Pikkinokka Kennels

27/01/2025

Where those level toplines come from...Checkers first day outside with her puppies.

25/01/2025

Six week evaluation photos. This is a beautifully constructed litter! Particularly strong: level toplines, some beautiful shoulders, square rears, high tails, beautiful heads and cheerful, happy temperaments! We have several show/breeding potential males, one clearly hunting potential male, three show/breeding quality females (two with hunting potential) and one clearly performance potential male (possible show potential). Can I say "just wow"?
Thank you Malinda Scott for the excellent photos and unending support. The girls are Red, Purple and White. The boys are Light Blue, Medium Blue, Navy, Silver, Gold and Green.

20/01/2025

Using the Google Nest to create a sound-rich environment for the puppies. Here it's playground sounds. This morning it was traffic, doorbells and fireworks. We also play calming music when we want the puppies to settle during crate-exposure.

19/01/2025

Have we mentioned how wonderful the temperaments are on these Toller puppies from Lynk and Checkers? All 9 puppies visited the kids' kennel club classes again today (along with the 10 puppies from Monarda Kennels). It was a Toller tidal wave -- 19 cuddly puppies! This is the little purple girl being cuddled by one of the moms, thanks for the great video Malinda Scott 🤩

19/01/2025

Like father, like son? This is Lync and Light Blue Boy, 5 weeks old today.

19/01/2025

Toller puppies from Lync X Checkers, the "Dark Litter", 5 weeks old. They are busy, active and cheerful, eating well. There are 6 boys and 3 girls -- such healthy, happy puppies!

16/01/2025

Black noses at Pikkinokka Kennels? Yes Tollers are allowed to have both red or black noses. It has been a long time since we have had black-nosed puppies. Why? Because the black pigment is a dominant gene, which means to get black-nosed puppies, at least one parent needs to have a black nose.
Whose our black nosed parent in this litter? It's Foggybay's Lynk to Wallace Babine. Lynk is not only OFA-clear and Embark and OFA-gene-tested, he is the result of a remarkable project which revived two old Little River Duck Dog hunting lines out of Yarmouth, Nova Scotia. Thanks to the tireless effort of Lync's co-owner, Barbara Blauvelt, two dogs from these old-time Toller kennels were brought to the Canadian Kennel Club and afforded purebred status under the Indigenous Dog Act. "Lync" is one of the first generation of the newly registered Wallace and Babine Tolling Retrievers.
https://nsdtr.breedarchive.com/animal/view/foggybays-lynk-to-wallace-babine-d8182052-44e2-4c3f-a129-153537e89786

Our litter here, in the breeding of Checkers and Lync, represents the crossing of dogs afforded CKC registration in the late 1950's and this newly registered bloodline. Those cute little black noses are super special here at Pikkinokka Kennels (and the red noses too!)

Lync brings to the breed
*a unique line of Tollers
*a sweet, easy (and bird-crazy) temperament
*a proven stud with full health clearances

https://ofa.org/advanced-search/?appnum=2594224

Want to know more about our dogs? Email [email protected]

15/01/2025

Hi again. Puppies here. We thought things couldn't get more exciting but Human-Mom totally surprised us last night with real pieces of raw chicken! We each got a piece of chicken back and we just chowed down, acting like real baby wolves. For a while we were all singing together, we were so excited and happy. It took a little bit to settle and work on one piece. A couple of us were going from piece to piece, we just couldn't believe it! Then we set to it and chewed, stripping those pieces down to just bones before we all fell asleep again in a happy heap. We hope we see more of those pieces, it just feels so good to chew.

14/01/2025

Wow, we are 4 weeks old now and we had such an eventful day! Human- mom came into our room and cleaned like she always does: picking up toys and blankets, sweeping, then mopping. She said she really noticed that we were getting the litterbox idea because she is having to change it often. That was SUPER FUN because we all helped her dump it into a garbage bag, some of us climbing right into the box, and a few of us riding the pellets into the bag! We also chased the broom and the mop and that was super helpful! Once it was clean she set us up with more new activities like crinkly plastic to play on and cardboard boxes to climb. Human-mom then put each of us on the scale and gave each of us some of that yummy worm medicine. By then we were all pretty tired and we fell asleep in a pile on her feet. She said it was a good time to cut nails, when we were so sleepy, so she picked each of us up and did our nails and gave us a good "once-over", whatever that means. Human-mom was writing down notes the whole time we were helping and then she told us that we were probably too tired to do individual photos today. She tried one with me and -- well -- I proved her right. Photos will have to wait until tomorrow.
Yours truly,
Light Blue Boy Zzzzzzzz

13/01/2025

Toller puppies are 4 weeks old today and they spent the morning as special guests of our local junior kennel club. At the "cuddle station" the kids (and parents) learned a little bit about the Nova Scotia Duck Tolling Retriever standard and how we evaluate our puppies to match each puppy with its new family. The puppies could not have been better behaved and enjoyed the gentle handling from children aged 4 to 15. What a great experience!

08/01/2025

Toller puppies had their first meal of raw ground chicken backs (with bone) and ate it all up! The littlest one, Purple Girl (who is deep red and looks like a teeny Golden Retriever, I swear!) was first in and last to leave! Dessert was a visit to the milk bar. Thank goodness Checkers helped with clean-up.

08/01/2025

Three week old Toller puppies are tumbling out of the whelping box so they are ready for enrichment. A cuddly bed pad, vinyl floor which is slippery (but so easy to clean), a play cube, a wobble board (which they were all over right off!) a fabric p*e pad and a litterbox with pine pellets. They explored it end-to-end and the sawdust already in the litterbox tells me they used it too. Good puppies!

02/01/2025

31/12/2024

It was photo day for Toller puppies born Dec 15, 2024 (Lync X Checkers): 3 girls and 6 boys.

31/12/2024

This is so true. Remember to give both your puppy and yourself regular breaks with puppy time in the crate. It teaches puppy calm time and regular and consistent time away from you. Learning to be confined and apart is a skill. Dogs don't have "separation anxiety", they just have never been taught to be alone.

30/12/2024

Toller puppies are 2 weeks old. Time for cutting nails and first deworming. Good time to see how each puppy responds to being held whether they fuss or not, we just wait for them to calm down. Then pups had time to move around on the linoleum to check out the big pen. Overall beautiful, healthy puppies! Good girl "Checkers" and proud of daddy, "Lync" -- his first litter and they are doing so well!

26/12/2024

It's been so busy, I finally have some pix to share news of our new Toller litter! Nine puppies -- 3 girls and 6 boys -- from Checkers and Lync. These are Lync's first puppies so our first generation outcross to the Wallace-Babine retrieving line. Mom and pups are doing great! It's been a long time since I've had black noses.

25/12/2024

Merry Christmas to our many friends who love dogs. Here are some Pikkinokka pups who are celebrating with their families. Happy Holidays to all! Please share your photos of your furry families with us.