I have never understood why some breeds have such incorrect names. As I have noted before, I have always doubted that the Dalmatian comes from Croatia, and we all know that the “Labrador retriever” doesn’t come from Labrador. It descends from the dogs of Newfoundland. Now, I tend to think of it as a British breed, because I recognize that a St. John’s water dog is not the same thing as the modern Labrador. However, that breed’s name is somewhat in the ball park. After all, Labrador and Newfoundland are in the same country. They even form the same province– “Newfoundland and Labrador– which was historically the independent dominion of Newfoundland, which joined Canada in 1949. The term “Labrador” for the dog originates with the Third Earl of Malmesbury. It is probably a misunderstanding of the name for a Portuguese dog that probably played a role in developing the St. John’s water dog– the Cao de Castro Laboreiro.
The Lab and the Dalmatian aren’t the only breed with this sort of weird naming. We have a dog in the US called an Australian shepherd. On this blog. I refer it as the “Australian [sic] shepherd,” because its origins are very much American. It may include some Australian ancestors, like the koolie, but it also could get that appearance from German herders called “tiger dogs.” These “tiger dogs” are also the ancestor of the koolie, so maybe we should call them German shepherds? Wait. That name is already taken.
Now, consider the case of the so-called American Eskimo dog. It is about as Eskimo as I am. Quite literally.
The American Eskimo dog has no origins in the North American Arctic or that of far eastern Russian. It has no connection to any of those indigenes of those regions. Like me, its origins are Teutonic, from Mitteleuropa, specifically the German-speaking world.
Every region in the German-speaking world had its own spitz. The most famous of these spitz dogs today are the diminutive Pomeranian and the Keeshond or Wolfspitz (which is native to the Rhineland and the Netherlands). However, there are several different forms of these dogs, which acted as multipurpose farm dogs on the small estates. They herded stock, killed rats, and guarded their owners’ meager posessions.
Some of these dogs were white in color, and this color was quite popular among the German working classes in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. However, the early German fancy didn’t like the white color in their the spitz dogs, so these dogs wound up as culls as the German spitz became a standardized breed.
Further, lots of Germans were leaving for America during that time period. They had heard stories of the great opportunities that existed on the prairies and in the bustling cities. Further, there was a greater level of democracy in the USA than in the old German Empire, which, despite the raving of the mad intelligentsia of that time period, was a very weak democracy.
They brought their white spitz dogs with them. My grandfather still refers to dogs with a curled tail and erect ears as spitzes. It doesn’t matter if they are technically from Central Europe or not. A Norwegian elkhound is a spitz to him, as is a Siberian husky.
So why are they called Eskimo dogs?
Well, why is that so many people in Britain call the German shepherd an Alsatian?
During the First World War, German dogs got different names. At the time, the white spitz was a popular family dog in the United States, and its breeders recognized that it was probably not wise to connect them to the Kaiser.
Also, the Germans themselves did not like white spitzes. Their original breed standards did not allow white, so there was very little reason to connect the American version of the German spitz to the German version.
Today, only the North American registries recognize an “American Eskimo dog.” The FCI regards them as German spitzes.
Now, the people we call Eskimo do have dogs of this type. However, they are much larger. The Qimmiq (Canadian Eskimo dog), the Greenland dog, and the Labrador husky are true “Eskimo dogs.” However, they have shorter, denser fur, and they make more wolf-like vocalizations. I have no idea why anyone would think that a German spitz, which know for their barking, would have anything in common with the true dogs of the Arctic.
Now, these dogs are related, albeit distantly, to the Samoyed/Lapphund type. It is very possible that the dogs of the Samoyed/Lapphund type are the ancestors of these dogs. It is also possible that they share a very close common ancestor. All of these dogs have longer hair, and all of them can herd. I’ve even known a Pomeranian who could herd horses. (Granted, the horses were more than willing to be herded by the little orange fox creature.)
But I still can’t call them America Eskimo dogs. For me to do so would require me to drop everything I know about dogs. And I just can’t do it. White German spitzes have nothing to do with the North American Arctic.
