The Real Russian Retriever

 Hunting, Hunting  No Responses »
Nov 162011
 

So while breed historians like to state Russian blood made their way into the stocks of Golden Retrievers, the Soviets developed an actual retrieving breed:

via arsik.ru [Image: Potokera RR]

Shocked? So am I. That’s no Golden! It’s a HUSKY! Wait, not a husky, a Finnish Spitz. See, the Soviets developed their own strain of generalist hunting dogs by mixing dogs of the Karelia territory: Finnish Spitz, Norrbottenspitz and Karelian Bear Dogs in Moscow and Leningrad. However the kennels collapsed post-WWII, and Finnish Spitzes were imported heavily to resurrect the doomed breed. From that, the Russian rednecks devised the Karelo-Finnish Laika.

via arsik.ru [Image: Potokera RR]

It is curious however since many spitzes don’t readily go to water like the British retrieving breeds. So the association of waterfowls and spitzes never really connected in my head. It is important to note, however, these dogs are not expected to retrieve to hand but rather retrieve ducks and geese from marshes and tall grasses. Understandable. Note to self: don’t be a control freak.

Apparently these dogs retrieve quite naturally, probably because of their high prey drive; however heading to the opposite side of the pond and devouring the bird upon arriving on shore need to be trained out. Given how food-orientated these dogs are, it would not be difficult to delay the instant gratification of gutting their own birds. See, the dog expects its “prize,” offals such as giblets and feet, after a successful shot.


via arsik.ru [Image: Already retrieving at hree and half months old, Nikelberga LV, 2000]

It is noted these dogs are bank-runners, taking the shortest route on land before diving in for the tedious swim. Apparently these dogs could be trained as early as a few months if the prey drive kicked in early. However, given how soft these dogs are, yet defiant, I doubt rejiggering their brains with electronic collars for line-running would tide over well and could potentially ruin a good dog.

One would have to keep in mind, these spitzes are not specialists, however they are generalist hunters bred to be stubborn and keen. The keenness is why dogs can be employed as “hunt-point-retrieve” dogs during birding seasons, yet act as bear or boar dogs during the off-seasons.

Wait, an all-season dog? If the Finkies are anything like Shiba Inus, they would associate certain objects with certain games, let it be a certain type of gun, a boat or just the type of clothes one wear. Hell, anchoring a boat to the top of the SUV is enough to get a dog excited about going on a fishing trip. Or hitching a trailer meant going bushwhacking.

Finkie on a Tanuki

 Hunting, Hunting  No Responses »
Oct 262011
 

A footage of a Finnish Spitz working a raccoon dog:

The Soviets introduced the Siberian Raccoon Dogs (Nyctereutes procyonoides ussuriensis) between 1928 to 1958 to East Europe in attempt to expand the fur trade. The problem is the raccoon dogs are now viewed as a pest species in much of Europe since the grouse populations were decimated; however scientific researches say otherwise. To combat the invasive species, dogs are effective for culling since the raccoon dogs are too elusive for guns and traps. Of course, some may say that only pint-sized working dogs can do these kind of jobs.

See how in the thickets, the hunter located his dog by following the barks? That is how a bark-pointer is used. I have yet to go on a hunt which employ bark-pointers as bird-dogs, only with pointers and retrievers, but I would love to someday.

Find the Grouse

 Dogs, Hunting, Hunting  2 Responses »
Sep 282011
 

Let’s the Capercaillie takes the role of Waldo for a minute, shall we? Okay. We are looking for a sihouette of a bird roosting in a tree. It’s sort of shaped like a turkey.

So, where’s the grouse?

Clue: Look at where the dog is positioned and how he is positioned. Neck angulation tells all.

Click on “Pages: 2″ to reveal the answer.

Suit Up!

