lifetimes. I wish I had the space and time to add more dogs to my home so I too could work on this important project but I use what I have as best I can.


I think possibly it was failed to mention the fact that in order to widen the rarer families we actually have to have higher inbreeding co-efficients in those particular lines to start with. Pieter was very clear on this point in his conversations with me, we need to linebreed them together to increase the population since the numbers of dogs available in those lines is still very limited, it’s almost like starting over again with certain lines. The low inbreeding co-efficients are of course most important in the larger family groups that we have so many more individuals and the population of those dogs are much too similar in their genetics, they have lost variation through stamping of type! I am not an expert on the subject I want to make that clear but I hope I took the right info from my conversations with Pieter when I was thinking of using my own dogs as "gineau pigs" to rarer mates (mine are in the A family group). I did ask if it would be a waste to use my dogs because they were in the bigger family group. What I remember the most is that he felt that the rarer dogs should be used as much as possible so they would need to be bred with many different lines and hopefully more with smaller lines but at the same time since very few are willing to use them then just the fact that they are used was more important than with which line and then they should be bred back to their own line to strengthen their numbers and their genes so that the larger family lines did not double up because then you lose the very genetic material you are trying to save. We can be much more picky with the larger groups whereas the rarer lines need to be used despite faults until the numbers are catching up to the other families.
Skotta the mother is of course dead now and only had that one litter. Of the 6 puppies one is dead (he had been exported to Norway but was never used) that I know of but if they are still alive then 4 remain in Iceland. Two male dogs have been used in Iceland and their one sister was exported to Sweden (I have a grand daughter of hers) and has had a few litters there. I don’t expect to see many more litters from these dogs themselves since they are already 10 years old. Some of their progeny have been exported and very few remain or are being used here in Iceland, I managed to talk the owner into one litter from a 5 1/2 year old daughter to Skolli. I hope she has more litters but I’m not sure she will since the market here is very small and her owner has a busy life and most breeder’s here are not as willing to export puppies out of the country.


I think to a certain degree that it is a bit misunderstood how many litters these rare dogs need to have in order to have enough genetic material that we actually can start to breed smarter with their lines. How else can we widen the gene pool but to use them as much as possible giving them a much larger quota than the dogs in other family lines. However because most breeders will not take a chance on their "type" for the good of the breed’s future it is very sad that we are seeing maybe one or two litters from an O line male and at the same time maybe 10-15 each from other males because they are popular. With this type of thinking the larger families keep getting larger and more threatening, making the rarer lines even smaller all the time even though there may be a few more individuals every year or two the numbers are not growing fast enough in my opinion to keep them from becoming extinct a few years down the road. We have to use some dogs in the larger groups together with these rarer individuals just in order to add to their numbers to be able to go back and linebreed back to them in future. If they are only used with one or two particular families then in future when those are bred back then you are not adding to one particular family but to maybe two at the same time and they get pretty caught up in each other and hard to seperate losing genetic variation from both lines. Does that make sense? I do know of one line here in Iceland for example that was bred to get the M3 line but it is continually bred back to the B3 line to make sure the dogs are "show type" because one particular popular stud was overused and he is hard to avoid now so the M line is being diluted because it can’t be seperated from the B line. So in that sense you need to outcross to be able to break free of the connection between the two lines.


I don’t know I am very concerned about the breed and I know you know that. Hehehe. I for one am concerned about the dilution of all the families constantly and too much mixing, and believe it is causing the popping of hidden diseases and as you say the loss of important breed traits. It is still just a theory that the faults are appearing because of this method of breeding but it started happening at the same time the outcrossing began. I feel the zero co-efficient is causing havock in the breed but my concern is more along the lines of diluting the smaller families into the larger ones because people are too concerned about keeping their type at the cost of keeping breed traits or bloodlines. People may take a chance on breeding a rarer line and then not like what they see and decide to breed back to the larger family in order to get their type back.


