It has been a sad time in the last few weeks for the Finnish Spitz community in the UK with the loss of three Champions. Ch Toveri Pimu aged 11, owned a loved by Hannah and Rob Thompson and bred by the Toveri partnership of them and David and Angela Cavill sadly passed away a few weeks ago. Pimu won well over 20 CCs, many with best of breed, and has really been an outstanding representative of the breed. She is the Dam of my own Toveri Turo of Lelaps and his litter sister Ch Toveri Tuula. The day after the loss of Pimu saw the passing of another stalwart of the breed Ch Kunniakas Kimi Possible. Bred by the Byrne family and shown by Stuart with whom he resided with his family, Max passed just short of his tenth birthday after a short illness. Last week saw the tragic loss of Steve and Alison Pierce’s Ch Ahonpaan Esko at Sukinimi (Imp Fin) aged just 22 months after a very sudden illness. This is particularly sad as this young import showed such great promise winning 3 CCs out of puppy before being made up this year in Junior. I am sure that you will all join me in offering condolences to the families involved as we will agree they were not only wonderful show dogs but much loved family pets.

Angela Cavill has been in touch with me to say that she has received a lot of old Finnish Spitz Photographs from the collection of the late June Minns. Her father Lionel Taylor looked after some of the first Finnish Spitz imports into the UK and I am glad to hear that these breed archives are in safe hands. Hopefully Angela may share these with us if she gets time as I am sure it would be an interesting resource for us all.

The entry figures are out for our last championship show of the year with 11 dogs entered under Viv Phillips at LKA. If my calculations are correct this will give us an overall average entry of 13 dogs at championship shows in 2016, two less that 2015. I am not sure how much this will be improved in 2017 as at least 8 of our 14 sets of CCs are on week days and I know many of us are restricted with what we can do around our work however as far as I’m aware the kennel club has given no indication that it will be removing CCs from the breed with CC allocations out until 2021. On a more promising note this year has seen a couple of new exhibitors of the breed who I am sure we will all continue to make feel welcome.