SBIS, ISWS Champion,
SuSVK Junior Winner -04, SuSVK Winner -04,-06,-08,
German Winner 2008
Sarafias Asrai

(SSWKV-05 Kristull Northern Lights / Kristull Alyssa)

b. 6.5.2003

Height about 63 cm (24 3/4 in)
MDR1 clear
Eyes: no hereditary eye diseases but iris atrophy (age related)
Cardio: normal
Thyroid: normal

I learned to know these magnificent little hounds through my friend Eija Achrén, who had two silken windhound males, Nipsu (Kristull Northern Lights) and Tilkku (Kristull Texas Pinto). For almost two years I had given thought about getting Remu a companion, but I didn't want two borzois any more. Maybe instead a dog that was a bit smaller. I did want to have another sighthound but wasn't very keen on getting a short haired one, so silken was actually a perfect choice: smaller but hairy!

The present Crown Prince of Tsaarikon, Kassu, was born in Salla Klemetti's Sarafias kennel in Tuusula. He had a sweet sister, Iina (Sarafias Adeina) who unfortunately passed away at a very young age, and has a brother, Figo (Sarafias Airk). Kassu's best friend is my silken girl Tellu. Together they play and run and have really fun! Tellu is a bit smaller in size but she has learnt how to control Kassu when he gets too rough. When Tellu gets mad even Kassu is nice and quiet; she bites him to his ear and holds him still until he calms down. I guess it's quite painful as Kassu usually calms down very quickly. But he forgets it very soon and after a minute the going is as wild as it was a while ago.

Kassu was quite a boisterous puppy. He woke up very early and then the goings on started! I was quite surprised to notice that he was much rougher than my borzoi puppies were. He bit like an alligator and ran around the yard like his tail was on fire. Somehow I had thought that such a sweet little toddler would have also acted in a sweeter way. Well, luckily he calmed down pretty quickly and nowadays he is a nice gentleman whom everybody likes. He also sleeps longer in the mornings, he is certainly not an early bird anymore! Actually he is the last one to wake up, he drags himself from the bed and collapses to the floor while waiting for me to get my coat on so we can go outside.

Surprisingly, Kasperi did only a little bit of destruction when he was a puppy, especially when you think of what kind of a rascal he was. He didn't like our bedroom wall papers though, but the only bigger thing what he did was tear them down. Well, he did feel some kind of antipathy to wires for quite a long time. Several times he cut the wire from my computer into a thousand pieces and he also bit my parents table lamp wire into bits and pieces in our summer place.

Kassu has very strong hunting instincts. He was only 10 weeks old when he attacked my dad's rooster (who was a bit bigger than Kassu). Dad managed to separate those two but had to put his rooster to sleep the next day because he was so badly damaged. Kassu also chases local elks with Remu, and he is very interested in my neighbor's cats. Almost right after having his 2-year-birthday he caught his first hare and very proudly carried his prey all the way to our summer cabin.

He has taken part in the lure coursing events organized usually once in the spring time and another time in the fall, and been quite successful in them. He really surprised me in his first coursing event in 2004 by winning his class (youngsters in tall breeds) and got the second best points of the day from all participating 55 dogs! And even the best of the day got only one point more than Kassu! He coursed evenly well again in 2005, again loosing only by one point to the best dog of the day. Nowadays silkens can take part to official lure coursing competitions where they compete as an unofficial class. Kassu has done pretty well also in these competitions but unfortunately he doesn't want to share the prey and sometimes pushes his coursing mate away from the lure if they'll catch it at the same time. That's how he looses majority of his points, sigh.

Kassu also started his show career in the best possible way, by being BIS in Finnish Silken Windhound's specialty in 2004, which was his first show ever. The judge was Eeva-Sinikka Waldén (borzoi kennel Ilanja's) who told us beforehand that she is very strict on movements, and a dog without good movement will not be successful. Well, that's how Kassu won, mainly because of his movement; first the juniors, then best dog class and finally BIS! And I have to admit that also I think he has absolutely wonderful movement! In September of 2005, Kasperi attended two official dog shows in Slovenia and brought two CACs back home. He won the other CAC from an international all breed show and the other one from sighthound specialty.

By his nature Kassu is almost like a borzoi, independent and proud. Well, he does have a bit more willingness to please and he wants to be close to me slightly more. After Kassu moved in, I had to change the rule that dogs are not allowed to go on the couch. That was because I got tired of sitting on the floor with Kassu on my lap. So nowadays we watch TV together from the couch. Kasperi can be a real pain in the butt to his friends, if nobody wants to play and run with him, he tortures them until he finally gets some action to the pack!

Kassu likes swimming and diving, especially in the mud puddles, if he only can find one. His most favorite hobby, however, is extreme sports called 'Avoid the trees'. This sport is performed in a forest with a lot of pine trees but only moss, no bushes, growing on the ground. The aim of the game is to run as fast as you possibly can from one end of the small forest to the other, and the looser is the one who hits to the trees (breaking branches are not counted). This hobby is totally cost free, excluding possible vet costs. After Kassu's first lure coursing event my sister commented this hobby: 'Oh, so he was only practising the coursing, and we thought that he was nuts!'.