 Absurd Finds, Hunting, Hunting, Hunting  5 Responses »
Sep 142011
 

Inevitably, no matter what we try to do, there is always some kind of risk no matter what we do with our dogs. Fido might go out in the suburban backyard, and a cougar would scale the fence to gobble him up. A wolf might pick off the good old reliable Roy the Cattle Dog scouting ahead on a hike out in the bush; or a curious street-savvy coyote might be bold enough to take a petite leashed Maltese going for a neighbourhood stroll in the presence of her owner. These are hidden dangers we might face as soon we leave the sanctity of our front steps.

In Finland, Norway and Sweden, since wolves are endangered and are a protected species, there is an increase in frequency of attacks upon hunting dogs. In Canada, this is not unheard of and it is an accepted part of life– and we control it by hazing predators, or by shooting the ones taking livestock. However the Scandinavians came up with something rather unusual. It’s called “wolf-jerking.”

Mirka from Gekkoo No Kennel in Finland was kind of enough to share these pictures of something she read about in a magazine a few years ago with us on a forum:

Norwegian Grey Elkhound in a teal spiked cut-vest tearing into a moose.

A vest based on the ancient concept of spiked wolf collars.

A medium-sized black-and-white dog with in a dark green nylon jacket with orange horizontal stripes. The jacket has a wrap around the dog's neck.

This vest employs electric juice.

In Finland, these are called “susiliivi,” and in Sweden, they are called “vargvast.” Both means “wolf vest”. The electric vest, lines with wires, is actually quite heavy for the dog to wear, weighing about a kilo [about 2 pounds] for a medium-size dog. The other vest is made with four rows of 40mm spikes mounted on four layers of ballistic nylon fabric and Kevlar.

A Karakachan livestock guardian dog with an iron collar and what appears to be nails welded on.

Wolf protection collar in Bulgaria.

So how do they work? Well, the spiked model is fairly obvious. It is nothing revolutionary. The idea of using iron and steel to deter predators has been going back for eons and it is still used today in Eastern Europe, Central Asia and the Far East. In fact, it is not uncommon to see cabins in North America lined with thick long iron nails, often around window-stills, to deter bears and mountain lions from snooping around. So the spiked vest is an old concept applied to what hawgdawg enthusiasts call a “cut vest“.

A close-up view of a small grey tab on an orange vest where the voltage are stored.

The brain behind the vest.

The idea behind the electronic vest is if a wolf attacks a dog, it would receive a powerful jolt. This is not unlike the idea of using shock collars as a non-lethal depredation method pioneered by the Defenders of Wildlife.[1] Now, the vest is far from perfect, as one anecdote reveals a scenario where the dog was shocking itself repeatedly.

What is amusing is one prototype protects the neck; while the other protects the belly. Nevertheless, in a country where poaching a wolf lands one in serious hot water, these are rather interesting solutions.[2]

However, it is futile to refrain from captioning this:

A Norwegian Grey Elkhound in a teal cut-vest. Two lines of spikes are visible on on side.

Move over Neapolitan Mastiff, Viking Dog is now Gladiator Dog.

And to be honest, when I see the electric vest, Barney’s “Suit Up!” catch-phrase, from “How I Met Your Mother”, echoes in my head.

Footnotes

  1. In North America, wolves are protected in a few states, and the population density is too low for ranchers to protect their livestock through depredation. A study shows wolves regularly comes back to a bait station every 5 days. Using a shock collar fitted on 5 individuals, the incidence rate was reduced to every 47 days and the shocked wolves moved away 0.7 kilometres away from the shock zone. The interpretation of the study is the shock collars could be used to establish buffer zone during calving seasons.[source]
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  2. Wolves went extinct in the 1970s in Sweden, and was recolonized from Finland. However there is a growing concern there is an under-reporting of poaching, despite the fact a four-years penal sentence serves as a deterrence, as there are only 250 out of a projected 1,000 individuals in 2011. Consequently, because of the high illegal hunting pressure, the Swedish wolves are highly inbred suffering from skeletal and reproductive disorders.[source]
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References

