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Scandinavian countries hold official competitions to crown the “King of the Barkers,” and the Finnish Spitz dog breed dominates the event. Recorded contestants have hit 160 barks per minute — loud and genuinely fast. Think about your neighbors before you commit to this one. Behind the noise, though, is a genuinely devoted national treasure with…
Long before this dog became a fluffy family companion, merchants and fishermen brought it aboard their ships as a working guard dog. The German Spitz Klein, the smaller of the two German Spitz sizes, spent centuries alerting sailors to trouble on deck, and that same alert, watchful nature is still very much part of the…
Archaeologists have found spitz-type dog bones at human settlements across Central Europe dating back 5,000 to 6,000 years. The German Spitz dog breed, specifically the medium-sized Mittel variety, descends from that same ancient Nordic lineage, brought to Germany and the Netherlands by Vikings during the Middle Ages. That’s a genuinely long history for a dog…
This dog is literally named after the thorns it hunts through. The Italian Spinone dog breed traces its name back to bracco spinoso, a reference to both its wiry coat and the thorny brambles it was bred to push through while hunting game in the Italian countryside. It’s a fitting name for a breed built…
For centuries, this dog’s job was to climb the walls of Buddhist monasteries and bark the alarm the moment a stranger approached. The Tibetan Spaniel dog breed served as a living security system for monks high in the Himalayas, and that sentry instinct is still very much alive in the breed today. Small in size…
Picture a hunting dog whose entire job is to trick ducks into swimming toward a trap, using nothing but a flick of its black-tipped tail. That’s exactly what the Dutch Spaniel dog breed, better known as the Kooikerhondje, was bred to do centuries ago in the Netherlands — and some still do it today. It’s…