History of Kunniakas

The Byrne family began showing Finnish Spitz in 1987, at the same time Mr & Mrs Bateman and their grand daughter also began showing. On both parts it was designed to be a hobby that we could all do as families.

When Ian(Byrne) and Lucy(Bateman) got married it was decided to put the kennel in to all our names so it would always remain a hobby we could do as a family. Which is something we still manage to acheive and hopefully with our children they will now continue this on.

Success came relatively quickly in the show ring with our first CC winner(Cullabine Hupi) at LKA 1990. Stuart made up our first champion in 1993(Ch Toveri Tyylikas). The same year Ian had handled Ch Renki on Toveri(Gill and Steve Free) to Top Dog for 1993 and also got Best of Breed at Crufts all at just sixteen years old. At the time he was the youngest person in the breeds history to have made up a champion, this would change in 1994 when Lucy made up Ch Toveri Nero(Mr & Mrs L Bateman & Mrs L Byrne) and took this record.

Over the next few years Nero was to dominate the breed from a showing point of view and has now broken the Finnish Spitz breed record having gained 41 CC's under 38 judges. After Nero Lucy had Ch Toveri Arvokas(Mrs J Bateman & Mr & Mrs I Byrne) who not only excelled in the breed ring being Top Dog twice but has since proved his worth as a stud dog being Top Stud dog twice and once Top Sire.

Stuart then continued his success with Ch Toveri Talvikki(twice CC winner at Crufts) and Ch Toveri Terassi(Top Dog 1999/2000 and two times CC winner at Crufts).

Over the years Stuart has made up 6 Champions, Lucy has made up four and Ian has made up three.

This has now brought our total to twelve champions (owned)and two champions(handled). Our dogs have acheived the title of Top Dog in breed 14 times in the last sixteen years.

We began breeding in 1997 and have since had 8 litters and have now bred five UK Champions, 1 American Champion and a further CC winner. We have won the Top Breeder in the UK title four times in the last five years. This is possibly what we are most proud of. 

We feel that we must give special thanks to Dave and Angela Cavill for the wonderful dogs that they have let us have over the years and undoubtedly without this excellent foundation we would not be where we are today.

In 2005 we started on the road again with Tibetan Terriers. They have become an excellent addition to our house and we could not have wanted for better companions to the Finnish Spitz. We would like to thank Ken Sinclair and Neil Smith for all their invaluable help and advice.

In the same year we became acreditted breeders with the Kennel Club for both Finnish Spitz and TT's.