History
Early Viking explorers discovered and settled what is now called Iceland. They took their families and livestock including unique horses, cattle, sheep, goats, fowl and Nordic Spitz type dogs with them when they arrived from Norway and other Scandinavian countries in 874 A.D over 1100 years ago. Around 990 there was a famine in Iceland and it was decided to slaughter most dogs as many lives could be saved if dogs didn’t have to be fed. There was much trade between Iceland, the British Isles and Scandinavia over the centuries. New immigrants from parts of the British Isles and Scandinavia joined the early Icelanders.
There is not much written about the Iceland Sheepdog in the early centuries after Iceland first was settled. No descriptions of the Iceland Sheepdog are found in the Sagas and, in general, dogs are hardly mentioned. There are descriptions of individual dogs that stood apart from others. Sor, mentoned in the Viking Sagas, was likely similar to current Icelandics. Sámur, that belonged to Gunnar from Hlíðarendi, is thought from descriptions to have been similar to Irish Wolfhounds.
It is probable that three types of dogs originally developed and became established in Iceland. They were the hunting dog, the sheepdog and the dwarf dog.
The hunting dogs were larger than current Icelandics and had thick short hair. They were keen on chasing down animals and tearing them to pieces. Sheepdogs had long, thick and coarse hair, thin short legs, an upright tail and a pointed muzzle. They rounded up the sheep and kept them close to the shepherd. These dogs were particularly clever and could learn many tricks. The dwarf dogs were the same shape as the sheepdogs but smaller and had a 2-3” tail stump. Matings between these dogs no doubt happened and even today there are rarely some apparent throwbacks. Recently an Icelandic was born with a short tail.
Iceland Sheepdogs were a popular export commodity during middle ages, especially to Britain where they were very popular family dogs with the royalty. In the year 1492 Marteinn Beheim wrote that Icelanders “sold their dogs very expensive but gave their children away so they will be fed”. (DÍF 2005, Gisli Pálsson 1999:5) At that time Iceland had been settled for more than five hundred years and Leif the Lucky, the son of Erik the Red, had already been to the New World centuries before Columbus.
Shakespeare (1564-1616) mentioned Icelandic Sheepdogs in Henry V, Act 2, Scene 1. Pistol: “Pish for thee, Iceland dog! Thou prick ear’d cur of Iceland.”
In the first half of the 18th century there were volcanic eruptions and earthquakes followed by a period of famine and disease resulting in large population losses.
Eggert Olafsson and Bjarni Pálsson traveled around the island in the years 1752-1757 and described the Icelandic Sheepdog very well in the book they wrote together. They identified and named the three types of dogs mentioned above in Iceland. They mentioned that one type of dog was the sheepdog. Some were long coated and others had somewhat shorter fur. The sheepdogs were used as herders and brought the flock to the shepherd. In addition they had other jobs like dragging puffins from their nests which they built into the side of rocky hills near the shore. Puffins were a food source for humans. Lundehunds, related to Icelandics, still retain their Puffin hunting abilities. The other two types they wrote about were the small short-tailed dogs and the long-legged, short-coated hunting dogs. The hunting dogs were still found in Iceland between the sixteenth and eighteenth century but then disappeared, most likely do to hardship after a major volcanic eruption rocked the island in the late eighteenth century.
Most travel books written about Iceland from that time until the nineteenth century mentioned Icelandic Sheepdogs. The descriptions vary slightly but it is obvious from them that they were all talking about the same dogs. Traits mentioned that we can still find today include the familiar prick ears and curled tails, dogs with black backs, mostly white dogs with large spots of various colors, and even blue eyed dogs. The dogs were said to be on farms, chasing animals out of hay fields, herding sheep, herding horses and finding sheep in the snow. During that time it was said that a good dog was equal to the value of a horse.
A description of Icelandic Sheepdog was printed in the Journal of a Tour of Iceland in the Summer of 1809 by William Jackson published in 1813. “It is rather below the middle size, well-proportioned in its parts, having a short and sharp nose, much resembling that of a fox and small erect pointed ears, of which the tips only, especially in the young animal, hang down. The hair is coarse, straight, and thick, very variable in colour, but most frequently of a grayish brown, the tail is long and bushy and carried curled over the back.”
In the year 1869 there were about 24,000 dogs in Iceland. However, between 1883-1887 their numbers dropped to only 10,000. (Deild ‘Islenska Fjárhundsins 2005, Gisli Pálsson 1999:6). In 1869 new laws were passed regarding dog ownership; in 1871 a high tax was put on each dog except those on farms. Dogs were thought, at that time, to be hosts to tapeworms which caused problems for both people and sheep. Years later this was proven wrong. Understanding the risks associated with poor or no hygiene could have solved the problem. (Stefan Adalsteinsson 1981:86)
In the late eighteen hundreds the Danish Military experimented with training Icelandics as service dogs. The dogs were trained to carry messages between divisions and were very successful. Later the experiment was terminated and the dogs went to different owners.
Three Icelandics were first shown at a dog show in Tivoli in Copenhagen, Denmark in the year 1897. They were recognized as a distinct breed in Denmark in 1898. The English Kennel Club registered an Iceland Sheepdog in 1905 and at the same time they were recognized as a breed with a written breed standard translated from Danish. Although Icelandics were seldom shown at dog shows in England there was an Iceland Sheepdog that earned the title “Best Dog in Show” at Crofts in the year 1960. (Gisli Pálsson, Mark Watson 1956)
Because of the extreme climate and conditions and the periodic importations of non-native disease-carrying dogs, there have been numerous population booms and busts over the centuries producing a tough and resilient breed of dogs ideally suited to the local geography and climate. Major population busts have been documented in the years 1727, 1731, 1733, 1786, 1827, 1855, 1870, 1892, 1893 and 1900.