This is where I tend to think, and hopefully I don’t sound like I´m contradicting myself from my article and other comments about the breed, that we let dog shows have too much influence on how we breed dogs. NOW let me state that I feel we need to keep the breed type (and there are a few different ones that can still fit into the standard) structure to be able to work and special traits without losing focus on the future of the breed. Structural faults inevitably follow certain lines (and by that it could be bloodlines or family lines, I hope I word that understandably) and in order to fix those faults you need to decide whether the line is from a family group that needs to be widened before it’s fixed or if it´s from a bloodline that has more than enough representatives to keep the structural faulted dogs out of the breeding pool. It makes a big difference and is hard for those who have bred different breeds or other animals to understand that even things like HD in certain important dogs need to be overlooked in order to save the genetics of the line whereas in the larger groups you can afford to be stricter.



It’s good that people all have different opinions and fun to run them past each other from time to time that’s how we can best learn to work together. So I’m gonna go out on a limb here! J I have actually been complaining about how the breed is progressing here in Iceland over the past 3-4 years. I’m extremely worried that we are getting too consistent in type and losing good dogs that don’t fit that mould. Too much stamping of one particular type or consistency can kill off genetic variation very quickly especially when maybe one or two idividuals are used over and over again that all belong to the same family group. We have during the past few years had very few dogs used in breeding, we are losing the old lines and we are also getting more and more competitive people showing the dogs and wanting to win. This means that there are a few old bloodlines left but they are not being shown and not being used much because they are losing their appeal to breeders, the gap is getting larger and larger (the older lines were finer in bone, today you have extreme bone as everyone competes to produce thicker and thicker bone for example and on the other side of the scale some countries don’t have enough bone) too because most Icelanders don’t have a clue about the family groups study and just breed to be able to show so they see these important individuals as "dispensable" and old fashioned. Most if not all the dogs that come to dog shows today are related through two or three overused males, there is no doubt consistency when most the dogs in the ring are very closely related to each other. I for one feel it’s a sad sad time and the more these dogs are bred the smaller the rare family groups get since they cannot compete with the current fashion at shows any more than they could before which originally put them in this position of dying out.


I do agree with you (please excuse my cander everyone) that the "general type" in Iceland differs greatly from that in the US (and I do like the Icelandic type better J ). I feel that is due to the fact that you are breeding different family groups together than we are. For example we don’t have and never have had the J or H family group and we didn’t use the same individual families within the B group that were exported many years ago. Just recently we started using dogs from those family groups and the B3 and B4 have become overused here as well as I’m sure over there. On the other hand what differs from our type and your type is what family groups we are mixing together like I said we haven’t had the other lines that your population is built on. We are using the B and M family much more today but started out with alot of A family dogs. I actually think that the A family is decreasing here (probably other places as well) which also changes the general type and we don’t have dogs that look the same as they used to because of this shifting of popular lines. Sigridur mentioned after the show that she only saw a few of the "old type" which she felt was sad and she thanked the owners and breeders (I was one of them) for keeping those lines going. Linebreeding is taking place big time but in a different way than people expect. You may be breeding a low co-efficient but you are breeding from the same family groups and those dogs could all have similar "faults" and stamp the type they represent in the different "kennels" and family lines and you aren’t really adding genetic variation per se. The fact that the co-efficient is low though means it makes it easier for hidden faults to surface because you are bringing together a lot of lines that were "isolated" within certain kennels. It may be a good idea to add some of the family groups into the US that aren’t already represented in order to be able to bring in different types to "fix" what needs fixing but keep in mind that you will get inconsistency in the first few generations and work with it. These you would work as "rare family groups" in your country even though they may not be rare worldwide, it would give you easy access to dogs that can be used to fix faults and then you can breed back out to those lines you prefer to use. Whereas the rare family groups "worldwide" need a totally different strategy, they need to be bred true after spreading them about. I hope that isn’t too confusing but this is my understanding of what is best for the future of the whole population.



