The Norwegian lundehund will be making its debut at the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show this year.
This breed is a surviving artifact of the cultures along the coast of Norway that relied very much upon nesting seabirds as a source of protein. Various pelagic birds nest in vast rookeries throughout the North Altantic, and for a few weeks out of the year, a great bounty can be had simply through stealing eggs and killing both adult birds and chicks.
Among the birds that these Norwegian coastal villages hunted was the Atlantic puffin. Puffins nest in deep crevices and tunnels that are protected by sea cliffs. In this way, they can avoid most predators that might be stalking around their nests. Puffins were good to eat, and their very soft and very dense down was quite valuable. Thus, there was a very strong market incentive to catch puffins when they came ashore to nest.
The Norwegians began to adapt dogs for the task of making it easier to raid puffin nest. The small farmers on the coast of Norway had sheep dogs with prick-ears that were quite good at the task, and these same dogs were used for raiding puffin nests in Iceland.
The Norwegians called their dog the lundehund or “puffin dog.”
The Icelandic sheepdog and the dog we call the lundehund today are quite closely related, and the ancestors of the Icelandic sheepdog definitely were used in raiding puffin nests. Icelandic sheepdogs today often have double dewclaws on their hind legs, and I believe they are one of the few breeds that must have dewclaws on the back and hind legs.
Dogs of this type were found in parts of western Norway and in Iceland for hundreds of years, but then the bulk of the population in Norway became extinct. The puffin colonies themselves began to decline as a result of over harvest, and the Norwegian farmers began to use buhunds and imported herding dogs to handle their sheep and cows.
The only remaining puffin dogs were on the island of Lofoten, and there, they could only be found in a little village called Måstad.
As a landrace, they were reduced to relict population.
However, the dogs in Lofoten had some unique traits that made them really distinctive. They were virtually all polydactyl– usually averaging six toes per foot. They were also unusually flexible for a dog. These traits have all been suggested to give the dog some advantage in climbing up steep cliffs and wedging itself into puffin burrows. And there may be some truth to these suggestions. I just haven’t seen them confirmed in a real world situation or with any empirical analysis.
The puffin dogs continued on in obscurity until the Second World War. That’s when tragedy struck . Norway was occupied by the Nazis, and a distemper epidemic swept the islands. Because the nation was deeply embroiled in war, they were unable to attend to things like conservation breeding. The puffin dog numbers were able to recover somewhat, but then in 1963, distemper hit the islands again. Perhaps because these dogs were so isolated that they had no regular exposure to the disease, or maybe their lack of resistance to the disease came from them developing very homozygous MHC haplotypes from their earlier genetic bottleneck. Whatever it was, distemper destroyed them, leaving behind only six dogs– five of which were from the same parents.
All lundehunds today descend from these six dogs. I have not encountered any evidence that these six dogs were outcrossed to other breeds at all, though they may have been.
But what is clear is that all the lundehunds living today exist within a closed registry system, and as a result of being derived from such a small number of founders, every single one of them has the genetic basis for developing what is called Lundehund Syndrome, a series of gastrointestinal issues that at in an advanced state prevent the absorption of nutrients and results in the slow and agonizing death of the dog. And at their absolute worst, may produce intestinal cancer. The average lifespan of this breed is in the 7 year range, which is about half of what it should be.
This breed is getting a lot of PR right now. It is just making its way to Westminster, where the often foolish media makes a big deal about its multiple toes– as if that were the breed’s only issue worth discussing.
The fact is this breed should never have been allowed to exist in a closed registry system anywhere– much less the AKC. We have a 100 percent saturation with the gene or genes that cause these gastrointestinal issues, and the only way ever to solve them is to outcross.
And the Icelandic sheepdog is a pretty good choice for an outcross. The two dogs were likely the same breed for hundreds of years, and they do have many traits in common.
But having a serious discussion about outcrossing with many people in these breeds is a bit like pulling teeth.
Maybe I don’t understand the theology that says lundehunds are better off as closed registry show dogs, but my logic and reason in the reality-based world says this is one of the worst breeds ever admitted to the AKC. It might be the worst.