Add to the list the English Shepherd, the German Shepherd, and perhaps even the Border Collie. The ES is an American breed. The GS isn’t a shepherd in any ostensible way, and I’m not so sure about the true motivation for the “Border” in BC.
I suspect that the Border is emphasized for political reasons, for instance an elitist Englishman who wants at least partial credit for the breed instead of calling them some other variation of a Scotch Collie.
But I also wonder if even the Border compromise isn’t leaving out the significant contribution the Welsh have made to the breed. From original sources, it seems that the flashy strong eyed quality which distinguishes the BCs from the other collies of the era came from Welsh dogs.
I get the feeling that English > Scottish > Welsh as far as esteem goes.
But those make at least some sense in regard to the utility and the quasi-origins of the dog.
A German spitz cannot be used to hunt polar bears and do long distance hauling over the ice. They can rat and bring in the milch cows, though.
Not on the subject, but I met a field bred golden pup at the local dog park today. When I complimented the owner on what a beautiful field golden she had, I think she was tickled that someone knew the difference between the two sorts of goldens. I told her about your blog, so you may gain a new reader.
As you might remember, I first started reading your blog when a google search on ‘winter nose’ took me here. I’m happy to report, that’s exactly what my dogs had. They are now back to sporting black noses, once again, just in time for summer. Or, I guess they have ‘summer nose’ now.
It’s good that their noses are back to normal.
And thank you for spreading the word about the blog.
Fascinating post (as usual!). I find that the spitz groups in the US are just poorly categorized, not properly recognized and certainly very misunderstood!
My favorite mis-classification isn’t this dog.
The Norwegian elkhound is a relative of the Finnish spitz, which is in the non-sporting group with the AKC. The Norwegian elkhound is with the hounds. The only reason why it’s with the hounds is because its name in Norwegian is Norsk Elghund (Gra)– there is another breed of Norsk Elghund, which is ‘Sort” or black– is mistranslated into Norwegian Moose Hound. It’s actually Norwegian Moose Dog. Hund is a Germanic word that is not an exact cognate with the English word hound. They have a definite common origin, but the English word means something very specific.
In proper British parlance, the word “hunt” means using dogs to run game, and it’s derived from that same Germanic word for dog. It does not mean going out in the woods with a gun. That’s “shooting.”
Some of the earliest imported ‘Afghan’ hounds came from India. Maybe the early breeders were so involved in fighting over which was the ‘real’ Afghan hound (desert or mountain type), they didn’t have time to fight over the country of origin or the name.
I thought some of them come from the what is now the Northwest Frontier Province of Pakistan, which was part of British India.
While they may have originated as the same breed, the modern AED and GS are NOT, at this point the same breed – a hundred years of divergence separates them – nearly as much as separates your goldens from my friends’ flatties.
There are a number of directly contradictory things in the two breed standards, and the temperaments of the two breeds are EXTRAORDINARILY different. (A ‘bad tempered’ AED goes towards shyness or shy/sharp, a ‘bad temperered GS is a pushy little nightmare). I love my mittel, but she’s nothing at all like any Eskie I’ve ever met, and I met quite a few before deciding they were NOT the breed I wanted. She’s a bit more like a more terrier-ish Pom or Papillon than an Eskie- not just that she has more drive, but it’s DIFFERENT.
I think they were all originally different. Spitz are regional dogs. They have only recently been classified as a breed.
I am very uncomfortable calling these dogs “Eskimo dogs.” First of all, the people who are actually referred to as Eskimo are not that thrilled with the name. It’s better to call them by their actual tribal name. The ones in Eastern Canada and Greenland call themselves collectively Inuit.
I could compromise with calling them American spitz.
But they have about as much to do with the hunter-gatherer peoples of the Arctic as the average Jack Russell or German pinscher.
“American Spitz” is the best name I have heard proposed for those hyper little hotshots.