I too would be anxious to know how the pendulum has shifted because it seems to me that some of the family groups have in fact grown much larger while others still remain small and I believe a couple have actually decreased like the A family. Which was of course the thing they set out to do but some families still need alot of numbers to come close to having enough clout to compete in the genepool. The main rare family is still without a doubt the 0 family.



Again I hope my comments aren’t too confusing and I think that what I wrote in my article still holds true and as I say my main concern with the zero inbreeding co-efficient is the hidden defects surfacing out of all the lines and I still stick to that opinion. I know that a bottleneck is not a good thing to have in the breed and unfortunately breeders continue to make bottlenecks all the time by using few studs and popular dogs as "matadors". The fact being that all these matadors are in the same family group (mostly B3 and B4 and possibly J lines today whereas it used to be the A family) makes the situation even more critical for the survival of the rare lines in my opinion.



However as far as I know the A line is not widespread over there, I sent a couple that are half A because I didn’t know of many there at the time. Those individuals are also mixed with the M1, J1 and B3 so it’s a little bit of a puzzle to try to preserve the different lines. Like I said we don’t have data on the family groups for most of the dogs in the breeding program today which makes it hard to assess because it is not easy to figure out who fits in what group by simply looking at their pedigrees when the rarer lines go too far back it’s harder to access them as well since as you mention they can be so diluted by then. You have alot of M line dogs in North America, they make up a large part of your population so it shouldn’t be so hard to mix and match those lines back up but I think the most widespread are the B3 and B4 lines and J1. I can’t wait to get my database working again!


I think that is way too much but I got carried away...I have a habit of doing that! So sorry to those who were bored by the length of it.


Monika
http://www.tofradogs.com/

Greenstone Aris -New Icelandic Sheepdog Photo

Hello Folks

A huge Thank you goes out to Toki family for this new photo update.. he looks wonderful, it was taken in Dec, with the first snow of the year.. what a lovely male ISD, adore his handsome face and love the depth of red to his coat, and despite it not being shown totally, you can see that he has a very pretty curling tail

Barks

Greenstone Icelandic Sheepdog Data 2008

Hello Folks

Well those that know me well, know that I love to keep databases, and part of the fun of those data bases is getting to figure out stats (ok, the love of Stats comes with my formal education)

So for those that will find this interesting, this is the coat color/type and pattern info on the current Greenstone Icelandic Sheepdog Puppies, this does not include my own breeding dogs, just the puppies.

So in coat colors right now the choices are

Yellow Gene -Ranging from a Dark tan to Dark Reddish Brown- 27%
Yellow Gene with Sable Factor -Ranging from Dark Tan to Dark Reddish Brown with Black hairs-54%
Black Tri- With full pigment on tan-11%
Black Silver Tri- With Chincilla factor on Tan markings- 8%


So in terms of Coat Length - Per the CKC Icelandic Sheepdog Standard.



Short haired:The outer coat of medium length, fairly coarse, with a thick, soft undercoat. The hair is shorter on the face, top of head, ears and front of legs, longer on the neck, chest and back of thighs. The tail is bushy and the hair length is in proportion to the coat.

Short Coated - 60% of Greenstone Puppies are Short/Med Coated

Longer-haired:The outer coat is longer than the above, fairly coarse, with a thick, soft undercoat. The hair is shorter on the face, top of head, ears and front of legs, longer behind the ears, on the neck, chest, behind the forelegs and back of thighs. The tail is very bushy and the hair length is in proportion to the coat

Long Coated- 40% of Greenstone Puppies are Long Coated.

Coat Patterns

Solid- Less then 5% of the total body has white markings- 10% of Greenstone Puppies
Tri- Typical ISD markings, Blazes/White Collars/White Socks/White Tail Tip -77% of Greenstone Puppies.
Pied- Patches of Color on a white background (think Pinto Horse)-10%
Extreme Pied-Less then 25% color on a white Background -3%

Hope you will find this interesting in some way.. I know I do..

