Odd Photograph

 Buhund  1 Response »
Oct 072011
 

Lyda Bjelland, Lyda Idland and Lyna Tjaaland, buhund show at Ålgård, 1926.A few days ago, this photograph cropped up on a feed, and it caused quite a bit of a stir among Vallhund enthusiasts since the photograph looked quite dated, no one could place it. It is easy to see why. Some of the female dogs in other breeds could easy pass for a Vallhund. Speculations such as “it’s an Elkhound” or “it’s a Norwegian Lundehund” were thrown around.
So, one of the members of the group blew up the photograph and cleaned up the image.

Lyda Bjelland, Lyda Idland and Lyna Tjaaland, buhund show at Ålgård, 1926. (Image: Unknown

 

Intriguing, no? Well, sorry to spoil the mood: it is actually a photograph of a Buhund exhibition in 1926 taken in Ålgård. Now, it is easy to understand where the confusions come from: Norwegian Buhunds are a regional strain of all-purpose dogs which have been used on moose, bears and birds while serving as sheep-dogs today in Scandinavia; and it is highly probable all Nordic spitzes shared the same gene pool, with regional variations.

Images

Facebook. (Image: Unknown)

Sources

norsk buhund. http://www.goldenretrievers.nl/jachthonden/buhund.htm (accessed October 6, 2011).

 Posted by at 4:00 pm

Basal Breed

 Border Collie, Buhund, Collie, Icelandic Sheepdog, Shetland Sheepdog  2 Responses »
Mar 182011
 

via chestofbooks.com [Image: W. E. Mason's Dogs of all Nations in 1915]

I prefer these dogs: such intelligent and expressive eyes with head cocked waiting for instruction or puzzle-solving– I can never figure out which is which. The latter is preferred: the puzzle-solving mindset.

Some people in the border collie world speculates the Icelandic Sheepdog is the ancestor of the collie landrace based on anthropological deductions of human migrations and language flows. Such a proposal is quite possible because before the fanciers got ahold of the Shetland Sheepdogs, they resembled more closely to the Icelandic Sheepdogs. Of course, Buhund fanciers like to claim their breed is the origin of the Icelandic Sheepdog and all of the Scandinavian spitzes. Do the math.

The theory is plausible. It’s easy to see where the Border Collie gets their traits from within the Icelandic Sheepdog; even the stereotypical coat pattern is shown in the old photograph above. All one has to do is just lengthen the hair and select for the strong eyes.

The Buhund thing? Hate to burst the romantic bubble here, not saying it’s false: if the claims are based on dog burials in Viking graves and tomb sites predating the Vikings, how can anyone ensure the dogs remained static over thousands of years? Look at how much conformation has changed in the field, in trials and show rings within the last fifty years!

However, it’s still a bliss to ponder about: the origin of border collies that is.

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