Russian Hounds

A hundred years ago, a Sutton woman’s five borzois could only have been given her as gifts from the Russian tsar. Today, the borzoi are the pride and joy of Laura Van Diest, who breeds the sighthounds for show.

For Van Diest, there are no other dogs than the Russian wolfhounds.

“They are so beautiful when they run,” Van Diest said.

While Van Diest, who lost the use of her legs in 1981 car accident, can neither run with or show her own dogs, that doesn’t stop her from enjoying the dogs, which she says have a personality that is a cross between a cat and a horse.

“They’re not in your face all of the time,” she said. “They are very long but they make great rugs.”

As if to prove her point, Archimedes, 7, demonstrates his running ability as soon as he is let out of his kennel. He charges around the house and up on the long-ramped deck of the house that accommodates Van Diest’s wheel chair. He jumps off the deck steps and makes another circuit before crashing open the latched kitchen door and depositing himself on the sheet-covered couch in Van Diest’s small living room.

It’s Archie’s day to be the house dog, Van Diest explains. She said the intelligent dogs know whose turn it is in rotation. But that doesn’t keep them from complaining at their gates that they are not to be the favored dog of the day.

Van Diest’s kennel, Mystic Borzoi, is full or co-owner of five borzois — brothers Archimedes and Thomas, nearly 8, Olivia, almost 4, Cinnamon, 9, who is retired and living with her handler and co-owner Linda Nagel in Anchorage, and Cinnamon’s daughter, Ginger.

Her dogs are champions in the show ring and on the coursing field. Both disciplines give Van Diest a sense of satisifaction because she wants to see the dogs reach the ideal standards of both confirmation and performance.

“They fill my mind with beauty,” Van Diest said, “and I am always striving for the betterment of the breed.

“It’s an ego thing,” she admitted.

Her love affair with dogs goes back to when she got her first dog when she was 4. “Squeaky” was a black dog, maybe of some sort of stock breed.

“She was smart,” Van Diest recalled. “She followed me everywhere.”

When she was in college at Montana State University at Bozeman in her native state, she got into dog mushing. That’s also when she met her husband, Randy, to whom she has been married since 1977.

“We started in sled dogs,” she said. “That’s kind of what drew us together.”

But she wanted more than just dogs that could pull.

“A lot of my friends were into dog shows so I tried to show a registered malemute and a registered Siberian husky,” she said. “At the time you could not win with a dog who could run.”

She was studying breeds of dogs, considering her options, when she went to a dog show in Alberta. It was there she met her first borzoi.

“That was it,” Van Diest said.

She got her first borzoi on Mother’s Day in 1978. It was a 4-month-old puppy named Tavya. While Tavya’s confirmation proved to be unsuitable for the show ring, she earned her companion dog title and was the favorite distraction in obedience class.

“They don’t do things by rote,” Van Diest said of her dog breed. “There has to be a reason to benefit them. You have to find a different reward for each one; find out what makes them want to do things for you.”

While Tavya was a disappointment as a show dog, and could not be bred, it is just part of the business. “You take your chances,” Van Diest said.

But she didn’t take a chance with her next dog. She bought Sporter as an 18-month-old, and he became an American and a Canadian champion.

“He turned out to be my first specialty winner,” Van Diest said.

He wouldn’t be her last. There was, for example, Cinnamon, who won the group competition in Anchorage in 2009 at a few weeks shy of 9 years old.

“She was stunning,” she said.

But between her early success and those to follow was the car accident in 1981 that left her with a broken neck, punctured lung and third-degree burns. She was hospitalized for six months.

She had to make a choice to keep raising her dogs or give up, knowing the effort it would take for her to continue with her legs paralyzed and her dexterity hampered.

She said she never considered quitting.

“No, that was not an option,” Van Diest said.

“I decided at that point that I would continue with my dogs,” she said. “They kept me going.”

While she was hospitalized, Tavya died of what the vet said was bloat — an inverted stomach, a condition that afflicts deep chested dogs like the large hounds. She was 4 1/2.

“I think she died of a broken heart,” Van Diest said. “It broke my heart.”

While she was recovering, a friend in Pennsylvania sent her pictures of her new litter of puppies.

“There was a bridle puppy and my husband said, ‘I don’t care what you have to do, get that puppy.’ So I did,” Van Diest recalled.

That’s how she got Daisy.

“She was a champion. She was a character. She had the personality that defined diva,” Van Diest said. “She was a princess.”

And when the princess was bred with Sporter after the Van Diests moved to Alaska in 1983, she had trouble adapting to her new role as a mom.

“She had the first puppy on the kitchen floor and headed for my bed,” Van Diest recalled. “It hurt her and she wanted nothing to do with it. She was so embarrassed, it was like she thought she pooped in the house.”

She had the rest of her litter but Randy Van Diest had to clean off the sacs so they could breathe and hold the puppies up to the new mother for nursing. She didn’t like that. By the time they had their milk teeth, the puppies had to jump up to reach their uncooperative mother if they wanted a quick nip of milk.

Then all but one of the puppies died of parvo in the epidemic of 1984.

“We never bred Daisy again,” she said.

She’s owned about 25 borzois and bred four litters.

“I only breed puppies when I’ve got homes,” Van Diest said. “Borzois are not easy to place … and I’m very particular about my homes.”

She is a life member of the Borzoi Club of America and does home visits for other breeders here, as other club members check homes for her Outside.

Van Diest said she gets mad when she thinks about how some dog owners treat their canine family members, because they fail to consider the dogs’ innate personalities. Breeds are bred for certain jobs. Borzois and other hounds are bred to make their own decisions in the field, unlike sporting dogs, who learn to respond to commands.

“People do not take into account the dog’s needs,” Van Diest said. “It needs your time. It needs your patience, your love. You can’t just feed and water it once a day and have a healthy animal.”

She said when the dog fails to live up to the owner’s expectations, often it’s the expectations at fault, she said. And sometimes, people compound the problem by becoming backyard breeders.

“It’s just wrong,” Van Diest said. “I get very discouraged with people who breed casually or accidentally. Animals are not disposable.”

Her dogs are not. Even if she homes a puppy, the dog may always return to Van Diest. Her own dogs have homes if something happens to her.

She said she’s grateful for those who help her keep her beloved borzoi.

“I could not do this without the support of my friends and family,” she said.

“I’ve had borzoi since 1978 and I’ll have one until the day I die.”