My name is Gudrun Seeberg Boge and I'm a 22 year old enthusiastic toller owner. I was raised in Valen, a small community in the South-Western Norway, but a couple of years ago I moved to Oslo, the capital of Norway. Here I spend my days with my 6 year old toller bitch, Aira, and my boyfriend Per, while I study to become a veterinarian.
I've been fascinated by animals my entire life, and as a kid I had several hamsters and rabitts. When I was 9 years old my family
got our first toller, and since then we've always had tollers in the family. At the time being I have one toller bitch,
Red-Toller's Indian Itana (Aira), and my parents share their lives with our first toller, Red-Tollers Selina (Zita) and the
young rascal River Nova Beware Of Birk Poika (Birk) who is a grandson of my Aira.
Since Aira came in to my life 6 years ago, a great deal of my spare time has been spent on dog-related activities like obedience, agility, dog shows, etc. I've also been an instructor for the local dog club, and in May 2004 Aira got her first (and up to this point, only) litter of puppies. That was an exciting and demanding experience for the both of us, but even though raising a litter of puppies is lots of hard work, it is something that I definately want to do again in the future!
As a young and enthusiastic dog owner, I've been amazed by the fact that certain breeders seem to succeed with getting high quality puppies in litter after litter. More than once I've wondered how they always seem to find the right combination, providing them of healthy puppies of excellent type, and I've been very eager to learn this form of "art". To me having a litter of puppies after Aira was a great challenge, and I was very excited to see how it would turn out. Had I chosen the right mate for Aira? And would she prove to be a good brood bitch? Had I taken into concideration every aspect of the responsibility you have and the knowledge you need as a breeder? Luckily, so far the story of Aira's first litter seems to have a happy ending - all 8 of the puppies are healthy and well-functioning individuals, and Aira herself is still going strong at the age of 6,5 years. On the 21st of December 2006 Aira became a grandmother as Marit, her daughter in Holland, gave birth to a wonderful litter of 7 healthy puppies. And in early April 2007 she once again became a grandmother when Itana, another of the girls in the A-litter, became the mother of River Nova's B-litter, consisting of 5 pups. Itana is owned by me, but she's living with her Co-Owner Lillian in Råde, where she also raised her five little rascals.
Even though being a breeder is a fantastic hobby, I'll probably always define myself as a dog owner more than a dog breeder. My number one goal with having dogs is to live with them, train them and compete with them, and then the breeding comes second. 3 years passed between the first and the second litter of River Nova tollers, and at this point there is no date set for a possible C-litter. As a veterinary student living in a flat in the middle of the city, the conditions are not ideal for breeding dogs. I would really like to have another litter after Aira before she retires, but for that to happen the pups would have to be born in the summer so that the litter can be raised in Valen, like the A-litter was.
River Nova is a small kennel with few dogs and few litters, and it will continue to be so even in the future. So why do I want to breed tollers? What am I looking for, and what do I want to achieve? My main goal is to breed healthy tollers with good tempers, good working abilities and a good exterior. To me, health will always be the numer one priority - what good will it do you to have a beautiful and sweet-natured dog if it must be put down at young age due to a health problem? All dogs used for breeding on kennel River Nova are therefor examined for hip- and elbow dysplasia, and the same goes for the parents, former offspring and siblings of the brood bitches and studs. They shall also be eye examined with no diagnoses, and at least one of the parents shall have a DNA status Normal/Clear (A) for prcd-PRA. I will also avoid to breed dogs from blood lines with several cases of autoimmune diseases. I want a toller from River Nova to be a family member that the owners will share their lives with for many, many years, and the temper is almost as essential as the good health. I want my tollers to have social, out-going tempers, but I also want them to be excellent working dogs. A toller is supposed to be quick, strong, hard working, water-loving and a true "fetch junkie". To preserve the breed in the best possible way, I also think that a good toller must look like a toller. Therefor I show my dogs, and I want all brood bitches and studs to have the sufficient qualifications also from dog shows. I strive to combine individuals who can complement eachother both mentally and physically, but health and mentality will always be the most important factors in my work as a breeder. After all, it is the dogs temperament you have to live with, not just the pretty looks...