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Russo-European laika (REL)
- Origin
of the breed
- Standards
of the breed
- Hunting
characteristics of the breed
- Photo album
- Video materials
1.
Origin
of the breed
«Until the XIX century all spits-like dogs were
called laikas in Russia. Fearless Finnish elk- and wolf–hunters were mated
with Russian shepherds-duck hunters which resulted in this wonderful
breed».
New encyclopedia of dogs by B.Fogle. Moscow,
Astrel, 2003
… Had I known this Bruce, I would smash his face
in (especially because of Finnish hunters) … Well, excluding the phrase
about wonderful breed)!
Thus, the
Russo-European laika!
And
again, Leningrad and Moscow were leaders in starting the modern breed of
REL. At the initial stage of breeding national laikas (when modern breeds
weren’t distinguished and were shown in the same ring) dog breeders from
Moscow and Leningrad used chance dams, that were brought from Komi
Republic, Archangel region and some other places.
We should mention that only dogs with fine
working qualities were brought. The breeders originating from West Siberia
and dogs from Leningrad with Karelia - Finnish roots were rarely used. In
fact, Russo – European breed originates from blending of Archangel dogs,
Komi Republic dogs (zyryanskaya
breed), Karelia laikas, votyatskaya laikas, vogulskaya laikas,
hanteyskaya (West – Siberian) laikas
, Kirov, Kostroma, and other types of laikas. In the 60-s all that
mix was aimed at breeding black and white color dogs (Karelia dogs). It
resulted in the appearance of REL breeding centres in Leningrad, Moscow,
Kalinin, Kirov, Yaroslavl, Vologda, Novgorod and other regions. So, the
Finns with their “fearless Finnish elk and wolf hunting dogs” can relax, as
REL is a genuine “Russian North laika”. A standard for REL exterior was
male Putik (born 1946) which resulted from interbreeding Khanty (WSL)
female Pitukh-II with male Muzgar from Komy. Muzgar had black and white
color and had an excellent exterior and hunting qualities. Mating this
couple turned out to be successful zootechnical experiment of
interbreeding. Besides Putik this mating gave birth to Pomka and Pur (black
and white), Pit (white with black) and Pulka (white). Mating Putik with Pomka and other females
begins contemporary REL history. Putik mated West Siberian laikas,
therefore REL has WSL blood and vice versa.
Standard
of the breed
General
appearance. The dog is of medium height, strong built and spare frame,
with a well-muscled body; it’s lively and active. Withers height is 52 to
58 cm for males and 50 to 56 cm for females.
It should be noted that the standard continues
to increase the height of REL. thus, at the end of 2006 male height was 54
to 60 cm (plus 2 cm of tolerance, i.e. 62 cm in all). The discussion about
the height of REL started as early as 60-s of the 20th century.
Highly respected scientists Voilochnokovy wrote: “By the early 80-s among REL dogs
alongside with excellent breed dogs there were many those who had
undesirable properties, such as withers height, when the dog was 60 – 61 or
even 63 cm.” They also pointed out the differences between male and female
dogs, including their size. “The majority of females had withers height of
50 – 52 cm. We believe that increase of height is the requirement of present time and
dog breeders should take it into consideration while selecting dogs (don’t
decrease the height of males, but
increase the height of females. You can judge yourself: Laikas of all breeds
were mainly used for hunting the furs and game. Who would allow Russian
peasants to hunt boar, elk or bear? It was inconvenient to carry the dog in
the underground, bus or train, as well as feed it and keep in a communal
flat. Now things are different :there are no furs or game (in fact, nobody
needs them), there are private hunting grounds with a lot of licenses for
hunting hoofs and bears; there are more and more jeeps, much cheap food in
shops, and the amount of space in houses per person has grown considerably. Many of dogs’ owners
never go to the forest (some have no time, others are too lazy, still
others hate hunting or fear it; they go to different testing stations, test
dogs on bears, or boars, or batchers, or foxes, have small talks about
hunting, drink, and eat, and have feasts, in a word, enjoy themselves.
I often go to the forest and I strongly believe
that REL which has strong brisket, muscle bulk and excellent form (height
60 – 63 cm, weight 28 – 33 kilos) is good at extensive hunting, it has
perfect stamina, hunts well on deep snow; will rush into water at – 30
degrees, won’t stop hunting until
the master is exhausted. Get me right, I also read somewhere that
laika dogs hunt game until it “gives in”. It’s all rubbish! Experienced
dogs are never in at the death, they go to hunt again and again. That’s
why after skinning and dividing
meat you’ll have to search for the dogs for several hours.
Head. V-shaped. The dog is
dry-mouthed, with wide skull. Seen from above it looks like a equilateral
triangle. The length of the muzzle is smaller than that of a skull.