Barks

Old Icelandic Sheepdog Photos from the early turn of the Century.

Hello Folks,

Just out some of these old photos of the ISD.. Enjoy a glimpse into the past of this wonderful breed, I think my favorite photo is of the Kennel Ladies holding their dogs in England.. " I love how much the pretty little bitch in the middle, looks like my little Greenstone Black Pearl"

and in a very cool way of bringing someone from the past into the future.. check out this wonderful interview with Jean Lanning..

Jean Lanning
A 'charmed life' in the world of dogs
Simon Parsons talks to Crufts 2005 best-in-show judge JEAN LANNING

“I THINK I have been very lucky and have led what they call ‘a charmed life’,” says this year’s Crufts best-in-show judge, Jean Lanning.Since her schoolgirl years, the world of show dogs has been Jean’s great passion, and many years of successful breeding and exhibiting have been accompanied by a career as a judge. In this she was fortunate enough to start remarkably young; indeed she first judged more than 50 years ago, something those who know Jean’s youthful looks, attitude and enthusiasm may find hard to credit.Like last year’s BIS judge, Margaret Everton, Jean’s success in the show ring came with Great Danes – indeed it is remarkable how many prominent dog people have made their mark in, or owned, this breed. One can think of the great Bill Siggers, of course, Leslie Page, whose parents bred Danes, Gwyn and Olive Davies, Di and Carl Johnson, Karina Le Mare, Sheila Cartwright, Robin Searle, Frances and Jack Krall, Jeff Horswell and others. Even Andrew Brace owned a Dane at one time. Perhaps the skills needed in rearing and handling such magnificent dogs to a high standard give one a head start"

"Most unusual inmate of the Clausentum kennel was an Icelandic Sheepdog. They often boarded a pretty little bitch of the breed until one day the owner was having domestic problems and in desperation offered her to the Lannings, who went on to show her in unclassified classes – those were the days before the imported register. She had been bred by the Hon Mark Watson, a great enthusiast of all things Icelandic, who had imported several of the breed. Concerned about the future, he asked them to breed from their bitch, and eventually they found a half-brother who had also been sold locally. From this came a dog, Clausentum Halloween who, Jean believes, is now behind all Icelandic Sheepdogs in the world through two of his progeny sent back to Iceland in return for two more. The breed fizzled out in this country – Jean was not keen on the coats of the later imports – but has been preserved in its native land where the kennel club was set up in the late ‘60s, mainly to look after the interests of this native breed. Through Mr Watson, Jean was invited to judge the club’s first show, stopping off en route to the States, and remembers the exhibitors’ enthusiasm to learn about their breeds."

How cool is that, that Jean was asked to judge the very first dog show in Iceland and by Mark Watson himself.

For total write up (its interesting and long folks but this is the relative part about the ISD" can be found at

http://www.dogworld.co.uk/node/78

Greenstone Marquesa Esmeralda aka Fjola- A lovely Icelandic Sheepdog Lady..

Hello Folks

Got a new photo update on one of the Greenstone puppy Crew, and so without futher adue.. here is the lovely and clearing enjoying the snow.. Miss Fjola!!

OT -Rabies found in Ontario-Not ISD related

Hello Folks

I know that this is not ISD related and I don't know this breeder nor do I know anyone who bought these puppies, but I am posting this on the blog, just in case someone who reads the blog, didn't see this information in the news, and I feel that we need to get the word out about this case. Please if you live in a area that your dogs are exposed to wild animals, please make sure your dogs are up to date on their Rabies, I fully support using the three year vaccine / use of Titers and not over use of Vaccines but please use the core Vaccines to help protect our beloved pets and our family members while we do so.


