Latest pedigree comments in the database

http://www.tofradogs.com/English/Litters/2001a.htm

Ch. Töfra Lagsi

7:45 am 300 grams double dewclaws

 

Shorthaired, HD-Fair (B1). Lagsi has progeny in the USA from Aldebaran Kennels but needed to change homes and is now owned by Greenstone Kennel in Canada. Lagsi had a bit of a tough start (his long plane trip in the cargo hold as an 8 week puppy did not help). Possibly due to the fact that he was de-barked as a young puppy he has developed some stress related problems and difficulty communicating with other dogs. Apparently the owner had too many dogs and the barking became a problem with the neighbours. Understandably you have to make changes in such a situation but in my opinion de-barking is not the answer, it ruins his ability to communicate (even by growling) and although he can still make a strange muffled sound it is unfair to the dog and other dogs misunderstand his signals. When buying an ISD it´s important to know that some do bark more than others, they rely on this important communication tool and if you feel barking will be a problem then perhaps a different breed is the answer. I think training needs to be the way to go with an ISD and also keeping the dog in a less stressful environment if he shows a tendancy to bark too much, being in a single dog home or with a non vocal laidback breed is probably the best solution for a dog with barking habits. Luckily Lagsi is with a very understanding owner today who loves him for his character and is willing to go the distance to give him a good life. He has undergone alot of training and been altered due to his stressed state, since we are not sure how much is genetic (his father is a bit of a barker) and how much learned behaviour. Lagsi did become an ARBA Champion with his first owner.  

http://www.tofradogs.com/English/Litters/2001a.htm

Töfra Lappi Tyrfingur

6:05 am 300 grams double dewclaws

Longhaired, HD-C. Lappi is living in Sweden. First photo taken by his first owner, here he is still a puppy, probably around 6 months. Right photo was taken at a dog show held by the Swedish Club, I don't know his age here but he was a young dog not yet two. Unfortunately, after his hips were checked he was given away to a new home and I don´t know where he lives now or if he is alive.

http://www.tofradogs.com/English/Litters/2001a.htm

Töfra Ljósbrá Lotta

5:45 am 255 grams one double and one single dewclaw

Shorthaired (medium coat), HD-A. Lotta is living with a wonderful family at Kennel Fra Olafsfjordur in Holland. Photo taken by her owner. Please take a look at her owners homepage, there are many beautiful photos of her and also of her offspring. Lotta is a very feminine female and she by all accounts takes after her mother alot, except Lotta is more photogenic, Frigg on the other hand is impossible to take good photos of  :-)  In 2006 I imported a daughter of Lotta named Hólmfridur. 

http://www.tofradogs.com/English/Litters/2001a.htm

Töfra Ljúfur Bangsi

5:35 am 335 grams double dewclaws

Shorthaired, HD-D. Bangsi is living in Finland. Photo taken by his first owner at Kennel Saagelin, here he is around 11 months. Bangsi is said to be a remarkably good herder and is used with cows on the farm where he lives. He has a calm, friendly and even temperament. Alina at Kennel Saagelin finds great homes for her dogs and keeps in touch with all her puppy buyers so I occasionally get news of Bangsi and know he is much loved.

http://www.tofradogs.com/English/Litters/2001a.htm

Töfra Ljósálfur

4:30 am 295 grams double dewclaws

Shorthaired, HD-Good (A2). Töfra Ljósálfur stayed with me until he was around 4 months old. He was my very first "puppy subject" (well the two litters were until they left) with clicker training. I was fortunate enough to be able to show Alfur a few times in Norway before he left. He was a very popular puppy at the shows and everyone including the judges fell in love with him for his character and charisma. He walked a perfect heel at the age of 3 months and the judges couldn´t believe their eyes, because although he walked like a fullgrown obedience pro he also showed extreme happiness and puppy spirit while he was behaving! Operant conditioning (clicker training) wasn´t well known in Norway at the time so of course this surprised people to see a young puppy behave so well, I´m sure there are alot more dogs in the ring today with similar training. Shown on the left with his Best Puppy in Show rosette at just under 4 months (he wasn´t old enough to take part, in Norway they have to be 4 months old, but the show organizer allowed us to take part because there was only a day or two until his 4 month birthday. Of course the judge didn´t know he wasn´t quite of age yet :-) Alfur is one of my favourite puppies, he was so easy to train and so calm and sweet. He travelled around Norway with us in a car for as many as 9 hours each trip and never a single bark or whine, he just amazed me with his temperament. He had to endure an extremely long trip with lots of delays so I was very worried about him during our trip, he had to travel in Cargo but I was accompanying him on the plane. The workers at the Boston airport couldn´t pronouce his name so they called him Oliver and they kept me informed of how he was doing while we had a long stopover so I didn´t worry about him as much. He was a real crowd pleaser and I´m sure he must have left a good impression of Icelandic sheepdogs in the minds of all of the airport workers, in Iceland, Boston and Canada, never a bark or whine, calm collected and happy to be where ever he was and with whoever was with him. Alfur is owned by Pineridge Icelandics in B.C. Canada and has some offspring in Canada and USA. 

