International Tamaskan Forum

martinbernstein

I've been thinking of making and selling waistbelts and bungee leashes, but I don't know if there is a market for it. I'm curious why most people prefer to walk their dogs on a leash? Don't you wanna be hands free? I've walked my tamaskan and her Karelian Bear Dog brother on a two-prong bungee leash...

martinbernstein

Cool. Thanks. Nice to know there is still life out here. Congrats on the baby. Have a 14 month old human myself.

martinbernstein

I haven't been here in a while. Used to be pretty active way back when. Am I mistaken that there isn't as much activity now as there used to be? Is there another more active website? Would be nice to reconnect and find out what's going on.

- Martin (owner/owned by Frøya age 7 of Conchur Tamaskans)

martinbernstein

Good points. Both would be the best. As you say, a hunting dog should be trained to hunt, but also to know when the hunt is over. A shepherd dog needs training in shepherding, but needs to know appropriate times to work and not. The point I'm trying to make is that it is completely natural for a sle...

martinbernstein

I'm reading a lot of 'nightmare pulling' and 'impossible to walk' comments on the forum in general. But isn't that to be expected? I mean after all we acquired a breed that has serious sled dog genes in it, why wouldn't your tam pull? I gave up trying to train my girl out of pulling. I got her speci...

martinbernstein

And to answer your other questions- yes, your home will look like a mess even if you do give them plenty of excercise. Remove garbage, books, CDs and anything else they will want to explore! Every day I come home and find something chewed on. Finally, my Tamaskan was my first dog. It was agood first...

martinbernstein

Velkommen skal du vaere. I have a question- why would you use a dog to hunt deer? Roedeer, in my experience, don't react the way a bull moose does to a barking dog. Deer will just run until they can't run anymore. Tamaskans are fast and have great endurance and would run a roedeer down eventually, b...

martinbernstein

Oh boy. You would think that all that breeding and all those puppy sales would make them rich. Interesting that the judge lowered the restitution payments due to their inability to pay more.

I'm glad the law caught up with them. I hope the dogs are ok.

martinbernstein

What exactly were they found guilty of? Were they producing five or more litters a year?

martinbernstein

I know that Elkies bred in the states (I assume that's where you live ) are not bred with hunting abilities in mind so it is quite possible that the Norwegian Elk hounds in Scandinavia retain the traits they were developed for better than do the American lineages. They may be more suitable for subur...

martinbernstein

Hi there. Looks like you're doing your homework which is great a first step. Many people skip that step and get these dogs because they look like wolves, and regret it later because they had no idea what they were getting themselves into. As an owner of both a Tamaskan and a Karelian bear dog (which...

martinbernstein

I'm so glad that the breeders are finally considering ANCD as a serious possible outcross. This could add a whole new dimension to the Tamaskan breed. New color genes (solid black and black agouti being the most interesting), new color shades and hues, and less husky-like conformation. Hope this goe...

martinbernstein

I made the mistake of trusting her off leash when she was younger and she would be gone for hours at a time. Eventually she ran away for an entire night. Came back with her face and shoulders covered in blood. Likely a deer.

martinbernstein

Cannot trust my tam girl off leash.

martinbernstein

Comparing my two dogs i would say that overall my tam is the easier of the two as long as we're indoors. As long as she is inside the house she is super quiet, a total couch potato, friendly towards most strangers, and loves to cuddle. My male Karelian Bear Dog however is hyper indoors. Friendly, bu...

martinbernstein

HiTenshi, I think it is reasonable to talk about tams, or any breed for that matter, in general terms. I'm not trying to paintall tams as challenging. The breed as a whole is challenging. There are individuals that are less challenging, but overall I think it is safe to say that in general this bree...

martinbernstein

And Weylyn, I agree with you that much of a dog's behavior issues rests on the owner, how they train the dog, love the dog and work the dog. But there cannot be any question that genetics plays a huge part in how an individual dog, and a breed generally responds to that training, and handling. The t...

