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Early Viking explorers discovered what is now called Iceland and brought 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 around 1100 years ago. Later explorers from parts of the British Isles joined them. Because of the extreme climate and conditions, 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. 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 known today as Íslenski fjárhundurinn or Icelandic Sheepdogs
The Icelandic Sheepdog is a working dog in Iceland and now in parts of North America still used to watch sheep that graze in open fields much of the year. There are no large native prey animals in Iceland, so there has been no need for an aggressive dog. In Iceland ravens and hawks sometimes bother lambs during the birthing season in the spring, so Icelandic Sheepdogs even today can react to larger birds. The Icelandic Sheepdog is even tempered and can be trusted with all animals provided a proper introduction is made by their humans first.
The Icelandic Sheepdog loves people and prefers to be with people all the time, to follow us around everywhere and to sleep at our feet. It can learn to be alone for several hours every day, but it is happier when it can be in close contact with people.
The Icelandic Sheepdog is very watchful and barks at strangers, but it never bites. All guests are welcomed with kindness and joy. Some dogs like to bark at running animals. That's part of their herding nature.
The dogs are very clever and trainable. They learn quickly and remember very well. They excel in training programs like obedience, agility, therapy, hearing assist, rally, fly-ball and so forth. They simply love working and playing with people and have a never-ending interest in pleasing. They have a good nose and have been used in search and rescue for people and animals.
The Icelandic Sheepdog loves exercise but is not as demanding as bigger working dogs. They are calm and easygoing inside the home even on those days when you don't have time to take them for a walk.
The breed is extremely healthy and strong both physically and mentally. Most of them need to visit the vet for routine care and vaccinations only once a year. There are relatively few harmful inherited conditions that can be found in Icelandic Sheepdogs. Of course all breeds of dogs have some inherited harmful conditions. In our dogs these include cataracts, extra eyelashes, hip dysplasia, etc. [Please see the ISAA health page for further descriptions.] The Icelandic Sheepdog keeps its vitality into an advanced age and 15 years is not an uncommon lifespan
There are two coat types in Icelandic Sheepdogs, a longhaired one and a shorter haired version. They are called long and medium. Both fur length types generally shed twice a year. All dogs have a thick, warm undercoat, an adaptation for the harsh conditions in Iceland. Many of our dogs are shades of yellow, tan or red with some white and black. Black, chocolate, and gray dogs are also found but are less common. Ideally, all coats should contain at least 3 colors. Colors are listed in order of most common to least common. Black, white and tan dogs and chocolate, white and tan dogs are called tricolor dogs.
In the 1960s there were fewer than 35 Icelandic Sheepdogs left in Iceland, the result of lack of interest in the ancient breed and several catastrophic population crashes caused by distemper epidemics brought into Iceland by newer breeds of dogs. Mark Watson, a British man with a love for Iceland, aroused interest in the breed and started efforts to save them. At one time he moved to Nicosia in northern California and established a kennel to breed Icelandics. Things did not go well and he eventually returned to his native England with some of his dogs to continue his work. His gene pool was too small and the lack of diversity contributed to the failure of his breedings. Apparently none any of the descendants of his dogs in Great Britain have survived there today.
However, some of his dogs’ genes are still in our current population. We can find their names in our pedigrees. Her interest aroused by Mr. Watson, Sigríđur Pétursdóttir, a native Icelander, made it her goal to save Icelandics. She traveled to Great Britain where she studied animal husbandry and learned methods to reduce inbreeding, encourage diversity and methods to save as many of the genes as possible. Working with around 22 dogs of the 35 left and following protocols learned abroad, she managed to gradually increase the number of Icelandics. Her goal was not only to save the breed, but to disperse the dogs so that in the event of future population crashes, the Icelanders would be able to re-import descendants from the dispersed dogs. The total world population of Icelandics is estimated to be around 4,000 dogs.
She collected and gave official names to those few remaining dogs. Some dogs remained with her; others remained on their farms but were carefully monitored by her. She established her kennel, Ólafsvöllum or Ólafsveillir. All of our dogs today whether in Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Holland, Norway, Portugal, Sweden, Switzerland, the US, etc. are descended from this same small starting nucleus of Ólafsvöllum dogs, Watson dogs and dogs from those other farms.
Pétursdóttir’s initial breeding procedure was to use the few fertile dogs 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. Many breeders are continuing with this practice today fortunately. 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 carefully look at all of the traits in our individual dogs in order to maintain, 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; as long as we employ various breeding techniques; the future of our breed looks good.
Sigríđur Pétursdóttir and Mark Watson are both 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.
J.L. Hansen, March 2007
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