http://islandhund.dcnh.de/html/ullais02nachkommen.html

Family Groups

S 16011/99  Dilkurs Fylkir  30.12.1998  Kersins Tappi (B3)  Edda (M2)

http://www.tofradogs.com/English/Litters/1997.htm

Töfra Fimbultýr

13:25 pm 354 gr. double dewclaws

Töfra Fenrisúlfur

15:00 pm 368 gr. double dewclaws

Fenrisúlfur lives in Norway. He had a difficult first home where he was more or less chained up outside, I did borrow him for a couple months and took him to shows while he was with me, he did very well and got wonderful critiques especially about his temperament. He has two certificates of the three needed. While he stayed with me I took him for an operation to fix a wound that was bothering him around his right eye. He had been bitten and it was let heal on it's own so his bottom eyelid was split in two and hung loosely causing tears from wind and cold that would leak down his face. I felt so sorry for him but the vet that did the operation did a wonderful job and you can hardly see the scar on the photo above. He unfortunately forgot one piece of a stitch when removing them so this one scratched his eye until we realized it and took him back to remove it. He was always a very good dog and very patience no matter what was done with him. He still belonged to the former owner at this time since he was also being ex-rayed while I had him so he was sent back home. He was diagnosed with HD-C so the owner wanted to find him a new home. I am still very grateful to his first owner for actually allowing him to have a litter despite his diagnosis. He luckily found an extremely loving family where he still lives and is spoiled rotten. He did attend a few shows with his new owner but would hide behind him and not let the judge look him over, I found this very strange but wonder if it has something to do with the problems after his operation or possibly something else. He was a very open and friendly dog while we had him. He also has one unregistered litter with the female Icelandic (unregistered but purebred) that lives with him. In his registered litter he had a wonderful black tri longhaired male who has A hips. Sadly no one has used him yet. 

http://www.tofradogs.com/English/Litters/1997.htm

Nord N S Uch Dk Ch NV-99 Töfra Frigg

14:05 pm 338 gr. double dewclaws

Frigg was the puppy that I wanted to keep but I got an enquiry from Norway for her and her brother and I decided that I really didn't have time to add another dog to my home so I sent her to Norway. A couple months later out of the blue we got an offer to rent out our house and we decided to move to Norway ourselves to have a bit of an adventure and learn more about dogs. So I got to watch Frigg as she grew and in the back of my mind I always wished I would have kept her. The owner had alot of dogs and when Frigg often ended up being the "punching bag" for the others to attack I felt very sorry for her. She became a bit skiddish and nervous which was so unlike her as a puppy. The owner got her hips checked and Frigg had a mild hip dysplasia so immediately she didn´t want her anymore. Well, of course I jumped at the chance to take her back and I never have regretted it! I later got her hip x-rays read by a specialist vet in Sweden who unofficially told me that they were UA (which means free in Sweden). In my mind she is free, in any case she has extremely good movement and stamina. I often forget how old she is she reminds me so much of her mother, forever young!   

http://www.tofradogs.com/English/Litters/1997.htm

Töfra Fúsi Freyr

13:50 pm 356 gr. double dewclaws

http://www.tofradogs.com/English/Litters/1997.htm

Töfra Fríða Freyja

12:10 pm 324 gr. double dewclaws

http://www.tofradogs.com/English/Litters/1995.htm

Töfra Tinna - Died 05.10.2006 from bone cancer

4:25 am 340 gr. double dewclaws

Tinna to the left as a puppy and her mother on the right.

Tinna has been a bit of a traveller, she moved with the owner to Norway for a few years but then came back to Iceland. She was mated once but the male dog proved to be sterile. Unfortunately her owner was too busy with a business, children and her Labrador breeding (her husband is a hunter) so Tinna never did have puppies. She was a very much loved family pet who enjoyed the lazy life but with alot of experiences. 

http://www.tofradogs.com/English/Litters/1995.htm

S Uch Töfra Tíbrá - Died in 1997

2:35 am 380 gr. double dewclaws

The single most common cause of death in the Icelandic Sheepdog and it doesn't seem to have any borders. Tíbrá became a Swedish Champion at the age of 2 years and then was tragically hit by a car with the other female Icelandic that lived on the farm. It was an extremely sad time for the owner, she lost both dogs at the same time. She eventually got a daughter of Stjarna's who was also black tricolor. 

http://www.tofradogs.com/English/Litters/1995.htm

Töfra Tófi - Died ?

