last updated 2003-04-04

About us: 

We (Lena, Stig and Åse) lives on Hagaberg, a small farm outside Ärla, 20 kilometers east of Eskilstuna and 120 kilometers west of Stockholm. We've been living here since 1999, and we fell immediately for this place the first time we saw it.  Although being close to the public roads, it is very secluded and no through-traffic, and with the woods sorounding our fields it suits us and the dogs perfectly.  The family also includes Åse's horse, who will turn 3 this spring.   

Aussies is a relatively new breed for us. Our first Aussie is born 1995, but before that we have had years of active life with dogs, mostly working breeds. Latest seven years we have tried to learn as much as possible about the Aussie, its heritage and function. By working our own dogs in different ways, we feel that we have walked at least a small part of the path to knowledge about the Aussie.
 


Stig and Toxsy at an Advanced Class trial.   

 Except the Aussie experience we of course also base our opinions on earlier experience of living with, training and trialing dogs. Stig started active trialing already during the early 1970-ies and from that on, he has become SBK ( short for the Swedish Working Breed Club- not herding)- instructor on both basic and more advanced levels and has taken special courses in tracking and skiing/ sledging with  dogs. During the 1980-ies the interest for the mental part of dogs grew, and he went through several levels of mental courses all the way up to being a test leader for "korning"(a quite demanding mental test for adult dogs) and being a certified mental profile tester (a profile test for younger dogs of working breeds). I ( Lena) have been trialing and training dogs in our kind of working (tracking, seeking, reporting and schutzehund) and obedience as long as Stig, but have stayed away from all kind of instructor educations since my daily work is education. Instead I took some levels of mental education and also I am a SBK-judge, judging all groups and levels of working (se above- means not herding) and obedience and also have passed some special courses in Schutzehund training.


Since our main interest though, is to train and trial our own dogs, we try to stay away a bit from judging and testing too much. Still we try to judge and test frequently every year and take part in the conferences offered since we think it is important to keep up with news, get more knowledge and last but not least - it helps us to avoid "home- blindness".

So far our work with our own dogs has ended up in the following titles:
Banja (GSD) / Stig, ( Adv. Class tracking, qualifying scores for CH-title )
 SBCH* Korad** Swedob's Old Smuggler (dob) / Stig, Advanced Class tracking, skiing/sledging CH.
SUCH*** SBCH Korad Swedob's MacMacinlay (dob)/Stig, Adv. Class tracking, obedience level II, skiing/ sledging CH.
SBCH Korad, TjH Bocanis Lothar (GSD)/Lena, Adv. class tracking and schutzehund, higher class seeking, qualified for Swedish Finals in Schutzehund 1985. Multiple Regional Final titles in tracking, schutzehund and skiing/sledging.
SLCH**** TJH Bocanis Äsper (GSD)/Lena, Lower class tracking and schutzehund
SUCH SLCH Korad Bocanis Illo ( GSD)/, Adv. class tracking, schutzehund and reporting, one working certificate towards SBCH (needs two if SUCH),
Ninja av Perlegården (GSD)/ Adv. class reporting with qualifying scores for a CH-title.
SBCH SUCH SLCH Mr Binks Tuxedo (aussie)/ Adv. class tracking ( 3 certificates) and reporting(one certificate).

* SBCH: Swedish title for Swedish Working Ch. in tracking, reporting, seeking or schutzehund.
** KORAD: a title containing both a mental test part and a conformation evaluation, which the dogs have to pass both, also the dogs need to have their hips on a level comparable with OFA Exc. or Good.
*** SUCH: Swedish Conformation CH. Demands of the dogs to have both certificates from breed shows but also a basic mental test and to pass a certain level in working trials.
**** SLCH: Swedish Obedience Ch.

 

Except the dogs above we have been training and trialing several dogs on the lower levels, among others the dogs (except Toxsy who has reached his CH-title) we live with now. Now, we are looking forward to make this list longer with dogs from our own breeding.

Our daugter Åse, who turned 16 last October is practically raised at the local working club and in the woods during reporting trials, and has together with Toxy won several Junior Handlings. Her main interest though is horses .

Our latest appearing interest is Aussies as a herding dog. Our belief is that it is important for the development of the breed here in Sweden/ Europe to remember the aim and function the breed was originally developed for.

We first attended a herding course with Toxsy as a young dog, but quite soon experienced problems to find possibilities to practice and that we had a lack of basic knowledge that gave us problem even to take the course. After that we have had help from friends with herding experience, we have been to USA to watch Aussies working stock, Lena has been to clinics in USA and also stayed with, and learnt from, breeders with experience of working Aussies. Today we have started to get at least a small clue about what traits an Aussie need, to be a good working dog. During summer of 2000 and 2002 we've had herding clinics here with an american breeder/handler/stock judge.  We (Lena and Mickey) also attended other clinics to learn more and we plan to repeat that. We also realize that we have gained a lot out of having our own sheep, to learn more about sheep and sheep handling.


Lena and Mickey working in the STD course;
august 2002.


We view Aussies as primarly a versatile working dog. Our absolute priority is a high working capacity with a high drive, trainability and a will to cooperate, in a mentally, genetically and physically sound dog. Conformation for us is an important part where we put empasis on structure adn breed type, not on details. We believe that the structure supports the dog to good function in the tasks we ask it to do. We use the ASCA breed standard as a base, because of its development from the Aussie as a working dog. The focus on the function/ soundness and moderation that finallly ended up in todays standard is, in our opinion, ideal and we just wish more breeds' standards were that clear. Shows is sometimes fun , but we wish it would be more of a situation where the dog's physical and structural abilities were related to its working function, instead of being a competition in itself, and where markings like collars and blazes, heavy coat , "tons of bone" and flashy, but not always efficient movements, could get less important.

For us "beauty" is more an intelligent, focused, intense glimmer in the eye , and muscles moving on a dog working, rather than a white collar on a dog stacked in the breed ring. We also believe in that dogs can have it all- working abilities, mental and genetic soundness and a good type and structure;
 


Tam (Fairoks Amaretto) training reporting spring 2001.

Do you want to know more? Send us an e-mail!   

Lena, Stig och Åse Stangvik
Hagaberg, 640 43 Ärla, Sweden
Tel/ fax: +46 (0)16 742 66
url:http://home.swipnet.se/windedos/omosseng.htm

© Lena Stangvik 2002