Date: 25 Jan 2008Source: London Free

Press<http://lfpress.ca/newsstand/News/Local/2008/01/25/4792958-sun.html>

Massive rabies case traced to local farm- -----------------------

A rabies alarm raised in Toronto has spread across the province with hundreds of possible infections -- traced back to puppies from Perth and Bruce counties.Health officials urge anyone in Ontario who came into contact with the infected puppies or who bought puppies from a Bruce County business after [3 Jan 2008] to contact their local health unit.

The deadly virus came from 3 puppies at a family farm near Newton, about 15 kilometres southeast of Listowel in Perth County, health officials said yesterday [24 Jan 2008].The Perth district health unit is contacting at least 40 people who might have had contact with the puppies or their mother at the farm."We are following up on each one of them," said Dr. Miriam Klassen, Perth's medical officer of health.Perth health officials also are urging any other people -- from friends to service people -- who visited the farm between [29 Nov 2007] and [3 Jan 2008] to contact them.

Untreated, rabies is fatal in humans.It is found in the saliva of animals and can be passed through a bite, cut or scratch.A person could catch the rabies virus simply by playing with the puppies, Klassen said.

The mother of the border collie cross pups was a family pet, but was not vaccinated against rabies, she said.After delivering the pups, she killed a skunk that was likely rabid, Klassen said.

The pups likely got the rabies from licking and nibbling their mother, she said.The mother died, as did some of the pups.The family, unaware of the rabies, sold 3 of the puppies to a dog broker in Chesley, said Drew Ferguson, spokesperson for the Grey Bruce health unit.The broker kept the puppies for 10 days.

Health unit officials have contacted 6 people who had contact with the 3 puppies, Ferguson said.The broker took the puppies to Dr. Flea's, a flea market at Albion Road and Highway 27 in west Toronto.One of the 3 infected puppies was purchased [13 Jan 2008]. The puppy became sick and was taken to the Toronto Humane Society, said investigator Tre Smith.The puppy died [14 Jan 2008] and an autopsy 3 days ago showed it was infected by rabies."We are not exactly sure how many people came in contact with this animal at Dr. Flea's," said Smith. "But we are assuming it could be upwards of hundreds of people who walked by and petted the animal."

That dog was one of at least 10 sold by the Dr. Flea's vendor that day and each of those dogs may have rabies too, said Dr. Rosana Pellizzari, with Toronto Public Health.Toronto Public Health officials issued a warning Wednesday night [23 Jan 2008]."This is very serious," Pellizzari said. "Rabies should be treated as a fatal illness -- no ifs, ands or buts.

"Officials said yesterday they have received nearly 200 calls from the public since 1st issuing the alert, and have since found a number of puppies sold at the flea market.The investigation has not found any human cases of rabies.

The infected 8-week-old puppy that prompted the alarm was bought by [a woman in] Brampton for her son.[The woman], her husband, son and brother-in-law all have to get rabies treatments, typically 6 shots in 28 days.

This case should serve as a warning to people buying pets, health officials said.Buy from a registered kennel or store and make sure the dogs or their parents have been vaccinated, Ferguson said.About the puppies- ----------------- -


The infected puppies came from a farm in Newton in Perth County. They also were handled for 10 days at a puppy broker in Chesley in Bruce County.- -

They were sold at Booth No. 1513 at Dr.Flea's, a flea market in west Toronto. The flea market booth has a sign with the name Pets R Us.

The vendor has also given out business cards with the name Feed Me More Pets and a business location of Chesley.- -

Perth district health unit 519-271-7600, ext. 267- -
Grey Bruce health unit 519-376-9420- -
Toronto Public Health 416-338-7600

[Byline: Randy Richmond and Jack Boland]

Greenstone Marcus Aurilius Photo Update

Hello Folks,

Got new photo update on Shivers, and of course his buddy Jazz is in some of the photos. Wow, is it great to see his photos, and I am so AMAZED at how much he still looks like the twin of his sister Duchess, we had the hardest time with them as babies, it was either check the length of white on the paws or get them to turn and look at us so we could see the face blaze, and they are still so much alike.. WOW, an double WOW!