Oh, and just for illustration – here’s Lizzie being her normal spazzy self. This video was filmed after we’d been outside playing ball for almost two hours. :P
“Newfoundland and Labrador” is the name of the Province, so maybe it’s not a stretch. We could go through a long list of breeds whose name betray confused geography/origins. Some registries even seem intent in creating confusion like the CKC who a couple of years ago chose the name Dutch Sheepdog for the schapendoes, I could just see the horror as someone opens their crate to find a Dutch Shepherd instead…. lol.
What’s interesting is that the separate Dominion was always called Newfoundland. Labrador was called “The land God gave to Cain.” There was a native dog from Labrador. It is an Inuit dog called a Labrador husky. It is possible that this dog was used to give the St. John’s water dog some coat thickness, and I do have an old account of the “Newfoundland dog,” which says they were derived from crossing “the Greenland Dog” (Labrador husky) with a water spaniel. My guess is that this cross probably did happen, but I think calling the Labradors comes from the Cao de Castro Laboreiro. The early retrievers of the wavy-coat type and those of the “smooth-haired” type often had brindle on them. You can still find brindle Chessies and Labs with brindling even today. The Chesapeake’s guarding instincts probably come from this dog.
The original Newfoundlands and St. John’s water dogs were a landrace and probably had all sorts of dogs in them.
https://retrieverman.wordpress.com/2008/12/04/st-johns-water-dogs-in-the-tweed-water-spaniels-ancestry/
It is kind of interesting that the Schapendoes was considered a “Dutch Shepherd.” The German herding dog landrace– “Altdeutsche Huetehunde”– includes dogs that look like the ancestral German shepherd, the German “tiger dogs” (ancestor of the koolie and Australian [sic] shepherd), and dogs that were once called “Schafpudel”– sheep poodles.
I’ve always believed that the later, along with the Spanish water dog, was a missing link between the puli-type herding dogs and the poodle-type water dogs. I’ve heard that pulik can be trained to retrieve from water, and that Spanish water dogs are primarily used as herding dogs in their native country. They are only occasionally required to do the work that we associate with the Portuguese water dog.
For an interesting discussion of various herding and water retrieving dogs that are thought to have combined to make what we now know as poodles and their cousins see Rosa Engler’s “Pudel” (Cham, Switzerland: Muller, 1995). Unfortunately (for me anyway), it’s in German, but there’s an English-language crib of parts of it on the Poodle History Project, http://www.poodlehistory.org/RCRIB.HTM#RCRIB – scroll down past the translations of the many illustrations.
I’m not so sure that these dogs were introduced by the Phoenicians. It’s an interesting theory.
However, the Spanish water dog was called Turkish dog. Now, that doesn’t necessarily mean they were from Turkey.
During the Middle Ages, there was a tendency to call Hungarians Turks. Hungarians (Magyars) speak a language that isn’t related to any of the languages around them. They came to Europe through Asia, so it is possible that they brought the dogs from there.
I think they were calling these dogs Turkish because they were from Hungary. After all, the Spanish water dog is primarily a herding dog like the puli.
My mom talks all the time about her mother’s dog “Pepsi” which she calls a spitz and from the photos is the “not American Eskimo”. (this would have been in the 1930’s). It was a nasty little beast that hated one lady in particular and always tried to bite her.
When my grandpa was growing up in the Depression, one of the neighbors who was a native of the “Old Country” had a mid-sized black spitz that was kept for ratting purposes. She later became pregnant by a feist– a kind of country terrier that typically won’t go to ground. The puppies that resulted were superior varmint dogs. My grandpa’s favorite dog through most of his late childhood into his 20’s was one from that litter. The dog, named Jiggs, lived to the ripe old age of 20, which was virtually unheard of in those days.
Given how our early ancestors called Alces alces an aborted variant of the Algonkin word for what we call “moose”, and called our supraspecies variant of Red Deer Elk, I don’t think there is any point in placing any faith in our nomenclature, past or present.
All that can truly be said about the Phoenicians is that they had a high regard for for a variety of landrace dogs who fulfilled a lot of different purposes, and traded them along their routes throughout the Mediterranean and up the coast as far as Britain.