Breeding - showing

About Us

About the Breed

Breeding

Toller diseases

Breeding - showing

Breeding - hunting

Breeding - game tracking

We never attended any exhibition shows with our first dog, Maico, though he grew up to become a handsome Labrador. In 1985 we got our second Labrador, Robin, and with him we attended some shows. Our first show with Robin was the Norwegian Winner Show in Sjølyst in 1986. Robin had learned that he often got his treats if he sat down, so he practically sat all the time while in the ring! But though he hadn't been trained for show he became 2nd best Junior Male with an honour prize. With that our interest for exhibition shows started to increase, but we only attended a few more shows before we lost interest.

In 1992 we finally got our first toller, Anya. We were curious about most things in the dog world, and wanted to try many activities with her. So you can say she was our guinea pig. Anya attended several shows, she was trained for hunting and tracking and she had several litters. So when we first started our career as active dog owners, we tried almost everything.

Now we've shown our dogs for more than 10 years, and both the positive and the negative aspects are clearer to us now. Showing your dog doesn't demand much training in advance, so it can be a great starting activity for inexperienced dog owners. At shows you will meet a lot of nice people, you can exchange views with other dog owners and you get an objective evaluation of you dog and/ or your breeding.

People that achieve good results with their dogs on their first shows often become devoted for life. Though the results may vary later, they will still remember the excitement, and they will keep striving to get that feeling again.

People that get negative comments on their dogs at the first shows will most likely give up showing. Many people seem to think that you only find envy and gossip ringside, and you do find that, but if people could be more objective when they evaluated their own dogs, there would probably be less envy and gossip. Not all dogs are born winners, and if you are honest with yourself, you will probably see why the other dogs do better than your dog.

Different judges will have different favourites, the dogs have their rainy days and the owners definitely have days when they should have stayed in bed.

We often hear people saying that the breeders often win with their dogs because they know all the judges. Of course that can happen, but on most occasions there are other reasons for that. Breeders often have several dogs to chose from, and they will seldom show a dog that is not fully fit for showing (properly trained, well musculated and in excellent coat). They also tend to know what kind of type the judges like, and they will show only dogs of that specific type.

If one has good sportsmanship and an objective view on own dogs, showing is a great activity with your dog. Since we're breeders, there are many reasons for us to show our dogs. But in short terms it's mostly about getting the judges opinions on our dogs, and of course the excitement of holding the leash of the BIS-winning dog…

Back