Thanks to Shivers family for the lovely update letter, and for the great photos, I got lots more then I am putting up.. Everyone enjoy seeing his new updated photos.

Barks

Ps, I could not resist, I added a photo of Duchess Face shot taken last weekend, to place it beside Shivers so you can see for yourself how much they look alike.

Greenstone Information about what Family Lines we are working with..

Hello Folks,

In keeping with Monika's letter below, I thought some of you might like to know what family groups that Greenstone kennel Breeds with..

We are very proud that though our hard work in importing bloodlines from Iceland, Europe and in working with the finest breeders in N.A. we are breeding with A1, B1, B3, H1, and with the rare M1 and M2 lines, and last but in NO way least, we are thrilled to now have a O stud available to work with in the Greenstone Family.

We are working hard to create breedings that are starting to have the M line both top and bottom on the pedigree.

If you are interested in a Greenstone Icelandic Sheepdog for Breeding, or in our Greenstone Coming litters and would like to know what Family lines we are working with, or what that breeding or puppy has in terms of Family lines, please contact us and we will be happy to explain who has what and to explain why we are doing that linebreeding..

Sometimes it takes two or three geneations of breedings to get to the final goal of producing certain pedigree combo's and we would be pleased to explain where we are going to anyone who is interested.

For anyone that is working with the above family lines, and you are wanting to do some linebreeding on them, the Greenstone Family now has eight intact breeding males across North America that are available to approved females, health tests available on request.

Barks

Monika's Excellent Post on the Peter Oliehoek's Study

This post was on one of the ISD Yahoo Groups, but as always Monika was so very helpful and it is worth having this posted on the website for more folks to read.

"I wrote an article about the breed and wrote a little bit about the “families” and my own personal opinions about the breed. I didn’t write specifically how the families were calculated but I did put a link to Pieter Oliehoek’s study in my article. Here is Pieter’s study: http://www.geneticdiversity.net/dog.html . I’m no expert on the subject but I did speak alot with Pieter at the time and have done alot of personal study of the population through the years with knowledge of the dogs used many years ago as well as dogs exported to other countries. I believed the breed’s longterm future was at stake and have personally used my dogs as “gineau pigs” to bring in new blood especially around the time of the study which has in turn kept my dogs pretty much out of the show ring since. It seems that breeding bloodlines and breeding show dogs don’t always go hand in hand! Then I found that my dogs were losing some of the traits I tried so hard to preserve so my goal has been to keep both in tact, the bloodlines as well as the breed traits. To me both are important. The question is will my dogs benefit the future of the breed by how I decide to breed them or am I just thinking about my own lifetime and how the breed can benefit me! Just a personal thought and the first answer is what has kept me breeding through good and bad.

Very quickly I think I can explain a little bit about the family groups. The pedigree info about the whole population worldwide up to 1997 was put into a special program that calculated how related they are to each other and as a whole and divides them up in families based on specific bloodlines and how widespread they are. If a “new” dog appeared (family info not available OR unknown) for example then that would constitute a new “family” (genetic variation that was “new” to the population). All the dogs that the population was originally built on were founders. On the other hand there were also dogs that were just used so seldom that their blood had become extremely rare in the population as to make them important to breed from just to keep the family bloodline alive. In Iceland there are quite a few families that are rare because we have alot of dogs that are not used often enough either because they were not shown, lived in isolated areas or because people did not think they were nice enough looking. Years ago many dogs were rarer because their progeny was never exported and some dogs who were never used and their family line has been lost. For example one dog named Garpur was his own “family” and he died without ever having progeny, he was an extremely nice dog with a wonderful temperament (hardly seen anymore), not barky or nervous and he had a nice colouring as well. Since I wrote my article I can say that I find that fewer and fewer dogs are being used and more and more people are focussing on dog shows and health tests rather than concentrating on adding genetic variation first and then perfecting the dogs and tweeking. So many people use the same studs over and over and over again on different females or related males on the same females, which is just causing the exact thing that the study was trying to prevent. The same genes are getting spread through the whole population and can’t be avoided in future breedings. As long as we have lots of different families to tap back to then we have posibilities to fix things gone wrong, but if everyone is breeding the same families and bloodlines then there is no genetic variation. The rarer families need to be used alot more, their genepool widened and isolated as well because if they are used too much within the larger family groups then their blood gets lost anyway. If you use a rarer bloodline with the same family lines that are already governing the population then you lose the rare blood very quickly as soon as those individuals are used again with the main population.

