ABOUT US
- The Philosophy -
We strongly believe in letting dogs be dogs. And to let them do what they are meant to do,
And we encourage our dogs to use their language in every day life.
The most important thing for us is to respect the dogs opinion, to the degree we can, without letting them get out of hand.
Our dogs come first. And if our dogs don't want to have guests pet them, we will make sure the guests leave them alone. In our home, the dogs will always be valued above the guest. No offence to the guests.
In breeding, we try to make as physically and mentally healthy dogs as we can, who fit the breed standard as much as possible.
We do show our dogs, but good health and attitude, will always be valued more then show potential, if we have to choose.
We never breed just for the sake of making puppies to sell. We breed to try to improve the breed, and usually we will only do a combination if we think it's so good that we want to keep some of the offspring ourselves, to secure a good base of dogs to choose from in future breeding.
Our dogs are our children. And it shows in our home.
Just how we like it.
- The People-
We are Jørgen & Maria Sellgren. We live on a small farm called Strandli, at the lake Osensjøen located in Søre Osen, Trysil, Norway.
We bought Strandli in 2017, after having lived outside Kongsberg for a while as Maria took courses there in dog training at Troll Hundeskole for about two years.
Maria is from the coastal town of Fosnavåg, located far out in the seas at Sunnmøre. She lived there for most of her life until she moved to Svene, outside of Kongsberg for her dog studies. Of course there was some extra motivation to make the move in the fact that Jørgen would then be 6 hours closer.
When Maria moved she brought her dog Wicket with her, a then 3 year old Brussels Griffon. The plan for a second dog was already in the works, and as Maria and Wicket settled in in their new home, arrangements for a new family member was being made.
Jørgen is from Nittedal, a municipality outside of Oslo. He has lived in a few different places in the years before he met Maria, but when they first met he lived in Oslo. He lad little previous experience with dogs, and considered himself more of a cat person. Lucky this change fast as he got to meet and know all types of dogs in his adventures with Maria.
It did not take long after Maria moved to Svene, before Jørgen moved in and left Oslo behind.
Together we bought our first shared puppy, a Caucasian Shepherd girl from Poland.
The breed choice was Marias as most people who know us would have guessed.
It is a demanding, strong and powerfull breed, but Maria had been in love with the breed for years, so we decided we could handle it.
Maria has a long experience with dogs, of all shapes, sizes and mentalities.
Including, but not limited to Yorkshire Terrier, Boerboel and Alaskan Malamute.
She loves all dogs, but has a extra soft spot for large and powerful dogs,
with a calm and steady mentality.
Something you might not guess from the dogs we keep today.
Jørgen had been around dogs of course, but never owned a dog before he met Maria.
But learning the many amazing sides to dogs, he quickly became just as big a part of the dog household as Maria was.
We got engaged in 2016 and got married at the start of 2018.
By the time of our marriage we had relocated to Strandli, with lots of room for more 4-legged family members!
Kennel Tough In Fluff was established in 2017 and was originally only listed as planning to breed Caucasian Shepherds.
But after some time of thinking and some bad luck with the health of our females, it was just not ment to be. So we decided to shift our focus to a breed that was easier to find qualified homes for.
We still have our little pack of shepherds, but we have no plans of breeding them. They are quite happy guarding the farm and the animals here.
Maria was interested in finding a breed that would be easy to train and work with, and a few sizes smaller then the giants we had. We had health in mind when looking at breeds, and we wanted to be working with dogs that would have sustainable health and genetics for future generations. Neither Maria or Jørgen had any interest in breeding a breed where the health of the standard dog is not something we can stand behind 100%.
Quite quickly the terriers caught our mind.
We looked at almost all terriers as options to begin with, we had no specific demands in choosing our new breed but we were looking for something that felt just right. We are big fans of following your gut.
In our search we eventually came across the Terrier Brasileiro. (Brasiliansk Terrier)
A lively, happy-to-work, easily trained dog that don't necessarily run up to strangers, alerts you of intruders and hunts rodents.
That sounded perfect for us.
We got in touch with some breeders and actually had very nice conversations with all of them. Soon after we set off to go visit Kennel Maienyas in Oslo. And since then we have never looked back. The Terrier Brasileiro was here to stay.
The lovable crazy little trolls that makes us laugh and smile every single day.. and sometimes makes us cry in frustration of their antics. They are always ready to work with us, and always ready for a lazy day with cuddles.
Chloè (Aitana) was the first T.B in our home, she came to stay a while for Maria to work with her a bit and get to know the breed better before buying a puppy. She never left. Kennel Maienya owns Chloè, but she lives with Kennel Tough In Fluff full-time.
Chloè is the mother is the first Tough In Fluff litter who was born on the 17th of April in 2019.
Maria is the one who usually trains our T.Bs, both for show, scent tracking, Nosework, Smeller, and a tiny bit in Rally. Mostly this is to let the dogs use their brains and because training is fun, but we hope to compete in some sports in the future.
Maria and Storm have an approved scentrecognition test for the scent of birch, step one of competing in Nosework.
In the years that have passed Jørgen became more and more involved in the crazy dogworld, and he was quickly thrown into the show ring for the first time at Dogs4All.
Jørgen works well with dogs both in the ring and outside. He has learned a lot in the years since he first met Maria and has gone from knowing almost nothing of dogs, to be able to work with almost any dog. He builds up trust with dogs fast with his calm and friendly training style. There is of course more to learn yet, but then again there always is.
We traveled together to shows and training often in the coming years, and we explored the world of breeding together. We enjoy breeding a lot, Maria does most of the planning for socializing and raising the little ones, while Jørgen runs around trying to put all of the ideas into action.
We are always completely exhausted when our litters leave for their new homes, but we think that's a good thing. It means we gave our all. All our energy goes into the little ones from the moment they are born, and we try to give them as many good new experiences as possible before they leave the nest.
In our breeding we have focused on good physical and mental health in every combination, and of course we want a good T.B look in our dogs. But health is always number one.
Luckily we have always agreed on what we want to or don't want to do in breeding, and we are both equally involved in the entire process of litters.
Somtimes in the years of doing this, Jørgen saw his very first Borzoi at a show. He was stunned by this strange creature, and he said "We need one of those." It was not very hard to convince Maria...
A while later we came across an add for a Borzoi litter in Norway, with a pedigree that Maria found interesting. We decided to send them a message to see if we got a response. We ended up getting very well along with the breeder and soon Maria went to visit the litter to look at the puppies, and since it is impossible to say no to puppies, we ended up buying one.
Some weeks later Jørgen made the trip to Bodarov Borzoi and picked up our first Borzoi, the little girl Bodarov Aura (Dahlia).
Jørgen fell head-over-heels in love with this girl. Dahlia and Jørgen have been stuck together ever since. They have been to the show-ring, scenttracking trials, and Lure Coursing practices together and they just love spending time with each other, not matter the circumstance.
We agreed that we wanted to breed Borzois too one day, and the breed has become a big part of our every day life.
In 2020 both Maria and Jørgen was elected into the Borzoi committee.
If we get our way we hope to be able to welcome the first Tough In Fluff Bozoi-litter to the world in a couple of years.
We thrive in the crazy dog life, and we learn new things about dogs, their language and the meaning of life every single day that we spend with our pack.
