Finally, a couple incidents from elk hunting trials that I find to be special and funny.
We were at Kangasniemi at the national Hirvenhaukut championship trials. When we came to the terrain and got to the place where the trial was going to take off, the dog owner took a rifle from his car. The group judge asked what the purpose of the rifle was. The owner replied: ”My dog doesn’t bark if I don’t have a gun with me”. We talked over the situation and checked that the owner did not carry any cartridges.
The weather was moist, and wet snow was falling down. The dog quickly started barking but stayed put. The group judge told me: ”Go see what it’s barking at”. The bushes were really thick. I saw from the snow tracks that the dog was barking at a female elk and its calf. I got right next to the three of them. I took my boots off and sneaked up closer, only wearing socks on my feet. The elks suddenly took off. We followed the tracks. The animals had swum across the river that was lightly covered by ice. There was a boat on the bank of the river, almost full of water. We emptied it and started paddling along the channel made by the elks. Soon we noticed that the boat had a leak. It was more than half full of water when we came to the other side. The dog ran after the elk and got a good result. Once the trial was over, the guide said: “Well, now we have a long way back to the car”.
I officiated as chief judge at the Uusimaa district championship elk hunting trials. When formalities had been taken care of in the morning, we noticed that one dog was missing a judge. I was wearing casual clothes and a long autumn coat. Since the dog competed in open class, I may as well judge it by myself. I asked the dog owner: “Do you have boots I could borrow?”
We went to an old mansion, and I got myself proper footwear from there. When the barking started, I wondered how I would manage in the thick forest in my long coat. In due time, the dog found the elk that was quietly moving between the trees. Then, the dog kept the elk at bay for a long time and I decided to approach them. Under the cover of trees, I got so close that I saw the elk and the dog. The dog wiggled its bobtail and looked at me. I carefully waived my hand at it. The elk noticed me move and jumped on a high, smooth stone and landed on its stomach. Now the dog attacked it. Off they went, with speed. The elk ran around in the forest that was familiar to it, and the dog persistently followed.
When the trial performance was over, I told the dog owner – after seeing an old American classic car move on the road of the trial terrain – “looked like your father kept an eye on that the elk so it wouldn’t run too far away”. I think the trial still went quite according to rules.
At the Hirvenhaukut championship trials in Kokkola, we were near Kannus at the edge of a large bog area. We let Usvan Killi loose in the terrain. After a few minutes, we heard barking that immediately started to move further away. There was plenty of snow, so the tracks were easy to follow. When we had walked for about an hour, we came to an islet. The group judge stated that the dog owner had said that the dog did not report back. We made a campfire and sat down all day in the cold. Back then, there were no GPS devices or mobile phones. As the evening darkened, we returned to the car. We were leaving when I saw something flash by the car. We took Pörri into the car. It had made a long trip towards us. We took the dog to Kokkola. Pörri laid on the car seat and held its head on my lap. In Kokkola, we found out that Pörri’s group had in turn brought Killi to the trial centre.
I judged Pörri a couple of times. It was a very nice and social dog. Niilo Salmi kept it often off lead in the place we were staying at.
At the Hirvenhaukut championships in Hyytiälä, we ended up in the terrains in Kuru. A guide was found near the trial area. When we arrived, he announced that he would not have the time to stay all day. My judging buddy Jouko Ahtiainen talked to the man. The guide drew up a map of some sort on a cigarette packet. “Make sure that you don’t go over the Tampere-Parkano train tracks”.
The dog we judged was not really in a mood to bark, so we stayed well on the ‘map’. Chief judge Heimo Rautava did however roll his eyes when I told him how the day went.
In Kauvatsa, Satakunta we judged Pete’s son who was one that moved a lot. Its name was Prikk, if I remember correctly. From the looks of things, the dog owner was a ‘sports man’. We ran after the dog all day long. No elk was found but instead, three abandoned moonshine distilleries in different terrains. “This day was a bit dry”, we stated after having returned to the car.
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.