What does the M1 gene do? Inquiring minds want to know!!

So the M1 is not a gene per se, it is a group of dogs within a family bloodline that is called M1 in the study. It means that the bloodline was not very popular (could be because of not being show quality, possibly because of isolation or dogs not being used enough from this line) at the time of the study. Today that line has been used alot more and unfortunately we have no new calculation to tell us where the population is at the moment or where it is headed in general. There are still a few lines that are very rare and I´m pretty sure the rarest is still the 0 family line (which you do have individuals from in North America), these dogs are still very few and far between because the “family” started out as 6 individuals and only a few have been used but only for one or two litters each. I am breeding to that line myself and trying to keep it a bit seperate from the larger family lines. The individuals in the original 0 family were not show dogs although they were quite typical including one alspori and one with double dewclaws on three legs. The question is how important is the rare blood? Do we want to preserve it at all costs? I say yes, since once it’s gone it’s lost forever and then no tweeking can bring it back.

The show dogs in Iceland are usually all from the same few families and those are the ones that keep getting used over and over again and are being exported again for their looks. I am a little embarassed to say that most of the best dogs are actually grandpuppies or linebred to a female from my very first litter and I feel that the line is getting much too widespread. It really isn’t fair to the breed when the popular dogs are the only ones bred, alot has to do with finances of owners (how much they can spend on dog shows, tests and “advertisement”), isolation (where the dogs live in relationship to the main breeding kennels) and the general interest of the owners in the world of breeding and showing. Many very good dogs are on working farms and never come out to shows this means that by default their genes are less widespread or they are never used. We can definitely lose good genes that way. I have during the years travelled many miles to mate my females sometimes in horrible weather, at times my travels were in vain but other times I was lucky and got puppies. Then a funny thing happened the other day, I found a wonderful dog who is already 10 years old and has been pretty much “hidden” because he is just a wonderful family member who works with horses and he lives just down the road from me. Oddly enough I found it quite strange to have a usable stud so close to me. J This is extremely sad and unbelievable that even after the study people seem to be less aware of dogs that are very important, few think of what and how they are breeding in regards to genetic variation.

Some are trying to breed to a low inbreeding coefficient which is a good thing for genetic variation for each particular litter (at the same time it gives us less consistency and means that each puppy is equally important in breeding since they are so very different genetically) BUT if the dogs are both in large family groups how low is the coefficient to the rest of the population and how will it be breedable in the future? It all matters, not just numbers on a pedigree. We need variation...many different unrelated males and many different unrelated females used equally in the population. If we have litters with low inbreeding coefficients then those puppies need to all be viewed as totally different individuals. If we have litters with higher coefficients then we can pick the better of the puppies for breeding because the littermates will have alot of the same genes. This is something that most do not realize and they spay or neuter good dogs from a low inbred litter, ending up having to use a genetically less good individual because it has a totally different genetic makeup than his neutered sibling so they cannot and will not give similar puppies.

I think it is wonderful that some of you are actually asking about this study and wanting to learn more. The only thing I would say is make sure you are bringing in the right family lines to do some good in your own population and the population worldwide.