Transition from forehead to muzzle is hardly noticeable, cheekbones are
prominent. The muzzle is pointed, dry-mouthed The upper line of forehead
and the line of the muzzle are parallel , with thin, tight, not flabby
lips.
Commenting the quality of head it should be said
that experts often mix prominent cheekbones with side-whiskers. I often saw
when the dog with a narrow skull was highly estimated when it pressed “thick
Pushkin like side whiskers” and vice versa – a dog without side
whiskers was thought to have no skull, though it in fact had a wide skull.
Eyes.
The eyes are with a lively and jolly look, clear, of medium size, oval,
rather slanted, not sunken nor bulgy, brown or dark-brown at any fur
colour.
I think that experts are often wrong to find
fault with the dogs for having “the eyes which are too light”. I can’t
remember a situation when light brown eyes worsened the hunting qualities
of a dog.. The color of eyes is a merely aesthetic criterion, as light
brown eyes don’t look really nice especially on the black head. Well,
that’s the question for the experts to consider. I am a hunter and a dog
breeder. I can only recommend to you to do the following when choosing a
puppy: if a month old puppy doesn’t have the blue in his eyes and its pupil
isn’t visible (directed at bright light), this puppy is sure to have dark
eyes (you can rely on my wide experience)
Ears are rather small, pricked-up, nimble, in
the shape of slightly stretched triangle with sharp edges.
REL ears
can be put in different ways. We have observed that the dogs with a
powerful, massive scalp have wide put ears; when they are quiet, they can
even hold them apart, but when they are tense, they’ll keep them close
together. Dogs with a narrow scalp have high put ears, as a rule. Lately, a
great number of dogs with big and soft ears have appeared and in their work
dog breeders began to take these unfavorable circumstances into account.
Legs are straight and parallel. front pasterns
are a bit inclined, domed. The fifth finger on hind legs is a minor fault.
It is
believed that the fifth finger is a consequence of close inbreeding. There
is nothing bad in it but during a hunt it results in breaking this finger
against the crust, brunches, etc. that’s why it’s necessary to examine the
hind legs when the puppies are born and if there is the fifth finger, it
should be operated on 4th day. Many experienced dog breeders do
it themselves but it’s better to turn to the vet for help.
Tail. Ring or circle, sometimes pressed to a
hip. The dog running, the tail unfolds. Tail goes to the tarse or is 1 to 2
cm shorter.
Thick at the set, short, tense ring tail is the
pride of REL. They often ask why laikas have such a tail. This wonderful
quality was worked out for practical purposes during the process of natural
selection. While hunting the dogs had to go through thick bushes and
forests, where their ancestors would tear their straight tails, besides a
dog could be caught or bitten at the drooping tail by the animal (a bear,
boar or badger) which it was fighting with. For the dogs that stand over
more ground a tail is a sort of a balance, for a square format dogs such a
balance is an obstacle when it leaps aside to avoid the hit. It’s worth
mentioning that European hunters found a different way out of the situation
– cropping dogs tails, it concerned many dogs, hunting dogs among them. The
Northern people didn’t resort to such “barbaric means” and worked out their
own ones.
Coat. The coat is thick and broken,
straight. Feathering on the neck, on the shoulders and on the wither makes
side whiskers, collar and scruff. The coat on the head, on the ears and on
the front side of the legs is short. There is some feathering on the rear
side of the hind legs. The tail is evenly coated, between the toes hair
makes a small brush covering foot sole.
The type of the coat is an important indicator
of REL hunting qualities. Soft, long coat gets wet quickly, the frill gets
iced and frozen as a result the dog can’t move, it lies for a long time
trying to get rid of these “snowballs”. We can recommend a very simple
thing to do – the owners of dogs with long and soft guard hairs should cut
them before winter; consequently they would not hinder them while hunting.
As for the dogs with normal length but soft hair would never duck into
water in winter. The majority of REL dogs with usual short, tough and dense
guard hairs, with thick, flea proof undercoat enjoy swimming in
non-freezing rivers and ponds when the temperature is -30 degrees; they just
get out of water, shake off and …get away with it. There is no need to wash
the dog in winter, it can wash off its natural fat and deprive it of
“waterproof qualities”.
By the way, talking about flees! I’ve never used
a special anti-flee shampoo to wash my dogs. The flees can’t move in the
very thick undercoat and can’t live there. That’s it!
Color.
Sorry, we’ll give the docket of the standard later.
The colors are usually black skewbald and white
and black. It means that the dog can be absolutely black, but it should
have at last one white spot, and on the contrary, the dog can be all white,
but it should have at least one black spot. For the vast majority of REL
dogs the proportion of black and white color is 90 to 10 up to 60 to 40 per
cent. Absolutely white puppies are often born, which is a good thing,
because REL dogs are gradually becoming black and future white breeds help
to sustain beautiful black and white
color of REL dogs in balance. In general, white color dogs are much better
for hunting as any bird or animal can be better seen against a background
of a white dog. Preference for black dogs appeared because of city hunters.