3:35 am 368 gr. double dewclaws

Tófi lived near Selfoss at a place called Kaldaðarnes, he was sold as a pet because his one testicle never descended. I went to visit him around a year old to check to make sure it hadn't come down and that is when I took this photo. He was a lovely dog, strong and very breed typical had a good tail with hook and beautiful head. Tófi used to run with his owner when she went cross country skiing. Due to a change in circumstances I heard that while I lived in Norway he needed to find a new home but they gave up looking for a home since he was a chryptorchid no one wanted him to breed from either so sadly I found out that he was put to sleep. 

http://www.tofradogs.com/English/Litters/1994a.htm

Töfra Teitur -

13:37 pm 316 gr.

16 months old on photo.

Teitur was a sweetie but a little bit rambunctious. His owner was a 15 year old girl and needless to say when she started to grow up and got pregnant at a very young age she needed to find a new home for Teitur. I´m sad to say that because I lived in Norway for so long I lost touch with many of my dogs owners so I don't know where he is or if he is still alive. Last I heard his owner was thinking of moving to Denmark to study but I'm not sure if she did or if she took him with her (I doubt she had time for him). Teitur came to visit me a few times and I babysat him while he was young. The photo above is taken when he was at my place and Freyja is in the photo with him. I just loved the way he slept. He like Tígull had a gorgeous strongly curled tail with a hook and small ears with a beautiful head just like his Dad's with an expressive face. 

http://www.tofradogs.com/English/Litters/1994a.htm

Töfra Tígull - Died 14.01.2003

12:20 pm 406 gr. double dewclaws

1 year old on photo.

Tígull's owner owns and runs a famous tourist shop here in Iceland called Islandia. Their daughters owned horses and a pet rabbit that Tígull used to love to play with and they kept each other company when no one was at home. Tígull was shown if I remember only once and he got 1.prize and champion quality. He was a beautiful well built dog with an awesome temperament, calm and friendly and I loved to visit him when I got the chance but it wasn't that often. Tígull had a bit of a habit of running away from home and a few times the owners had to bail him out from the dog catchers. Unfortunately this trait must have been inherited from his father. Tryggur was the same way both with his former owner and at my friend's house, it is said to be a genetic trait but we were young and not too familiar with genetics at the time and my friend and I weren't quite convinced of this. I decided to use Tryggur because I absolutely adored him, he had one of the most typical and beautiful heads I've seen, that head is almost impossible to find these days. We of course wanted to believe that a lot had to do with training. We live and learn, don't we? I have heard that farmers in Iceland often put dogs to sleep that continually run away, this was to be Tígull's fathers fate but he was "saved" by my friend and used a few times in breeding and then later exported to Denmark. Anyway, Tígull ran away from home one too many times and my friend who was planning on using him for breeding found out that he had been hit by a car and died only about a week before she called. It was very sad news indeed since Tígull was in my opinion the most beautiful puppy from this combination and he only had two puppies during his lifetime. At age 7 years one of his daughters did have a single puppy but that male turned out to be a chryptorchid. Sadly Tígull's beauty and character was not to be passed on in the population. Tígull had strong double dewclaws and a perfectly  curled tail with a hook. 

http://www.tofradogs.com/English/Litters/1991.htm

Töfra Snubbur 6 - 7 years old in this picture. 

12:55 pm 312 gr. strong double dewclaws

Snubbur acted in a TV commercial as a 9-10 week old puppy. He was a sweet puppy and still one of my favourites. He lived with us until he was 3 years old and then we had to find him a new home because the stress of being around females during their heat was too much.  We just felt sorry for him and think that was the best thing to do for him.  He lived with us in Canada and he and his mother (Holmfrídur) were the first registered Icelandic Sheepdogs in the CKC in miscellaneous class.  He moved back to Iceland with us and then went to live on a farm and was very good herder.  As far as we know he is still alive but the last we heard of him was in 2004.

http://www.tofradogs.com/English/Litters/1991.htm

 

Töfra Snókur (Tryggur) - Died in 2001

9:00 am 345 gr. double dewclaws

Snókur otherwise known as Tryggur lived a good life and is missed.  He was a bit of a secret celebrity here in Iceland because his owner insisted on having him with him on photographs when he was being interviewed. His picture can be found in some old magazines and newspapers.  His owner was a politician in Reykjavik whose son (the producer of the commercial Snubbur was in) practically tricked him into getting Snókur. It proved to be the perfect match, Snókur was much loved by his owner Magnús.  Snókur died of age related renal failure at age 10.  He is 3 years old in the picture.

http://www.tofradogs.com/English/Litters/1991.htm

Töfra Sigfús - Died in 1993

10:55 am 356 gr. double dewclaws

Sigfús was a happy go lucky character but lived a short life.  His owner lived in Reykjavik.  He was unfortunately hit by a car while I still lived in Canada.  He was around 2 years old.  He is 7 months old in the picture.