Hawley, J., Gehring, T., Schultz, R., Rossler, S., & Wydeven A. “Assessment of Shock Collars as Nonlethal Management for Wolves in Wisconsin.” Journal of Wildlife Management 73 (4), (2009): 518-525. Accessed August 14, 2011. doi:10.2193/2007-066.
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[HTML] [PDF] Lieberg, Olof, Guillaume Chapron, Petter Wabakken, Hans Christian Pedersen, N. Thompson Hobbs and Håkan Sand. “Shoot, shovel and shut up: cryptic poaching slows restoration of a large carnivore in Europe.” Proc R Soc B  (2011): 1-6. Accessed August 17, 2011. doi:10.1098/rspb.2011.1275.
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Images

Tunturisuden Susipalstalle. ”Ruotsalainen susiliivi”. Last accessed August 15, 2011. http://www.tunturisusi.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=25&t=1850 [Images: Unknown]

Sheep! “Karakachan Livestock Guardian Dogs”. Last accessed August 15, 2011. http://www.sheepmagazine.com/issues/31/31-2/karakachan_livestock_guardian_dogs.html [Image: The Bulgarian Biodiversity Preservation Society]

PYSTYKORVA.INFO. ”Susiliivit pystykorvalle”. Last accessed August 15, 2011. http://www.pystykorva.info/viewtopic.php?p=12187 [Images: Vilperi]

Dogs and Hunting Cultures

 Hunting, Hunting, Ponderings  10 Responses »
Sep 072011
 

Paddy Burns at terrierman is at it again. He is commenting on things which he knows either very little about; or shoots off the hip without researching when he could have saved face instead.

This time it is about wolf domestication. I cannot help, but wonder if the recent trends inspired his lovely post. After all, Mark Derr is publishing “How The Dog Became The Dog” soon due for the end of October; and Stephen Bodio recently endorsed it. Given a recently released study from August, “A 33,000-Year-Old Incipient Dog from the Altai Mountains of Siberia: Evidence of the Earliest Domestication Disrupted by the Last Glacial Maximum”, supports some of the fore-coming ideas in Derr’s upcoming text, it is all too coincidental.

However I don’t particularly care for Mr. Burns’s dismissal of wolf domestication. After all, his ideas are rooted in Cesar Milan’s alpha pack theory which was debunked by wolf scientists in the last decade.[1] Good luck trying to convince someone whose ideas are based on dogma instead of scientific facts. Besides, the fact he owns terriers only further roots his position in alpha camp of dog-training; seeing how terriers are retarded socially and are well-known not the sharpest tool in the box. Any respectful owner of primitive or aboriginal dogs will tell you the alpha theory is a fast-track to ruining a good dog. If one wants to ruin their dogs, that’s fine, their fault.

However what is really irritating is this:

Wolves still exist all over the world today, but no one is domesticating wolves in order to turn them into hunting partners. In fact, most primitive people do not use dogs to hunt at all, and for a very good reason: dogs are more likely to alert game than find it, and dogs are not all that easy to train to a high degree of command. Look at the the techniques used to bring home the bacon in primitive cultures all over the world, and you are more likely to find stealth, snares, traps, poison, and human drivers rather than dogs. Trained wolves used to hunt? They exist nowhere.

While the battleground is via the comment system on his own blog, I am cross-posting since much of the information imparted also pertains here.

Usually he censors his commentors. I don’t censor. After all, there are ways to deal with trolls; usually by ridiculing them. I responded in the lion’s den anyway. Oddly enough, He approved it. I was all raring to go to re-post the censorship on this blog instead. However I forgot to comment under Dave@PrickEared instead of an old Blogger account since a self-hosted OpenID server is not enabled on “Prick-Eared”. Regardless, here’s what I have to say:

souggy said... "Wolves still exist all over the world today, but no one is domesticating wolves in order to turn them into hunting partners." Why would they? Wolves have been prosecuted by agriculturists for well over a few thousand years. The modern wolves which survived into this era are the legacy of paranoid canines leery of humans trying to exterminate them. No one in their right mind would re-domesticate the wolves-- they already did so over 10,000 plus some years ago. "In fact, most primitive people do not use dogs to hunt at all, and for a very good reason: dogs are more likely to alert game than find it, and dogs are not all that easy to train to a high degree of command." Again, you are wrong with this assumption. The Evenki people relies on laikas extensively as a means to survive to find protein (squirrels) for consumption and fur for commercial trades. Heck, the Matagi were only armed with bows and spears and extensively relied on their dogs up until three decades into the 20th century. Likewise, the Sami lived in a similar fashion, with their Nordic spitzes, to the Matagi and the Evenkis prior to the industrialization of Finland. The Inuits and Seiskari people needed dogs that could find seals, so they employed Qimiq and Seiskarinkoira to detect breathing ice. They no longer have these traditions because sealing is frown upon. In the case of Aborigines, the dogs acted as sentries.

And here is what Paddy Burns, or rather PBurns, has to say:

PBurns said... Sooggy, you are missing the sentence and the facts. I do not say dogs are never used by primitive people for hunting, only that they are frequently inapproproriate for primitive people, and you give good examples to support my case. The Evenki and Sami are reindeer hunters and herders, while squirrels are not a primary food source for anyone with a bow (have you ever made an arrow or eaten a squirrel?) when a deadfall trap will do the job and bigger game is about. As for seals, you might try to learn a bit more here -- open holes have to be visited to stay open when it is cold, and the job of seal hunting is about stealth -- something a dog is not very good at for the most part. Yes, a dog can signal on a seal, but you would not want one at the hole! Dogs in the arctic are about transportation, guarding, herding, and even a food source at times, but rarely about hunting. As for Inuit seal hunting, it is still done quite a lot, and though rifles may be used rather than spears, the core methods are not much changed. P

Here is my response to the above statement. I had to break it down into two since Blogger has a character limitation of 4,096. Let see if he will actually publish them. I doubt it. Here is the original excerpt with two noted corrections made after submitting:

I am not misinterpreting or misrepresenting it at all. You, on the other hand, intentionally left out the variables to why some hunting cultures are completely dog-centric and why others are not.

The San of South Africa recently discovered they could take more animals with dogs than they possibly could with traps and traditional hunting methods. The Bushmen of the Congos still use the Basenjis for the same reason. And if you haven’t discovered Carl Lumholtz, he discussed in great details about how the Australian Aborigines hunted with dingoes. In Thailand and Vietnam, they need terrier-like dogs to find bamboo rats, which fetch the people a quite a sum of money on the market. One cannot trap these rats as they are usually sold alive, and rodents are notorious escape artists. The only place I am aware of where hunting dogs don’t exist in non-Westernized societies is probably South America and parts of Africa; but not all. And in those cases, it’s because they don’t have access to dogs.

Regarding the Samis and Evenkis, you are being a self-styled expert here. Yes, you are correct, they do have a reindeer culture[;] but the pastoralist lifestyle is and was only a fraction of the population. Historically, the Sami were the only people qualified to hunt bears; similarly, the Matagi of Japan were also bear-hunters, with serows and boars on the side, and so were the people of Siberia. However, baying elks (moose) and bears were not always seasonally reliable in the Far East; and sometimes grouses hit a natural lows. During those lean periods, squirrels were and are taken. Furthermore, for many centuries, even in Northeastern Europe, squirrel pelts were a currency until the 19th or 20th century, and a made barking spitz is worth many times its weight in gold. Even after the value of pelts declined, they [the dogs] were still vital in the fur trade for discovering martens. A good dog will fetch a hunter larger profit than a trapper could. Also, I love how you glossed over the fact the Evenkis were commercial fur traders since the 16th century after the Tsarist opened up Siberia to Europeans. It was then the hunting laikas became highly specialized.

