Dog Community

Kooikerhondje

Posted : 9/27/2008 4:32:10 PM

Anyone have any actual experience with them? How do they compare to tollers other than obviously being smaller? I hear they also have more health problems due to a smaller gene pool. . Yeah, I keep finding more and more breeds that appeal to me the more I look. (Borders, Aussies, Pyr Sheps, Tollers, Shelties, etc) I should just stop until I can actually get a dog. Of course these are so uncommon here it's very unlikely I'd get one, it's just another breed that's stricken my fancy lately and I'd love to hear more about them!

brookcove

Posted : 9/28/2008 1:17:12 AM

I've heard of them but not looked at them much because of the teeny gene pool. Is that true overseas, too?

How about the Croatian sheepdog if you are interested in something out of the ordinary? Type in the breed name in You tube and you'll see a bunch in action!

Laurelin_429

Posted : 9/28/2008 9:39:49 AM

That is an interesting breed that I'e looked at before as well. Very similar to mudik in appearance at least. Very rare though from what I can tell. I have heard differing things regarding health with the kooikers and that they are very very soft in temperament, which will probably not work for at least the next couple dogs. I do think they're gorgeous though, and would love to learn more about them. I am just very partial to the smaller red and white spaniels. ;)

Laurelin_429

Posted : 9/28/2008 11:04:29 AM

Oh yeah, Becca, not to turn this into another BC thread (LOL) I was wondering about size. I know they vary a lot and from friends I see it is even so in the same litter. Do you think it'd be very hard to get a dog on the smaller end of the size spectrum? Assuming that I get a puppy instead of an adult, of course. I just keep thinking about trying to make sure the new dog isn't going to be too big for Summer.

brookcove

Posted : 9/28/2008 12:40:36 PM

If you get a female they tend to be smaller than the males if there's going to be a lot of variation in the litter. If you started looking at working breed litters I could give you an educated guess on whether the females will be smaller or range larger. My Trim, who was huge, was from Burtersett Lad lines, for instance. That line tended to throw great big dogs whether male or female. Another line that throws big males, at least, is the Dryden line, but we are far enough from the founder that the size has gone down quite a bit. As I mentioned somewhere else, it's been a while since we've seen a founder dog that passed on substantial size, at least here in the US.

What I've found is that temperament is so much more important than size. Last year I "swapped" out two older, well bred dogs for two teeny females who were almost uncontrollable as they possessed little to no impulse control. I could have added four such dogs for those two females - they are so unobtrusive. and manageable.

Laurelin_429

Posted : 9/28/2008 1:03:17 PM

I wasn't too worried with size until I started talking with pap people and they kept saying things along the lines of 'I'd never get a larger dog with my paps, it's just too dangerous'. But then again, many of these people think the shelties are too big to go along with them and we've had no problems at all. I am still definitely leaning towards a border as the next dog though and will definitley be asking for some help finding a good match if I go that direction.