Breed Priorities – Finnish Spitz

Suomen-pystykorva–the national dog of Finland, also called Finsk Spets–translates as Finnish prick-eared dog. In AKC, it is called the Finnish Spitz. Developed in Finland from Spitz-type dogs for thousands of years, it was used to hunt all types of game. His skill at barking and pointing game in trees led to his specialization in hunting birds.

By the late 1800s in Finland, with other Spitz dogs being around and bred with the Finnish Spitz, it was becoming rare as a unique breed. Hugo Roos was determined to preserve and revive the breed and did so over several decades. His results are the ancestors of today’s Finnish Spitz.

Finnish Spitz were first imported to the United States in 1959, and the first breeding pair arrived in 1966. They entered AKC’s Miscellaneous class in 1983, and joined the AKC Non-Sporting group in 1988. As of 2021, it ranked 191st among AKC recognized breeds.

We found names of twenty-eight Finnish Spitz experts, twenty-five of whom had contact information to which we sent invitations to take a survey on their breed. Fifteen agreed to do so, and eleven surveys have been returned. Those who contributed have been in the breed for twenty-seven-and-one-half years on average. Those who are approved to judge have been doing so for twenty-and-one-half years.

The Finnish Spitz experts ranked a list of virtues taken from their AKC standard from most to least important. The list below is in sequence by the average of the experts’ placements, with one being the most important.

Posted by AnthonyA on Oct 24 2022. Filed under Current Articles, Featured. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. Both comments and pings are currently closed.