Kai- Female Norwegian Elkhound
This is Kai, the awesome daughter of Tora and Bram, photo taken February 10th, 2018, she is bred to Leif in this photo.
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Kai, shown below with her mother Tora a few years ago*
Everyone who follows the site knows that Tora and Bram were an incredible pair of Elkhounds. They produced some of the very best Elkhounds found in Canada, Kai was one of those.
We knew we were going to be keeping a female and in the old world breeding principles if possible, you wait as long as you think you can before selecting a descendant. This principle is thought to allow the breeder to select from proven dogs, as they would be able to see some previous litters, you would know a bit of history on the pups. Also, as old world principles in breeding are designed to limit the amount of genetic changes by waiting as long as possible selecting at the last litter gives the longest time frame without a genetic change. Now of course with selection based upon the female the time frame is always most likely going to be shorter, as you could select from a male at an older age. In this case we were wanting the Tora/Bram combination of genetics, so we selected based on Tora's final litter, not on Brams final litter.
*Kai and Mia, are shown below, Mia is the grandmother to Kai*
The
reason we selected on Tora, is because we want to keep the Mia,
Tora, Kai lineage, basically keeping the foundation female side
of the equation - ultimately you keep the male side as well, but
the only way to keep the female side of the genetic combination
is to select daughters from the mother, who was a daughter from
the grandmother, etc.
Mia of course had a tremendous impact on our breeding program, mother of Tora, mother of Jaegar, 25 incredible pups, tons and tons of granddaughters and grandsons, so it only made sense to utilize that awesome genetic lineage and keep it in our program.
Kai, Tora and Mia, 3 Generations of female Norwegian Elkhounds Shown*
I had
spent years hiking and working with Mia, and of course Tora. I
knew the reliability, the nature, the genetic instinctive skill.
These are highly sought after today as lineages lose that
instinctive skill fast unless a breeder can keep both sides of
the equation.
For many people they don't know that for a breeder sometimes you have to choose between the male side or the female side. In many cases they simply can't keep both. Obviously you would need to have double the capacity for dogs, as you would literally be keeping twice the amount, but in addition to that comes all the outcross breeding males you require.
If all you selected on was the sire, the male side, then you would just bring in outcross females and you could use that male for many years. No other male really needed. So many breeders do this exact thing, select only from the sire. It is far more cost effective from a sheer economic standpoint.
An illustration of that simple program in effect would have been to bring females in all the time to use with Takoda, and finally, now at ten years old, keep MÅNE and that would be the extent of the hold back in breeding stock. All female genetics would be displaced, we would not select on any of them, the only genetic female side we would be keeping is the mother of MÅNE.
In that equation you really lose out on all the top female genetics that come before the final selected male. There could have been many amazing females with seriously good qualities, but using only the sire side you would not have retained any. If there were qualities that the male for any reason did not present, then, those qualities are literally lost. This is exactly what has been occurring rapid fashion in North America as breeders don't fully have the capability to handle both sides, and undoubtedly, they don't actually understand the concept, and further to that, don't have the good ancient females left to select from anyway.
So
for us, we are committed to retaining all the genetic material.
The beauty of this whole old world principle is that if you have the sire as well, and you know he is proven, then by default you get the best of both worlds as both sides of the equation follow down to the third generation. So in our case, we have the Mia genetic line saved, and we have the Takoda line saved on the female gender side. ( Jaegar and MÅNE save the male gender side of Takoda).
So Kai is an extremely valuable young female in our opinion to our program from many standpoints, but specifically a crucial standpoint of preserving the ancient genetic blueprint that follows, Mia, Tora and now Kai. Had we not kept Kai, both the Mia and Tora genetic contribution would have been lost. Ultimately we would have lost the female side of the Bram /Tora contribution as well, which we know is a spectacular set of genetics. Bram is shown below, father of Kai.
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Bram: An outstanding male Norwegian Elkhound, Father of Kai.
Bram is first generation in Canada with his background all out of Norway, this is an extremely good Elkhound. We have been blessed to have his genetics in our program. Cathy and Blaine have raised an incredible male and keep Bram in top shape all the time.
Kjekk
- Norwegian Elkhound Male - One of Kai's ancestors a few
generations back
Kai's ancestors a few generations back of course are a very capable and rugged set of dogs, all true hunting dogs, and many Champion hunting dogs. The big fella to the left is Kjekk, a Champion hunting Norwegian Male over in Norway. Her ancestors are true working dogs, they range, hike, hunt and protect. Yet they can win show after show as well. Kjekk is a perfect example of a working Norwegian Elkhound male in his element.
As
far as a rugged hiking dog goes, Kai is one of the most
rugged I have, with perhaps an exception of Jaegar. She can
actually in almost all cases be ahead of Jaegar, go where he
goes, easily as fast, and has tremendous stamina. And I mean
tremendous stamina.
I wrote an article in one of the other newsletters about the perfect size Elkhound, the power to weight ratio, balance, energy, etc. all the things that make up a perfect Elkhound, and why. Kai simply happens to be the living example of all things perfect for a Norwegian Elkhound female.
Kia is a super responsive female. She is almost literally instantaneous to commands these days. This is a critical trait that has been fading in the lineages. Less and less breeders get the dogs into situations where they can actually "Test" the response in all situations and so don't actually know that it's fading, until too late. In our program of course and terrain we put them in I need to have that response time and I can see all the dogs at once in the same environment and watch the responses.
I
have a very good group but still Kai is extremely fast in her
response and her comprehension and desire to work.
She is shown here on a high mountain hike, it's been a tough climb, she is happy to have a break at the top, and there is no doubt, I am happy to have the break as well.
We are thrilled with the pups from Kai and Hachi, I had the great honor to have some of those pups here for the Desna program and it's so fun working with them. They are like little Kai's in a male version. What a great thing to see all the fast moving traits, the ability to pay attention and much more. We are so pleased with them. I would not hesitate a second to have another litter with Hachi and Kai. But we are going to move forward with our divsersity program and use Leif. That will be an awesome match for Kai as well.
As of September 7th 2017 Kai now has her second litter on the ground, this litter is with Leif. Kai had 7 healthy and strong little rascals, some very serious Norwegian Elkhound Puppies. We are excited to see how they develop, they look terrific already as I write this on the 10th of September, 2017, photo of them on the sidebar.
The September pups turned out magnificent. I am very proud of them.
This
big fella shown to the left is Kavik, one of the tremendous
young males from Kai and Hachi, the first litter she had. Look
at the power and substance of this fella and he is shown in the
image at 7 months.
I have a full write-up from Chris on this big fella named Kavik.
Please click here to view the Kavik Update
I got a great update from Nate and Erinn the other day. They have a son of Kai and Hachi from first litter, a tremendous young male named Coho. Thank you Erinn and Nate for such a great home you give Coho, AWESOME!
I have a full write-up from Nate and Erinn on this big fella named Coho.
Please click here to view the Coho Update