A city is always dirty, hence a white dog would not be practical, as nobody
is eager to wash it every day, while you won’t notice dirt on a black dog.
If you keep a dog in the country, you’ll be able to feel the beauty and
enjoy hunting qualities of white colored REL dogs.
Faults.
Too long in relation to the scalp massive muzzle, too small or too big eyes, bat ears. Too long
or saber tail. Absence of ear lobe pigmentation. Don’t be afraid to choose
a puppy with much white color on the
pink or spotty nose. In recent years I haven’t met a puppy whose
nose hasn’t become all black by the age of 3 – 4 months.
Coat
faults. Underdeveloped undercoat, waved or short coat, too long at the back of the tail and on the inside
of forelegs.
Hunting characteristics of the
breed
REL suits
hunting any game: bears, elks, boars, deer, roe deer, badgers, beaver,
raccoon, lynx, martens, ferrets, squirrels, wood grouse, partridges, ducks,
geese. In general the dog is quite
universal, it has outstanding genetic hunting qualities and can be trained
for hunting even rhinoceros. Every dog, though, has specific
individual characteristics that should be taken into account while choosing
and training a puppy (see the section on choosing and breeding puppies).
One and the same dog can’t be of universal character, i.e. it can’t meet
the requirements and rules of hunting any animal or game. For example, a
choleric dog (easily excited and spiteful) can have first grade diplomas at
testing as well as show excellent
results while hunting a bear, boar, badger, beaver, lynx and ducks,
but you can hardly imagine it performing as well while hunting elks, deer,
roe deer, martens, squirrels, wood grouse, ferrets and so on. Why, you may
ask? In order to keep a bear, boar, badger or beaver the dog must be very
aggressive and sly, often makes pain sicks when the animal tries to escape,
doesn’t pay attention to the attacks of the beast and various wounds. No matter what character the dog has, the
lynx (cats will be cats ) will go on sitting on the tree. In the same way
REL of any character is suitable to hunt as a “spaniel” in bulrush and
swampland. Elks, deer, roe deer, martens, squirrels, badgers, wood grouse
and ferrets require calm and kind treatment. That’s why a sanguine type dog
is necessary (don’t touch me, stay where you are and won’t touch you). A
sanguine type dog will quietly bark at the beast (it doesn’t press or bite
in vain). If you pressure the elk (deer or roe deer) too hard, the animal
disappear in a twinkling of an eye and you’ll have to look for it together
with the dog in the neighboring region. The Finns, though, use a tenacious
type of dogs (no matter what their nervous system type is), which can
follow elks or deer days and nights. But mind that there is a good road in
Finland every 10 km, a commercial hunter has all necessary equipment for
hunting including GPS or radio navigation for dogs (see “GPS navigation).
An easily excitable dog will jump the tree, gnaw the rind and branches,
bark aggressively; with such behavior of the dogs no squirrel, marten or
wood grouse will stay where they are. A spiteful dog will press down a
raccoon which will be paralyzed; the dog will either tear it to pieces or
leave it, thus, the animal will be wasted because the master is a far away
and won’t be able to identify where the animal is without the dog’s
barking. Sanguine dogs get experience very quickly (it depends on the
frequency and type of hunting) and they can change their behavior while
hunting different animals: from the very start they good at hunting
squirrels, martens, raccoons, wood grouse, ferrets, ducks; by the age of 3
they are able to set an elk, deer, roe deer, boar, badger, lead and even
set a bear, but it will never be able to hunt a bear in the way a choleric
type of dog will. Aksay, the champion ( a typical sanguine dog, see the
photo in the top right corner) would work at a bear for a long time (3 – 10
hours) on his own, but would never approach it at shot distance. I don’t
know why, but I never kept a choleric type of dogs. At the beginning of the
page you can see a photo of Razboy, the champion, who is a typical choleric
(the owner I.Flerko , St.Petersburg,
village Ilyechevo). All three pictures show the dog in dynamics. Just see
the beauty of the dog: the dog keeps up with the bear when it is
retreating, grabs the bear which is turning around and the dog begins to
retreat, meanwhile the bear makes
dash for the dog which jumps off gracefully and escapes the hit (do
you enjoy the height of the dog’s flight?). Powerful Razboy, the champion,
a capricious dog was imprinted not only in its descendants (Aksay, the
champion, among them), but in my hands (used to bite a lot); he worked well
at bear and boar, working both alone and in a brace. You could use Razboy
effectively while hunting an elk as well (only when there is a line of
shooters). The dog would rattle the elk all over Leningrad region. Such
brilliant dogs (having brilliant masters) leave bright memories in the
national hunting god breeding history.
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