This dog needs help that only an entities outside the closed registry system can provide, but now, it has been consumed by the mother of all closed registry systems. This isn’t worming the cat with arsenic. This is worming the cat by running him over with a pick-up truck.
Rman, found you via another blog I recently joined. I was concerned about reviving a dog from “extinction” with respect to limited genes. You clearly have the same concerns and have extracted far more information than I have.
Have you sent this info to any NY papers?
I have not, but I will alert my contacts in the media.
Actually, my friend, Chris, at Border Wars has an even more shocking story:
http://www.astraean.com/borderwars/2012/02/double-merle-progeny-at-westminster.html
Wyndlair Cherokee Vindication won the breed!
Yes! Bwars is the blog I found you through, and I got his permission to send a message to News Tips regarding that story, though if you have contacts established you probably want to send them a pitch yourself.
Chris was far too modest to do so himself it seems. :)
Oh I agree!
He’s awesome.
I passed both of these along to my contacts.
When I got involved with Lundehunds over a decade ago, there were strict rules about breeding and showing. The outbreeding rule is one of those rules. Regarding Lundehund Syndrome, with better medical care it is managable and dogs are living longer. 6 of my 7 have lived to be older than 7, most reaching 9 and 10 years of age. But, the pity is that some breeders are now practicing line breeding instead of following the parent club rules of five to six degrees of separation between the parents . . . which is hard to do when the starting breeding pool of dogs was just six or so dogs. I got out of breeding when I saw the ethics start to slide. I am down to one male, from one of our litters, he is 9, as far as I know his brothers are still alive also. No severe LS. But I couldn’t abide what I saw going on in the very small club. I can’t imagine what it must be like in a large club.
Actually, the larger clubs are more diplomatic and people tend to work together better for some reason. The biggest reason for this, it is easier to develop your own line and find like-minded people.
It is in the rare breeds, things can either go fantastically with the right people; or everything goes to shits in the wrong hands. And nothing can be done if no one can agree.
Not all registries are as hidebound as AKC. While the United Kennel is a much smaller organization, it appears to have a broader view of what a registry should be. As one example, it was UKC that kept track of the LUA Dalmatians generations descended from the outcross breeding — dogs that are only recently being officially recognized by AKC . UKC also recognized the need for outcrosses in the developing Chinook breed, and these were done with proper records, etc. Overall, the people at UKC seem to have a better balanced view of the entire dog scene– and they make it enjoyable, too!
Retrieverman,
I am shocked at how much “Lundehund Syndrome” in this breed of dog resembles Celiac disease in humans, which is an auto immune reaction to a specific protein of the grain family of wheats, which damages the villi and leads to malnutrition. From the pdf link, by the time I got to “Cobalamin Vitamin B12 deficiency” and “intestinal impermeability, tight junctions,” I was gobsmacked. Celiac is a genetic disease whereby a small percentage of carriers are stressed by infectious disease, pregnancy, injury, etc., to trigger the reaction . In almost all cases Celiac can be controlled to the point of healing, by strictly avoiding the offending protein and sticking to a gluten free diet.
Certain individual dogs of many breeds certainly do have wheat “allergies,” and other types of food allergies and intolerances, the incidence of which seems to be increasing. (Just check the increasing varieties of “allergy” safe dog foods….) My theory is that the invention of antibiotics helped us live long enough to reproduce now – the humans, that is – and that is part of the reason celiac disease “seems” to be increasing – the other reason is, of course, better information sharing of the internet age allows people to realize and share science and medical discoveries. Our environment is also different, in terms of the widespread availability and ease of consuming highly processed foodstuffs and the near herculean effort required to AVOID certain common ingredients such as wheat, soy, corn, etc. (altho it is only the wheat family I refer to here).
Do you know if the researchers have investigated as to whether this type of situation can be what is ailing the Lundehund ? It would not necessarily be a reaction to wheat, rye, or barley, but do they have antibodies to something else common in their modern environment ? Are these poor dogs accidentally bred to survive only on rare foods ? Has anyone done a study on their reactions to simplified diets ?
It’s not celiac disease. These dogs can have these issues regardless of diet.
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