Finnshavn - The origin of a kennel name. My first Norwegian Elkhound was Vakker-Lund's Finn Eric, known to his
friends as Finn. My first litter of puppies were out of Finn. A Norwegian friend on the University of Western Ontario
campus suggested Finnshavn, which, in Norse, broke down to "Finn's havn". The word havn (in the english spelling, haven)
meaning a home or a harbor. Didn't every seafaring Norseman have his home on a harbor? Now, onto correct pronunciation:
It is Finns havn, with the long nordic a...maybe if you read it as Finns haauvn you will get it right. But please, no
'sh' sound in the middle, the 's' and 'h' are in different syllables, and elkhounds don't appreciate being shaved, eh!
Dai Morgan (pedigree)
Dai was born on the a7 ranche, Nanton, Alberta, in October 1963. He was bred by my aunt, Eleanor Cross, from two dogs sent to her by a welsh breeder of Hereford cattle.
He was a tremendous character, and, because of his intelligence, went everywhere with my wife and I. At the age of five months he started his first of several summers in the eastern arctic. I was studying goose biology, and Kaye was working on a Ph.D. in botany. When Kaye was in the north, Dai was her dog, and went everywhere in the field with her.
Dai was a master ball player, and he used his skill to get the human attention he craved. He thought of many ways to tempt humans to play with him. One his first trip to the north, he climbed out of a chartered Norseman after and hour and a half flight. We were met by half the settlement of Arviat, and they laughed at the crazy kablunat's dog. He knew how to reverse that!. He nosed through the baggage just unloaded onto the ice until he found the backpack with the summer's supply of rubber balls. He sat bolt upright, nosed the right pocket of the pack, looked at me, looked back at the pack, looked at me. I decided to reward him for his good behavior on the plane, so I got out a ball and threw it across the hard frozen snow. It bounced and bounced, he ran until he was under it, and lept to catch it almost three feet in the air. The Inuit were fascinated. Next morning he played for three hours, with a group ranging from kids of 6 or 7 to men in their 40s. The people formed a line, and the rule was, one throw, then go to the end of the line. By the end of the session a tired little puppy had a lot of new friends. And so it went for his life.
As Dai grew older, I wanted to find a dog of equal character. I went on sabbatic from my university teaching job, and spent part of the time in Britain. I asked among my wildlife biologist friends where to find a corgi, and was referred, by a very welsh Merfyn Owen to a kennel in Wales. This was Rhiwelli, in north Pembrokeshire, in sight of the Cardigan hills. The driveway was steep and had a deep washout between the tracks. Eddie Young and his wife had several breeds. They wanted to sell me a very nice red bitch who had done well in shows, but my assistant professor's budget, after a year of travelling, was not up to the price. In a big pen with five or more breeds in it (plus fresh sheep heads!) there was a young brindle bitch who wiggled to the front of the pack on the wire and said she wanted to see me. I asked Mr. Young, and her got her out. First she disappeared into the raspberry canes, but finally came out and rolled over in front of me. After we had made friends, I went inside to talk about details. I was sitting in the living room when a small brindle rocket came right over the 18" gate to keep the dogs out, and firmly curled up on my feet. That was it, she had bought an immigrant's ticket to Canada.
That was Dwyn - Can. Ch. Rhiwelli Llygad Y Dydd Can. CD (pedigree). Her first litter was, of course, by Dai Morgan. There were five puppies, but only one had its ears come up. He was a flashy tricolor, a color I had always wanted, so, of course, I kept him. He became Tully, Can. & Am. Ch. Tulemalu Black of Finnshavn Can. CDX, Am. CD.
First Litter - from left Dai, Tully, Dwyn, and 2 of the other pups
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Tully - Can. & Am. Ch. Tulemalu Black of Finnshavn Can. CDX, Am. CD
Tully taught me a lot. He was slow to mature. Contrast the slight, weedy dog as he finished his Canadian Championship at a bit less than a year with the beautifully proportioned five year old fionishing his American title after winning 14 points in 5 days. The advantage of this slow maturity was that he kept his figure, and won a group placement (Working Group!) at 8 years old, after winning a booster.
My sister Abby wanted something to do one winter, and thought that the obedience classes I was taking sounded interesting. I lent her Tully, and, to make a long story short, he lived with her, and loved her dearly, for the rest of his life. So, in 1977, when the first booster for Cardigans in Canada was held at the Barrie shows, she showed him to judge Leslie Rogers. Mr. Rogers pointed to the # 1 position over by the judges table, and very quietly said "Would you please take your dog over there." Abby thought they had been excused, as the ring entrance was where he was pointing, so she nearly left the ring, but he called her back and explained that her dog had just won Best of Breed!
Tully became the ultimate city dog, he went everywhere, including riding the subway, off leash with Abby. He was so prim and proper that he stayed home on rainy days, and would not get out of the car if there was a puddle on the sidewalk. Abby was working at the University of Toronto, and he became a fixture in the medical school office. One weekend she had him at the St. Lawrence Market. She wanted some meat, but dogs weren't allowed in the butchers' stall. So she put him on a stay at the door, and went in to buy. She had not noticed the big butchers' block right at the doorway. One of the men took a side of ribs over, slapped them onto the block, picked up a big cleaver and chopped them down to size. That was too much, and Tully the reliable took off. Abby got to the open door of the stall just in time to see him go out the main door of the market. She paid for her meat, and went out, circling the outside of the market, calling. Finally, when that didn't work, she went to her car, parked almost three blocks away, having decided that she would drive around the nearby streets looking for him. When she got to the car, there was Tully, sitting on the sidewalk pointing at the door to HIS seat, with an expression that clearly said "What took you so long?"