The families were named with letters, the biggest most widespread was A and in the A there were also smaller families A1, A2 etc. Then came B and so on. In the study the families were listed and the countries they were in, some countries only had the A family and didn’t know it, they just kept importing dogs that they liked the look of and didn’t know how related they actually were because they were only looking at 3 gen pedigrees. They considered all these new dogs as “new blood” but in actual fact they were breeding the same genes back into the population that they already had. Then they of course used linebreeding and such to make a specific type. Iceland had as would be expected the most families and most of the rarer lines thus giving us the most different “looks” and the genetic variation was “obvious” in the dogs. Giving the impression to some that our dogs were “inferior” but in actual fact it meant that our population was a genetically healthy one (by means of variation and posibilities for new combinations). That does seem to be changing today, we have a more UNIFORM breed in Iceland at least within the lines that are being used the most because people are breeding what they think will win at shows which means breeding the most popular dogs who are all related. Mind you some of those dogs are now from the families that used to be rarer like the M family but usually mixed with the larger families. I think that I personally like to see variation in type as well as colours because it means that when the newest fashion has gone to extremes then we can go back and fix what needs fixing. I think that any country where the dogs are too similar are probably in danger of being in a genetic crisis in 50 years or probably less! That of course is my opinion and my own thoughts on the breed, I’m sure there are many who like all their dogs to be carbon copies of each other.

I believe that USA is mostly made up of B, H and M families which of course gives you a different population and in turn a different “look” than in other countries but as with all other countries you need new blood that is not the same as you already have if you want to keep the variation in the population and at the same time keep the breed within the current standard (which is always something we have to do as well). Unfortunately my computer is down so I can’t check my database to make sure which families you have but I do know that these three are prominant.

I guess I will let that be my two cents on the subject. Just wanted to chime in and say I am glad to hear that there are people that are curious. J Like I say my computer is down so I have been having trouble with emails and haven’t been keeping a very close eye on lists. But I hope this helps explain a little bit for those interested.

Greetings from Iceland that has SNOW for a change!!!!
Monika

http://www.tofradogs.com/

Check out the Icelandic Sheepdog on Animal Planet for the AKC Agiltiy Nationals

Hello Folks

Check out Animal Planet broadcast will be at 8 PM Eastern Time on February 10, and again at 11 PM Eastern Time. Rebroadcast at the same times on February 13 and cheer on the Icelandic Sheepdog Team!! Yahooo! Go Icelandic's Go!

New Icelandic Sheepdog orginal Artwork for my collection!

Hello Folks,

A Warm thank you goes out to Greenstone Voodoo Child's owner for the wonderful new drawing.. most of you will remember the drawing from last christmas of the puppy playing tug of wag with the Sheep :) This year, the family and VC has been doing lots of cross country skiing.

I can't thank all my folks enough for keeping in touch and sending updates and photos of the puppies as they grow up.

Barks

Congrats to all the winners in the DIF Iceland Sheepdog Show

Hello Folks

Well, I just had to share these wonderful show photos from the lastest DIF show, these are the male class dogs, all three different classes. These photos are from Tofra Kennel, so thanks to either monika or Runar for taking them.

I will admit to being a bit surprised, I have not seen the female class, but hopefully they will have them on the internet soon, but in the males, three things that I have seen coming, where in full force in the ring this time, and that is a) all long coated dogs, where are the short coats? b) Heavy big boned dogs c)Very Spitz like in overall type.

The one thing that I LOVE!! is that we have Red/White, Black Tri, Chinchilla's and lots of stunning white markings! I am so happy to see all the colors and patterns where out in force.

Truly beautiful dogs in the ring, they all look wonderful, but its interesting to see the difference in type change over the years.

Enjoy the photos..

Greenstone Ruff Diamond aka Duke

Hello Folks

New Photo of RD aka Duke for you to see his development at five and half months of age.. he is looking wonderful, great full coat, so much Ruff on his neck, that it makes him look shorter in neck then he really is.. lovely tail curl and still the most expressive of faces.

Hope you will enjoy seeing him..Don't forget he is available for adoption in the future to the right family. Please let me know if you are interested in him.