martinbernstein

I know there are are individual dogs that don't suffer from severe SA. My own Tam does not. But are there entire bloodlines that can be said to be generally less prone to SA than others?

martinbernstein

Hey Lucas, you just piqued my curiosity- what tam bloodlines are you referring to that don't suffer from severe SA? Are there such bloodlines? On another note, I have worked on two meat farms that had livestock guardian dogs, one with maremma sheepdogs, and another with Anatolian shepherd x Great Py...

martinbernstein

Hawthorne, I wish all breeders of "challenging" breeds followed your practices. It sounds like you are doing everything right. And from the other breeders I've talked to over the last few years it seems like most of them do a good job of informing their puppy buyers.

martinbernstein

Terri, I agree, I wouldn't leave my dogs alone with kids. They have never been anything but loving towards kids, but my tam especially is fairly unpredictable. At three years old she continues to surprise me with new behaviors (mostly good, but some destructive) and I just wouldn't it. I hope i am n...

martinbernstein

martinbernstein Hey, if you have a horrible rabbit infestation then a tam will quickly help you control it! I've seen Froya literally swallow young cotton tails whole. She doesn't even chew. And of course the poor buns scream the whole way down. But yes, I think you are making a wise decision not to...

martinbernstein

Karen, that's a good point. In the case of the OP's situation, having miniature goats outside, even tame pet goats, may pose a very real challenge to a tam, or any type of dog. My tam doesn't mess with my indoor pet lizard, but will kill any of my other animals that I have in the yard. This despite ...

martinbernstein

I'll make this short and sweet: if you want a dog that you can train to reliably leave 'prey' animals alone do NOT get a Tamaskan. I'm sure some tams have higher prey drive than others, and some are more trainable than others, but I wouldn't count on receiving a highly trainable, low prey drive pupp...

martinbernstein

That sounds pretty extreme. My tam girl was like that for a few months after I got her but something happened when I got a second dog- suddenly she couldn't get enough attention from people. Even from strangers. She went from being extremely shy to unusually affectionate almost over night. Anyway, Y...

martinbernstein

I think Lynn's main offense was that she marketed the Tamaskan breed as a wolfy-looking dog with a dog's personality and temperament. As many of us know, that is quite misleading and many buyers got dogs that were quite unbalanced and much more than they could handle. That's what happens when breede...

martinbernstein

I wish forum members would try getting into the habit of posting proof (or something resembling it) along with assertions and anecdotes. This may all be true, but it may all be completely false. Regardless, does it matter whether there is wolf in them? Ann isn't marketing her dogs as 'wolf dogs with...

martinbernstein

Interesting to see the differences in exercise needs for different tams. My Karelian Bear Dog is much more hyper and needy than my Tamaskan, and he's the real reason I walk both my dogs as much as I do. Froya (Tamaskan) would likely be ok with two or three 15 minute walks a day.

martinbernstein

Definitely not Regina's pup. Looks very different from like my girl Froya. Pretty girl. Hope someone good takes her.

martinbernstein

Froya, my three year old Tamaskan gets a varying amount of exercise. When we were hiking across the country she walked up to 20 miles a day carrying 20% of her body weight on her back, and loved it! Now that we live a more sedentary lifestyle she gets between 3 to 6 miles of walking or jogging every...

martinbernstein

Just saw new photos posted by Lynn on the Tamaskan FB page. I believe her daughter has produced a new litter and there are jet black tams and a liver tam in it. I've seen dark grey tams, black agouti tams, reddish tams, but I haven't seen jet black ones or liver ones. Anyone know who the parents of ...

martinbernstein

Maybe it's just the lighting, but Is that a black puppy I see? Sure the sire was Jaeger? No black genes in your bloodlines as far as I'm aware?

martinbernstein

Ideally I would aim to give your tam two hours a day of real exercise, meaning walking, jogging, playing in a larger dog run. But of course that's not always possible for everyone due to work schedules and so on. I'll tell you what I've said in many other posts: the Tamaskan is not just a beautiful ...

martinbernstein

Hi. I lived in Manhattan with my Tamaskan until last year when I started a big cross country hike with her and her Karelian bear dog brother. If you exercise your tam a lot it will be fine in an apartment. But when I say 'exercise a lot' I do mean A LOT.

