I need to take some time today and speak about Ark, this amazing Jamthund male. He is powering the restoration and preservation efforts of the Swedish Elkhound, Jamthunds and the Norwegian Elkhound. He is of course hugely responsible for the Full Blood Elkhound genetic pool in North America.

From the Base of the Full Blood Genetic Pool will come additional restoration Elkhounds for both Types, Swedish Elkhound and Norwegian Elkhound.

Restoring Elkhound genetics requires a “Base of New Full Blood Elkhounds” and then from this base Norwegian Elkhound preservation and restoration Elkhounds can come as well the same for the Swedish Elkhounds.

Currently the genetic pool is very small for diverse Norwegian Elkhound genetics in North America and the Swedish Elkhound pool is literally only a handful of Elkhounds in North America, all from Kamia Kennels Jämthund program.

Putting new genetics back into the gene pool in North America takes decades. Preservation breeding is much slower than say, “Show Breeding” as the goal in Preservation breeding of Elkhounds is to “Slow” the genetic change down. You could in reality only have a couple of genetic changes in a preservation program like ours at Kamia Kennels versus 10 to 15 genetic changes in the greater Norwegian Elkhound breeders of North America.

The longer you can go with a male increases the health of the breed and the longer you go between genetic changes is hugely beneficial to the breed. Show or normal Norwegian Elkhound breeders utilize a top sire mentality a fair bit, they “All want to win the show” so they use the same sire in many cases. This dramatically decreases the genetic pool. Breeding rapidly for genetic change also dramatically reduces the genetic diversity.

Ark will be utilized to slow down genetic change, increasing the diversity by many factors but utilizing his extreme health and vitality allows for maximum diversity and the fewest genetic changes.

Lower genetic changes per year, per decade is the goal. In our program we can already see genetic change levels of two per 20 years. This is extremely beneficial to the Elkhound health and longevity of genetics.

More changes of genetics, means less diversity. Fewer genetic changes means greater diversity.

Genetic Lineages in Elkhounds – This is a key aspect of preservation breeding of Elkhounds, both Norwegian Elkhounds and specifically Swedish Elkhounds / Jamthunds.

Genetic lineage breeding in preservation work for Elkhounds is trying to “limit” the mating pairs, while still utilizing the main Elkhounds of course. But by using limited pairs and creating genetic lineages this vastly improves diversity as the off spring are not related to the broader group.

Ark is the result of a perfectly executed genetic lineage breeding program at Kamia Kennels as his father, the foundation sire of Jamthunds was only used in the Kamia Kennels program. This is the ultimate as the genetic diversity remains extremely good as Rico was not utilized or mated to any other female other than Aina.

Ark is the son of Rico and Aina, he is fully diverse to all other Jamthunds in North America utilizing the strategy as he is not related. So he can be utilized on many of the Norrland bloodline genetics, the oldest known Elkhound genetics but he can also be utilized and mated to the Varella Jamthund bloodline, and Posso Jamthund Bloodline.

By using genetic lineages, which means to try to limit the breeding to a pair, or stud with just a few females maintains genetic diversity.

This is completely different methods and principles of breeding that say, a Show Champion male that could potentially be bred to 50 or more different females, which dramatically decreases diversity.

The master breeders, specifically Satu my friend from Finland had for years mapped out the best genetics they had to supply us with the main lines for our Norrland mating and our initial genetics for the Swedish Elkhound / Jamthund pool.

Many years after the first set of genetics was imported in the next level was then brought over. A historic event of course for all of us involved, but also for the greater Elkhound world in North America was the day we introduced Ark to Varella.

Varella was the second foundation female that was selected to carry the lineages forward that supply genetic material from Ark and also From Posso. Those genetics could also as you know now, power the Full Blood Elkhound base.

I am shown below, proud as can be with Ark, and my friends Satu and Mika with Varella. She has finally arrived in Canada on this historic photo day years ago.

Many of you know the mating of Ark and Varella has been monumental for the Jamthund breed, offspring daughter Aurella and ARCO are now in our breeding program. Genetics of this calibre are carefully selected so that the instinct rich ability of the Elkhound is passed down.

This was years and years of work to get this mapped out and planned out, countless breeders involved in many countries and today we see the results of all the efforts and the Full Blood Elkhounds are thriving in North America. The Norwegian Elkhounds will benefit immensely from this effort and of course, the Jamthund genetic pool will work toward establishment with the help of these great Jamthunds like Ark and Varella.

I’ll get more details on the Full Blood Elkhound restoration work together. Ark will continue to power the Elkhound restoration efforts along with his sons and daughters.