Regarding seal-hunting. It is a dying genre. Seal pelts don’t go for much on the markets these days. Diamond and gold mines basically replaced trapping as a viable industry, and supermarkets and McDonald’s drove down the price of food. The seal-hunts are merely only traditional these days and many are thinking of phasing it [out] completely since it is cost-prohibitive to conduct such a thing.

However, I do have relatives who lived up in Cambridge Bay during the ’80s [Correction: late '60s, early '70s] and actually have hunted with huskies; albeit not the Qimiq, but that is the breed usually associated with such method. While it is correct to say the dogs are mostly used for hauling and transportation, it is errenous to assume they don’t use them to hunt. Amongst the people, it is considered as foolish or insane to hunt for seals without a dog if one lacks modern technology. A breathing hole would ice over within an hour, and the holes themselves are near impossible to find. The good thing is that seals tend to surface every ten to thirty minutes, which allow these holes to be frequently scented. If a dog finds a hole, there is a good chance a seal used it five minutes or fifteen minutes prior. But of course people don’t do this anymore. The folks of Labrador now have fancy equipment for their annual hunts.

In addition, if one listens to the elders, the Inuits and Denes once used dogs to hunt caribous in packs in a similar fashion to how people in Virginia would hunt deer with hounds. However no one does this anymore because snowmobiles replaced the dogs. Nowadays, people runs down caribous until they tire with machines.

What you seem to be intentionally leaving out with the trapping method is: it’s not reliable, and it is usually based on a combination of luck and experience. A dog with good instinct, keen eyes and a good nose takes luck out of the equation. Even then, it’s usually laws which forbid hunting more so than the practical value. For example, in many part[s] of North America, one cannot takes a fur-bearing animal without a registered trapline; so of course someone in America would be naive. In many countries of the Middle East, the government banned hunting which stripped the dogs out of their jobs. Oops, there it is.

In hindsight, I am not sure why I haven’t commented on “high degree of command.” If one talks to anyone who hunts with Elkhounds or Laikas, these dogs are notorious for not listening. They don’t take commands very well. What people are looking for in these dogs is a particular sense of intelligence. So while a dog is not expected to listen, they are expected to catch on quickly after the first try. For example, if a dog barks, it might frightens the hazel-hen, so the dog learns to stay quiet; the owner is not expected to teach the dogs this; but the same dog will learn a capercailllie will not hold still without being barked at. Also the dog will learn if it doesn’t bark excessively at a moose or a bear, the hunter may not come to spare the dog of a certain end; on the flip side, a deer or reindeer startles easily, so they must stay silent while on track during a stalk. There are natural consequences for these things which only require little or no training. Many of these dogs don’t even know the command “sit”, at best “lie down”, yet they are still valued hunting dogs.

Seeing you are such an armchair expert, maybe it’s best to stick with what you know best: terriers; because terriers are not exactly known for contextual learning.

Seeing how Terrierman is not beyond removing an old post out of public shame, click here for a webpage screenshot, or access a Google cache copy here.

There is one thing I forgot to correct: there are hobbyists in North America who engage squirrels and grouses with primitive methods such as bows and arrows. It is why some species have evolved to roost near the trunk as eons of selection pressure by human predation pushed toward a preference for concealment from the arrows. Also, in some of the ethnic languages, squirrel is interchangeable with “protein” which highlights the significance of the critter within their diets. So all across the board, it is an epic fail.

So, kids, let this be a lesson: don’t say things which will provoke others to discredit; that is if you don’t want to be publicly shamed on another person’s blog.

Resources

L. David Mech. 1999. Alpha status, dominance, and division of labor in wolf packs. Canadian Journal of Zoology, 77: 1196-1203

L. David Mech. 2000. Leadership in Wolf, Canis lupus, Pack. Canadian Field-Naturalist, 114(2): 259-263

Images

Information About Laikas – Squirrel Dog Central 2010. wsl4ever2 . http://www.sqdog.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=98479 (accessed July 13, 2011).