Dogs from other breeds were increasingly imported into Iceland beginning in the early 1900s and the population of the Icelandics declined. Those imported dogs brought canine diseases with them adding to the distress of their native dog. Laws banning canine imports did not help the situation.
In addition to bringing canine diseases unknown to the Icelandic people, imported and native dogs mated producing mixed breed dogs.
During this time, Christian Schierbeck traveled the country extensively and found pure Icelandics only on remote farms. In his two years of travels, Schierbeck claimed that he hardly saw more than 20 typical Iceland Sheepdogs, not counting his own dog. In his description, he said that the breed has a great sense of direction and is very useful for the fall round-up when sheep are brought down from the mountains in the interior of the island. He said that dogs knew each sheep in the flock. After the distemper epidemic in the late 1800s that killed more than one-third of all Icelandics, because the dogs were so indispensable to the Shepards, the price for a good dog was equal to one horse and two ewes. (Gisli Pálsson 1999:6, Watson 2005).
The early Icelanders demanded the highest character, ease of care, and health in their sheepdogs and with time the population of dogs gradually changed into the unusually friendly--for a Nordic breed--and intelligent sheepdogs used by Icelandic farmers over the centuries to herd their sheep. They are officially known today as Íslenski fjárhundurinn or Icelandic Sheepdogs
By the 1960s there were fewer than 35 Icelandic Sheepdogs left in Iceland, the result of lack of interest in the ancient breed, inter-breedings and several catastrophic population crashes caused by distemper epidemics brought into Iceland by the newer breeds of dogs. Mark Watson, a British man with a love for Iceland which he visited often starting in the 1930s, aroused interest in the breed and started efforts to save them. By the 1950s there were few purebred Icelandics left and they were primarily found on remote farms.
An Icelandic veterinarian, Páll Á. Pálsson, helped Watson find dogs for export but he also kept a bitch for himself from the West fiords. At one time Watson moved to Nicosia in northern California and established a kennel to breed Icelandics with a few dogs he brought with him. It is thought that some of his culls, which he gave away or sold cheaply, may have been kept and bred by local Californians. Things did not go well for Watson and he eventually returned to his native England with a few of his dogs to continue his work. Some of the descendants of those dogs were returned to Iceland.
Watson’s British gene pool was too small and the lack of diversity contributed to the failure of his breedings. Apparently none of the descendants of his dogs in Great Britain have survived there until today. However, some of his dogs’ genes are still in our current population. We can find their names in our pedigrees.
Páll Á. Pálsson was the first Icelander to acknowledge the danger that threatened the breed with extinction and used his bitch from the west for breeding. The Ministry of Agriculture gave grants to start breeding Iceland Sheepdogs in Hveragerði.
In the year 1967 Sigríður Pétursdóttir from Ólafsvellir started a large breeding program in co-operation with Páll Á. Pálsson.
Pétursdóttir traveled to Great Britain where she studied animal husbandry and learned methods to reduce inbreeding, encourage diversity and breeding techniques to save as many of the genes as possible. Working with around 22 of the 35 remaining dogs, and following protocols learned abroad, she managed to gradually increase the number of Icelandic Sheepdogs.
Pétursdóttir’s first dogs were closely related and she got a special permit to import two more pups from Watson’s breedings in Britain, as the stock foundation was very small at that time. The Pétursdóttir and Watson dogs can be found in our pedigrees today. From these very few dogs Pétursdóttir started down the path to a very successful breeding program. She collected and gave official names to those few remaining dogs. Some dogs lived with her; others remained on their farms but were carefully monitored by her. She established her kennel, Ólafsvöllum or Ólafsveillir.
Her initial breeding procedure was to use the few fertile dogs left in a way that would ensure never repeating the same cross if possible. The idea was to keep as many of the genes present back in the 1960s and 1970s around for future breeders to use. If a dog was used with the same mate each time and their descendants were eventually found to be have bad genetic traits, then all the possible descendants of those two dogs and the genes, both bad and good, would be lost forever.
Using different mating pairs for every cross ensured that even if one breeding turned out in the future to have been a bad match, the good genes from both parents would still survive because they each would have been used with other mates as well. Fortunately many breeders are continuing with this practice today. Until the time comes when our total population will be large enough and diverse enough to ensure the long-term survival of the breed, it is wise to continue this method of saving as many genes for future use as possible.
A few breeders have now decided to breed more closely related individual dogs in order to concentrate on producing a breed standard type dog. As long as some breeders continue to rotate mates keeping as much diversity and as many gene combinations as possible around, the future for our dogs has never looked better. Rather large populations of Icelandics now exist in several countries. Using exports and imports to diversify the various gene pools promises to enrich all of our populations. Most of us realize that we need to look carefully at all of the traits in our individual dogs in order to maintain and to keep the genetic diversity necessary for the long-term survival of the breed. As long as we do not all breed with the same goal in mind and as long as we employ various breeding techniques, the future of our breed looks good.
Pétursdóttir’s goal was not only to save the breed, but also to disperse the dogs to other countries so that in the event of future population crashes, the Icelanders would be able to re-import descendants from the dispersed dogs. In 2007 the total world population of Icelandics was estimated to be around 4,000 dogs.
Sigríður Pétursdóttir, Mark Watson and Páll Pálsson are honored and given credit for recognizing that after more than 1000 years Icelandic Sheepdogs were on the very brink of extinction. In the 1960s they set a course that saved this wonderful breed. Pétursdóttir still honors the breed by occasionally judging at shows in Iceland and abroad.
All of our dogs today whether in Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Holland, Norway, Portugal, Sweden, Switzerland, the USA, etc. are descended from this same small starting nucleus of dogs from Pálsson, Pétursdóttir and Watson.
