A few things to get straight right off the bat. We're Keeshonds and proud of it! Most folks have no idea what a "Keeshond" is when they see us. We hear the craziest things out there. Some think we're a Chow, which distresses us. I guess they see a bunch of fur and a curled tail and something in their brain screams CHOW!!! Recently we've been hearing "Siberian Husky", which really annoys me. A HUSKY? Puh-lease. Just imagine if someone mistook YOU for a chimpanzee, orangutan or ape and you'll see what I mean. Not that there's anything wrong with Chows, Huskies or Apes....(sheesh...I despise political correctness and can't believe I'm saying that!)
I had Joni make this graphic up...not to belabor the point, but this is just something that I've got to get off my chest. These are from the AKC site.
Notice the differences? Seems pretty obvious now, doesn't it?
So to get this straight....we're not an oddly colored Chow and we're not a long-haired Husky.Okay. Now back to our Keeshond subject. We hear our breed name mispronounced ALOT, but have learned to live with it, although our people will still try to correct your pronunciations. Out of the 350 plus purebred dogs, the Keeshond has the most mispronounced name. "Case-hond", "keesh-hond", and even "keesh-hound" (the most popular) are all improper pronunciations. The proper was of saying our breed is "kayz-hond" or "kayz-hawnd" . The plural version is "kayz-honden" or "kayz-hawnden".
We're generally a medium sized dog with a plush double coat of black and silver fur, a ruff around our necks, and a curled tail. We originated in Germany and were originally called a German Spitz. We're closely related to other German Spitzs like the Pomeranian and Wolfspitz.
Basically, we're an old breed and one of the few that's always been so awesome as to always have been bred to be companions and watchdogs. We have no real career other than that. We're not hunters or killers, we see no sense in chasing sheep and cows around (eww - and step in sheep or cow doo-doo?) or to retrieve a bunch of dead ducks (hate feathers in my mouth. Actually, I'm not ashamed to admit that I'm scared to death of ducks, dead or alive!) and have no real desire to hunt criminals and make arrests. I think it's the food thing....maybe I'd consider it if there was FOOD involved, but from what I hear these dogs love doing this for what they consider "fun" - so they can have it. We much prefer to hang around our people.
My ancestors in the 1600s and 1700s were used as watchdogs on boats, barges and farms. In Germany they were known as "Wolfspitz", in France they were known as "Chiens Loup", in Italy they called us "Lupini" (hey, sounds pretty cool, doesn't it?) and in Holland they called us Keeshonds. That name came from the 18th century Dutch patriot named Cornelis (Kees) de Gyselaer, who was the leader of the Dutch rebellion against the House of Orange. Lots of political stuff here, which I won't bore you with (yawn!). We became the rebels symbol and when our side lost, we almost disappeared since folks didn't want to be associated with the losing side's symbol anymore. I find this rather pathetic, but that's the way it was.
The word "keeshond" is a two part word. "Kees" is the nickname for Cornellius de Gyselaer, and "hond" is the Dutch word for dog. Not too exciting in terms of how our name came around, but that's the history. Some also referred to the Keeshond as the "Dutch Keeshond", the "Dutch Barge Dog" and the "Smiling Dutchman". (I dunno why, but I kinda like the last one.)
Later, in England, when people started reviving our dwindling breed, we were sometimes called silly things like "Fox Dogs" and the ghastly "Overweight Pomeranian". Not that I have anything against Poms, but geez, can you come up with something better than being a big fat pom?
Let's see....what else can I say about us. We're quite brilliant and mischievous. We're very playful and quick learners, but we also get bored quickly. This is a trait of a highly intelligent dog! We're not one of those herding dog types who can do the same thing over and over and over again and be happy doing it. We GET IT quickly, but if you keep making us do it we get a bit bored and come up with antics to amuse ourselves and befuddle you. Hey, gotta keep things interesting, right?
Along those lines, we have a tendency to be known as "stubborn". We all laugh at that. Again, we're just trying to amuse ourselves and watch our people's antics as they try to overcome our "stubborn-ness". For instance - we understand everything people say, but sometimes it's just fun to hear them give us an order and we just sit there and act as if they're speaking an ancient form of Latin we've never heard before. "Huh? What's that mean?"
But the other part of this reason for them thinking we're "stubborn" is that we're so incredibly SMART we figure we know better (and we do!). We also prefer the request to make SENSE! So if they say "come", my first thought might be more along the lines of "WHY?". Surely they can tell me where I'm at and not make me walk all the way over there! Sometimes people just don't make much sense to me! I figure this is much smarter than some brainless dog that will drop everything on a dime and obey mindlessly.
2 comments:
Sometimes when my Kees barks or just gets annoying by being too gentle or too velcro-y, I give him a nice slap in the face or jab to the ribs. He becomes too terrified to try anything with me for a few days. The trick is to know when to stop... I once hit him repeatedly to the point that he literally defecated himself in fear. Lesson learned!
Sometimes when my Kees barks or just gets annoying by being too gentle or too velcro-y, I give him a nice slap in the face or jab to the ribs. He becomes too terrified to try anything with me for a few days. The trick is to know when to stop... I once hit him repeatedly to the point that he literally defecated himself in fear. Lesson learned!
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