Six months later, I went to Lieksa railway station to receive a small box. Inside of it was Jepen Jyrkki, a two-month-old bobtailed, black and white Karelian Bear Dog puppy. The sender was Antti Herrala from Ahmas.
We visited Antti a couple of times, after acquiring a cabin in the late 1960’s from Hossa in Suomussalmi, located in the Kainuu region close to the Russian border. Antti was a fun, kind, and lively person to chat with.
My host enjoyed telling me about his experiences from the village of Kovero in Salmi before the wars and during the Continuation War. Antti told me about farm manager Berg, who was looking for bear dog material from the villages together with Viljo Kivikko. Mailman Aleksi Hotti also delivered information about dogs to Berg. This farm manager, who was enthusiastic about dogs and originally from the Swedish-speaking area of Ostrobothnia on the west coast, sent dogs to Finland as early as in 1926. Berg took Nallen as his kennel name and wrote about his experiences to magazines.
Antti Herrala exchanged his squirrel dog to male Jeppe (“Progenitor Jeppe”) in Käsnäselkä. According to Antti, Jeppe was a sturdy, bobtailed, excellent elkhound. Antti was Jeppe’s fourth owner. The dog had one blue eye. Antti’s wife yelled that “There were many bobtails in Käsnäselkä – at least according to local women”.
Jeppe mated its daughter Tovi. From that otherwise unimpressive litter was born the magnificent Töpö, that was excellent at barking at elk and bear and later became a model dog when recording the first breed characteristics for Karelian Bear Dogs. Especially dog enthusiasts from Western Finland, Ulvio and Louna, looked for Töpö’s offspring. Töpö became known at the dog shows in Sortavala and Vyborg.
I told Antti that he was probably the Veikko Mielonen of his time. He did not seem offended by that line, at least.
“But then, the Winter War broke out”. Antti’s eyes were filled with tears. The evacuation journey started by horse, together with five adult dogs. One female with its puppies had to be left at home. Some Finnish soldier saved the puppies which ended up in Central Finland. Already at the beginning of the journey, Töpö got stolen when Antti had tied it up to the sled. The dog was found in Rantasalmi but choked later on a bone in Kyyjärvi during the first evacuation journey.
Antti returned to Salmi during the Continuation War. There he had a male named Ukko, a large, a bit untypical bear dog, an excellent elkhound. Ukko mated Viuhka, and that mating resulted in Rikke Sotamaa’s double champion Kyttä being born. Kyttä was used a lot for breeding.
A second evacuation journey went through Lapinlahti to Ahmas in Utajärvi. Someone from Järvenpää in Southern Finland told me that he lived in Lapinlahti in his youth, and back then, there lived also a famous Karelian Bear Dog man who had a dog named Kyttä. I wonder if Antti sold his dog to Sotamaa when it was already an adult?
Puppies bred by Antti sold well in the Savonia region and in Northern Finland. When I revisited Antti, he gave me advice on how to get a good elkhound. “You must take a puppy from a litter where both parents show interest in elk or bear, even both. You must take the puppy to shores, fields, wilderness, and bogs. It is important that the puppy does not grow too attached to its master. Never hit a dog”.
The advice that stated ”Shoot the elk at midsummer, the leaf is big and the elk stands the dog’s bark” did however not stick with me.
Antti said that one time, the rural police chief snapped at him, telling him to shoot his dog, otherwise he would end up in prison. Antti said to have replied “Well, were not shooting the dog at least”.
When the Hirvenhaukut championship trials for Karelian Bear Dogs started, one of the three dogs at the second competition in Hamina in 1958 was double champion Jepen Jeri.
My dog Jepen Jyrkki was the son of the famous Jepen Jeppe. “Jyrki’s” dam was Jepen Nätti. This puppy did not become a working dog for me, since I did not have the time to take it enough to the forest. It did not bark at birds at all, but eagerly at squirrel. At that point of my life, I did not have any chance to join the elk hunting groups in Lieksa.
Jyrki was my only dog that died of illness. A dog broker lived in Lieksa, he bought good dogs and sold them forward for instance to Sweden. I was doing my military service in Ylämylly and visited home before leaving to the Reserve Officer School. My father told me that this dog broker had come to see Jyrki with his dog. After a few weeks, my dog started showing severe signs (infectious hepatitis) and the veterinarian’s advice was to put the dog down since the prognosis was not good. My dad had phoned the broker who had admitted that his dog had shown signs of illness. Jyrki was unvaccinated.
When I studied in Helsinki, I went to see all dog shows held in the old Messuhalli hall. Not many Karelian Bear Dogs were shown, but one that stuck to my mind was double champion Poukamon Kai, also a son of Hirven Romulus. The dog seemed aggressive. At that time, dogs were often kept on a run cable attached to the end of a farm building. Not much attention was paid on the sociability of dogs. Later, when bear dogs started to appear more in small towns, even cities, people started to focus on training manners to their dogs. A spontaneous image came into my mind: I was once in a show ring with my dog. Next to me was a dog that was wearing two collars, one attached to a rope, the other attached to a horse halter. The dog owner tried to keep his dog in place with these.
When I began my studies at the University of Helsinki, my father was chosen for a job at the sawmill company Iisveden Metsä in Suonenjoki in the Northern Savonia region. I spoke with my father what a great place that would be to keep a dog.
We bought Jysky as a puppy from Kylmälä village in Muhos, Northern Finland. The sire of the puppy was Panu, that descended from dogs from kennel Pöyröön. The dam was Apu-Stiina, with many dogs from the Kymenlaakso region in its pedigree, including elkhounds of Jaakko Kangas.
Jysky learned to bark at large animals as a puppy. Horses were kept in a pen next to our yard. The puppy kept hiding its bones there. When a horse stood on its ‘food supply’, Jysky tried to drive it off. It ran around the horses, barked and tried to make them move in many ways. I never noticed it to bark at the horses from behind, it always kept eye contact with them. This skill remained as an adult when working on elk.
While I was studying in the capital, I went home every weekend to take the dog the forest. I noticed at once that Jysky had a built-in will to hunt game. It became a determined barked as I shot many squirrels and even birds it had found. It hardly ever barked at an empty tree. One time, I did not see a squirrel in the tree. I put the dog on a lead, and we went home. I let the dog off lead on our yard. Jysky returned at once back to the squirrel tree a couple kilometres away. When I then went back to the tree, I saw a squirrel and shot it. Jysky did thank me profusely by jumping against me and licking. Then we went back home, off lead. I shot squirrel to make some pocket money.
The memoirs of Jouko Mutanen have been published in the Pystykorva magazine in 2014 in seven parts. The memoirs are now available online for the first time ever. Mutanen gave the original texts he wrote to the Finnish Spitz Association (Suomen Pystykorvajärjestö) in 2012.
