Icelander Spitz Dog Breed

Iceland

It is known that this dog is the national symbol for the towns that live in a determined circle around the North Pole. The Icelander Spitz is the only breed that has developed in Iceland, and its existence goes back to more than a thousand years.

As its name suggests, it belongs to the Icelander breed and it was one of the first among the known dogs that lived in Scandinavia. The archeological discoveries show that the dogs of the Stone Age belonged to this breed. The most ancient remainings found in Scandinavia (a skull from the Stone Age) show big similarities with the head of the current dogs of this breed.

Some of those primitive specimens arrived to Iceland around the year 800 with the first Norwegian immigrants; thus they become in the ancestors of the current spitz, in the same extent that they were for the Norwegian Elkhound and the Buhund in Norway.

Likewise the other breeds of the same trunk, the Icelander spitz has a wide head, pricked ears and a tail curved over the back. The hair is wire and medium long; the color is white with cream, and golden patches, or cream with black tips. The height at withers is 38 to 45 cm.