Winter War Litter: 2022

Projected whelping December/January

Snowy Mountain Suka has the drive we strive for at Snowy Mountain Bear Dogs. She is focused, calculated, and uncompromising in her approach to the chase. We're hoping to improve upon her with a male with Excellent/Good hips, a smaller male to maintain endurance, and one who is a little more consistent with using his nose to warm up a track before switching to eyesight.

Suka is currently on a 6-7 month heat cycle. We're expecting her to be in standing heat in November. This would mean puppies whelped in December/January and headed to homes in March/April.

FI WCH Ukkosalon Väinö is a Finnish Hunting Champion from old and strong bear hunting lines. He scored an 84/100 on the Finnish Bear Test (a dog is graded on tracking and baying capability on a brown bear in the wild). He is a Finnish Gene Bank Dog which means the Finnish Kennel Club has selected Väinö's sperm to use to rebuild the Karelian Bear Dog breed in case of a catastrophic loss of numbers in breeding stock. Väinö has sired seven litters; dozens of his pups have attained their hunting champion title, show title, and have harvested brown bear. Väinö is the epitome of the Karelian Bear Dog hunting disposition. His owner owns his sire, Leevi, and also has one of his pups, Rähinäpesän Veikko.

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Update:
The Suka/Väinö litter welcomed 5 females and 3 females into the 2nd generation of Snowy Mountain lines in February of 2022. They were born the night Russia invaded Ukraine, thus we named the litter the "Winter War Litter" to honor the brave Finnish men and women that fought the Soviet invasion of Finland in the Winter War in 1939-1940. 1 male and 4 females tested as head dogs, 1 male tested as a companion dog, and 1 male and 1 female tested as companion dogs. All have been sent to their homes located from British Colombia to Maine. They'll be used to hunt bear, lynx, mountain lion, and bobcat and two of them will be used additionally for bear-human conflict management.