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Birningur, who is called Jaki, is an Icelandic sheepdog male. He was born on the 7th of May 1996. I imported him from Sweden from Inger Jönsson. But it was not easy at all to get an Icelandic dog... When I was five, I wanted to have a dog, but I was 21 before I actually got one. For sixteen years I had wanted my dog to be an Alsatian. When I finally moved out of my parents' house and got a chance to buy a dog, I thought an Alsatian might get sick a lot, be too big, and be difficult to handle. So I started to read books about dog breeds and found one dog, which seemed to be very beautiful and its character description pleased me a lot. That was the dog I would buy! There were no puppies available in Finland, so I called one breeder in Sweden and reserved a female pup. A few weeks later I found out that I couldn't get a dog from that breeder, so I called another breeder. This time I said I would take either female or male. But again there were not enough puppies. Then I heard about one more breeder who had seven three-week-old puppies and some of them were not reserved. Finally I got my dog! When I decided that my dog would be an ISD, I absolutely wanted a female of light yellow (cream) colour with a black face. I also wanted her to be longhaired. Well... Jaki is a red male that has a white face and short hair. At least the breed is still the same. All in all, Jaki has been a very easy dog. Jaki has never broken anything, not shoes or furniture, absolutely nothing. Of course we have had some minor difficulties, like when Jaki was six months old, he started barking when he was left alone. I bought a "lemon collar", Aboistop, which prevents the dog from barking. Jaki also had diarrhoea once or twice a week until he was 16 months old. Then I found out that the reason his stomach was so upset was because he's got many allergies. He is allergic to milk, fish, turkey, pork and beef. I changed his diet and everything has been fine since then. Jaki is a Finnish Show Champion (FIN Ch) and we train obedience & search and rescue (rubble search). We have a right to compete in 3rd obedience level, which is called "the winners class" in Finnish. We have also taken part in agility for two years, but we had to quit in spring 1999, as I just did not have enough time. Jaki is the first (and only) disaster trained ISD in Finland. We also started a new hobby in January 2005: Jaki is nowadays a trained Therapy Dog. We visit hospitals, old people's homes and so on and bring joy to people who live and work there. Jaki has double dewclaws on both hind legs and on his right front leg. He is a very glad dog, easy and willing to train, open minded, friendly and lively. He doesn't fight with other males and isn't afraid of shooting or New Year's rockets. He likes to be near me and to be padded. He has his own will, which is, I must say, quite strong every now and then. Jaki wants to take part in everything and that is why I very often take him with me wherever I go. |