Hunting with the Karelo-Finnish Laika

 Hunting, Hunting  6 Responses »
Aug 242011
 

A documentary set in Sweden with the red prick-eared barking dog landrace. Unfortunately it is not in English, but still amusing to watch:

Note the hunters give their dogs a prize after every shot. This keeps them excited for the next hunt. Besides, primitive dogs are well-known for their cunning intelligence and being manipulative in their refusal to work for free.

Actually, there is a copy of this in Swedish on a hard drive in its entirety. The above YouTube clip is edited as some are out of sequence. However it comes from a segment of the Dianas Stigar series known as Jakt med Trädskällare. If anyone wants a copy, please ask so I can direct them to a legal source.

Once again, if a transcript could be provided, please e-mail info at prickeared dot com. Much appreciated.

Moose Training

 Hunting, Hunting  5 Responses »
Jul 132011
 

Found this clip on YouTube while looking up on Google for practice of hirv-koulutus [trans. "moose-training"]  The device is called a konehirvi [trans. "moose machine"], and it can readily be purchased off the Internet.

The moose machine, or what Google mistranslates as “the terrible machine,” which is a apt name for such dangerous beast, is suppose to ease the cautious nature of the dog and allows the handler to encourage the dog to approach and bark. Once the dog gains the confidence in barking at an artificial remote-controlled moose, he is then taken to a hirvenhaukkukokeen [trans. "moose trial" or lit. "moose-baying test"] to judge the dog’s range and search ability and its approach to the real thing.

Keep in mind, the moose machine is not a substitute for encouraging the dog to range out and perform a wide sweep; nor is it an indicator of the dog’s willingness to work. It serves only as a measurement for how the dog would perform in close quarter.

Sagacity

 Hunting, Hunting, Laika  1 Response »
Jul 062011
 

Weeks ago, I asked a wildchild of the elkhound tribe, Scottie from retrieverman, what he would look for in a bark-pointer: ranging in, after he did a series of posts on the British definition of sagacity in a dog. This tadbit about what Scandinavians value in their dogs was discovered in Lewis Lloyd’s The Game Birds and Wild Fowl of Sweden and Norway (1867) (pg. 119):

There are dogs in Scandinavia nevertheless whose sagacity teaches them not to give tongue to the Hazel Hen when treed seeing that it will not trycka to them in like manner as the Capercali and the Black Cock and when therefore the bird has flown up into a pine the dog stations himself a few paces from its stem and by merely wagging his tail and whining in the quietest manner possible gives his master to understand where the quarry is to be found Even when the Hazel Hen is treed a practised eye is often required to discover its whereabouts for it frequently sits so shrouded amongst the branches of aa umbrageous pine as not to be readily discernible at least to the casual observer It is so cunning moreover as to regulate its movements by those of the fowler for whilst he is on the look out for the bird on one side of the tree it creeps to the opposite leaving during its progress little more than its head exposed and that solely for the purpose of keeping the enemy in sight

What’s so hard about shooting a grouse? After all, they are related to the ditch-chicken in North America, no? Heavy prosecution of capecaillies and black cocks led to more skittish birds. The difficulty of treeing a hazel-hen is highlighted in the following passage (pg. 118-119):

The Hazel Hen being held in such high estimation Scandinavia various are the devices resorted to effecting its capture Some are shot to the Stand IIund or pointer though the number I take it is inconsiderable from that dog being little available in wooded districts where alone those birds are found But very many fall to the Fogel Hund especially in the early part of the autumn for when treed by the dog the birds trycka or sit close and can with difficulty be induced to leave their perch Not so at a more advanced period of the season for then so soon as the dog begins challenging they commonly take wing and move off elsewhere But even during the winter I have shot many when treed by my bear dogs or when after being scared by the latter they were flying from tree to tree

You can’t teach this stuff to dogs. A dog of certain intelligence is forced to make a judgment call based on the context of the situation and the timing of the seasons.

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