Good luck! Hope you get one:)

martinbernstein

Well said, Debby.

martinbernstein

I'm glad to read about the tams that have a balanced and easy-going disposition. I should have stressed when I first made this post that I recognize that there are plenty of individual tamaskans, perhaps even whole bloodlines, that do not exemplify any of the common issues seen in wolf-content dogs ...

martinbernstein

Deb, I agree, working with different lines and adding suitable blood to them is a balancing act and I think that is the right course. None the less, I have reservations about the premiss of the breed. We are in the process of developing an animal that has no job, no real purpose other than to look l...

martinbernstein

Nimwey, that's a good point. Looks don't necessarily dictate behavior. But because most, if not all breeds that are based on looking like wolves have wolves as their ancestors, wolf behavior traits will persist. Both Aatu and TDR breeders plan to bring even more wolfdog blood into the breeds and I'm...

martinbernstein

I am the proud owner of an Aatu tam (genetically she is a regular tam) and I love her with all my heart. But there is no question that she is different from other breeds (including my Karelian Bear Dog) in terms of temperament. She has always been very shy, sometimes painfully shy, she is quite domi...

martinbernstein

@Caninesrock, no worries, you were definitely not responsible for starting that rumor. People have talked about it for a long time. I think anyone who sees a pic of an ANCD, particularly a black or wolf gray one, will wonder whether there is wolf in it's background. It would be great to see results ...

martinbernstein

Lucas, yes speculation is certainly natural on a forum such as this. But Debbie referring to Ann Dresselhaus' explanation of how she created her breed as 'BS' is not speculation. Implicit in that statement is the idea that Ann is lying. That is a bit more than speculation. Furthermore, to your comme...

martinbernstein

BS creation story Deb? I'll agree that it looks like there might be some wolf content in the ANCD, but I would be careful about making bold accusations, particularly without any evidence. Been there, done that, right? You don't know that there were wolves or wolfdogs involved in the ANCD creation, d...

martinbernstein

Exactly.

martinbernstein

Ok Tatzel, we're going around in circles here. Like i said before, we'll have to agree to disagree.

martinbernstein

Thanks Nino. Will do.

martinbernstein

Nino, yes actually Tigerstedt just gave me a bit of good news about it on a other thread. I'll have to look into it. Regarding Oskari, I agree with you it can not be 100% proven (until a European wolf marker tear is developed), but I think the anecdotal and circumstantial evidence speaks volumes. An...

martinbernstein

It's one thing to call her a racing husky (generic, non specific term) to regular people, and another to lie to authorities by saying she is a different breed entirely. For one, of you get caught (which you will if you don't have false documents showing it is a Saarloos) in that lie you risk facing ...

martinbernstein

Because the UC Davis tests only test for North American wolf markers. If and when a test for European wolf markers is created Froya will very probably test positive given the Czech vlcak (Oskari at least) in her lineage. Furthermore, if what Tigerstedt writes is accurate, one look at her at the airp...

martinbernstein

Tatzel wrote: "I already know that his books have nothing to offer for me."

Eh... Ok. Sounds like you've made up your mind about it then. No use debating about it when you aren't even willing to broaden your mind on the subject.

We'll have to agree to disagree.

martinbernstein

He's an expert. He's an expert at what he does, which is rehabilitate messed up dogs and show moron dog owners how to be less moronic. He doesn't claim to be a dog trainer. If you watch his shows expecting to learn how to train your average, fairly well behaved dog, then you will fail. However, if y...

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