A dog not only for the Czech mountains is celebrating its fortieth birthday. Necessity gave birth to virtue

Last weekend, about forty CHP breeders gathered at the campsite near the Řeka pond in Krucemburk in the Havlíčkobrod region. It was a meeting of fosterlings from the circle of two breeding stations.

Here, dog owners learned how to successfully breed an animal, while station owners, on the other hand, obtained valuable information about offspring from specific crosses. Information is important: the aim of the club is to obtain the recognition of the International Cynological Federation for CHP.

“It’s still a long time to go,” says longtime breeder Kamil Hutař, keeping his optimism grounded. Even now, among the typical characteristics, he highlights the good controllability of a furry athlete. “It is not a breed that beats Siberian Huskies. But you can harness them and go to town without them grabbing your arm,” he laughs.

At the time when the CHP was recognized in its homeland as a national breed, it started with Newfoundland dogs. “I considered Hároky to be a bitch,” admits today’s promoter of the breed, for which he managed to get even his own daughter excited. Although it is hard to say whether it was the other way around.

“My family and I regularly went as spectators to Šediváčkův long (one of the most difficult dog sled races in Europe, in the Orlické hory). And when my daughter was ten years old, she told me – this is what I would like to ride,” the breeder described the decisive moment.

At that time, it was already possible to purchase a traditional Nordic breed, such as huskies or malamutes; but for a little girl at the time, wayward pushers were too much of a risk. And that’s how the friendly Czech “horáci” came to their mercy, which soon turned into passion. Twelve years later, Sandra Hutařová has her own kennel and Šediváčk’s long twice. And she also became a breeding advisor.

“You can easily fall for that breed,” even the oldest Czech musher Vanda Kmochová knows. She and her husband bought their first “burner” in the early 1990s for guarding a large plot of land, but it soon proved itself to enthusiastic cross-country skiers as well as for skijöring. A second dog was thus added, and before Mrs. Kmochová ended her active sports career just before seventy, 25 representatives of the celebrated breed took turns in their kennels. She went through practically all the disciplines with them, and in recent years she has been anchored with the team on long tracks.

“The character of this dog is exceptional. He can be a guard, a rescuer, he can do sports, anything, but he mainly needs movement. It is not enough for him to eat and lie down, he wants to be with a person, to help him,” she pointed out that the “Northern” bred in the Czech Republic is definitely not a cuddly toy for lazy people.

According to people who are, so to speak, crazy about Czech mountain dogs, these dogs fully deserve to be among the world representatives of Czech breeding skills. Among them, so far, there are only the Czech terrier and the Czech fousek, for the time being also the Chodsk dog and the Prague rat dog.

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