Booster in 1977, Tully left of center
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Whiskey - Can/Am/Bermuda Ch. Finnshavn's Whiskey Tax, Can CDX, Am/Bermuda CD (b. 1974)
Whiskey was the pick of my second litter. The breeding came about in a haphazard way. I was showing my bitch Dwyn (Can. Ch. Rhiwelli Llygad Y Dydd Can. CD), but was having trouble finding another dog to beat so she could finish her championship. People at the shows told me there had been a dog from New York State shown at the St. Catherines shows the year before. I was busy at work, so I could only enter on the Saturday. Jean Clifford of LeRoy New York was in a similar bind, and by chance she entered the Saturday show also. I liked what I saw in her male Taxi (Can. Ch. Brymore's Tax Refund, Am. CD), so asked if I could breed to him. The puppies were spectacular! Pick bitch, Trailwyn's Canadian Dividend went to Jean, and helped to found her very successful Trailwyn line. My pick was actually Finnshavn's Bryidwyn The Imp, a very flashy brindle, but his show days were definitely in the shadow of his big black brother.
That Whiskey would cast a big shadow began early. When the litter was 6 months and 1 week old, there were four puppies, plus both parents, plus Tully, entered in the Aurora (ON) shows. Whiskey took best of breed, under judge Stan Whitmore. Next weekend I drove to Akron Ohio for the CWCCA national. We arrived at the host hotel at 3 am, and were wandering blearily down a corridor looking for our room when two ladies coming the other way stopped dead in their tracks and gaped. "Where did you get that gorgeous puppy?" I of course, thought they meant Bryn, but it was Whiskey who caught their eye. Next morning we went into puppy sweepstakes in a class of 24. The judge was a very young Peter Clifton, from Britain. Whiskey placed first, and Bryn third. Then, in the regular classes, he won and won and won, ending up as Best of Winners, under a senior British breeder-judge, Sonnica Godden. At one point Miss Godden had him moving up and back alongside the eventual Best of Breed dog.
Well, that experience gave me an incurable infection of the dog show nut virus. What a pile of silverware we took home!
When Whiskey was about 18 months old, we went to three shows in Wiarton, Ontario, staged by the Grey-Bruce Kennel Club. It was a big working group, 26 breeds as I remember. Whiskey was not a born show dog, he was too gentle. But it became clear that the judge, Dr. Richard Greathouse, was looking at him. I was running out of liver because we had never been so long in the ring before. A couple of handlers said I went so white they feared I would faint. Well, Whiskey came out with a third in group, the first group placement ever won by a Finnshavn dog. The placings in that group were interesting - first a Pembroke, second a Samoyed, third a Cardigan, and fourth a Puli.
Two weeks later we showed under Dr. Greathouse in Michigan, and he kept us working in the group, but Whiskey was tired and would not move after the cut. Fast forward - I showed Whiskey a lot, then he had back troubles when he was eight, and had to retire from the shows. He would give his best Woo Woo Woo Woo! When I put the tack box in the car, but then put his ears and tail down and slink back to the house when it was clear he wasn't going. So, to cheer him up, I entered him in two shows on the weekend of his tenth birthday. Guess what - Dr. Greathouse awarded him a third in Group!!
For all his life, Whiskey was a dignified gentledog. He was the first dog I took to the office every day. He had his mat out of sight under my desk, and he never greeted visitors until I told him he could. I could count on him as a good ambassador, not matter what the occasion. He was not happy with big noisy circumstances, but his obedience traing kept him at my side no matter what.
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Melfyn - Ch. Llyndean's Melfyn Star, and more...
When showing Tully and Whiskey, I was mostly alone. Then I entered the Thousand Islands Kennel Club shows in Brockville, and, to my amazement, there was a local breeder of Cardigans, an older lady named Edna Dean. She had a bitch from Winsdown in the USA, and she bred her to Tully. The stud fee puppy was a male, who becamed owned by the D'Ombrain family. Melfyn showed well, and sired some important puppies.
Edna Dean imported another bitch from Britain, Ch. Rhiwelli Carrie Anne CD, call name Lynne. I actually had custody of her when Edna was ill, and bred two litters from her. The first was sired by Whiskey, and contained a surprise, plus a distinguished show bitch. The surprise was two red puppies in a Blue x Tricolour mating. Nowadays we know that this is due to the e allele, and the two red puppies would have been ee reds, but back then it was cause for trouble and scandal. That was not helped by the fact that the show bitch Can. & Am. Ch. Finnshavn Topwyn Farrah Fox, first owned by Mary Kaucic in Ohio, bleached in the summer sun so thatb her coat had a reddish cast. The bitch was sold to Nancy Buckland in Michigan, where she produced some fine puppies.
The second Rhiwelli Carrie Anne litter was sired by Tully, and produced a daughter, Ch. Llyndean's Yathkyed Kya, who lived most of her life with Abby, but produced some very fine puppies. Bred to her half brother Melfyn, she produced Ch. Finnshavn's Lady Known As Lou CD (Lou), who was the epitome of the old style Dilwel stock that my aunt first imported.
In 1976, I bought a bitch from Sherry Caldwell, a stud fee puppy from her import, Cann/Am. Ch. Dilwel Rowland. This was Can. Ch. Medwyn La Belle Canadienne CD, Bonnie to her friends. After having a couple of litters for me, Bonnie retired to live with my mother, and she took great care of mum. That was mutual. From Bonnie's last litter, by Tully, came Ch. Finnshavn's Willy Morgan CD, who lived most of his life with Abby.
Willy was bred to Lou, and produced a litter which achieved what I had planned, it produced two bitches of the old Dilwel style that Dai Morgan exemplified, small and wiry, but super intelligent. These were Ch. Finnshavn Here is Trouble, and Ch. Finnshavn Tammy. |
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