Breed of the Month – Norwegian Lundehund

Posted by: Dog Diaries on 02 Mar 2010

Dog Diaries recently received the following question:

A few years ago I happened to switch channels on my TV and watched the last few minutes of an article that featured a dog called the Puffin Dog. Apparently, this dog has been bred specially to walk along the very narrow tracks on cliff faces to flush out puffin birds.

When this dog came across the bird’s nest, it had to watch out as the bird flew over its head. The dog couldn’t turn around on the track, so it bent its head back over its own back to the bird as it flew away.

Can you find out if this is true and would this dog be indigenous to Scandinavian countries?
Well, the short answer is ‘yes’. This dog can indeed bend its head back along its own spine (and that’s only part of its super-flexibility!), and it is certainly indigenous to Scandinavia. It is also one of the rarest (if not the rarest) of all breeds, but it is not called the Puffin Dog – not technically, anyway.

The breed in question is officially known as the Norwegian Lundehund. However, since lunde means ‘puffin’ and hund means ‘dog’, in translation it does mean ‘puffin dog’! As the name suggests, the breed originated in Norway and has been used for hunting puffins along the coast since at least the 1600s.

Flexible friend

As well as being able to bend its head back along its own spine, the Norwegian Lundehund can turn its legs to the side at a 90-degree angle (much like human arms), and it can also seal its small, pointed ears by folding backwards or forwards. And whereas almost every other dog has four toes, the Lundehund has six. The combination of these features made the dog perfectly suited to hunting puffins, which love to nest in otherwise inaccessible locations in caves and on cliffs.

The Norwegian Lundehund is a small dog, and it’s only by good fortune that it is still around today. Puffins became a protected species in the 1800s, meaning interest in the breed declined until the dogs were only found in one small part of Norway. The few surviving Lundehunds were almost wiped out when canine distemper hit the region in the 1940s and again in the early 1960s.

By this point, there were only six dogs in existence, but a careful breeding programme has now seen the worldwide population swell to 1500-2000, with most found in Norway. There do not appear to be any Norwegian Lundehund breeders in Australia.

Characteristics

The Lundehund has a dense, rough overcoat coupled with a soft undercoat. Its unique flexibility and polydactyl (having more digits than usual) are its most distinguishing characteristics. The dogs are said to be cheerful, intelligent, inquisitive and stubborn. They are also big barkers and protective of their homes and families.
Agile and energetic, they require plenty of exercise. However, they are also extremely prone to Lundehund syndrome – a series of gastrointestinal disorders – which manifests in many dogs from an early age. As a result, the lifespan of the Lundehunds is unpredictable.

•    If you’d like to request a Breed of the Month, or have any breed-related questions you’d like answered, feel free to let us know…

Images by infosightmedia and blogcdn

4 Responses to “Breed of the Month – Norwegian Lundehund”

Wendy Biletic says:

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I love reading about unusual breeds of dogs. I had never heard of the Norwegian Lundehund and found the article most informative. What a gorgeous little dog. It’s a shame they are not available in Australia.

susan mac says:

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Wow1 What a fantastic dog, looks a bit like a dingo! Interesting feet, my dog, a short haired border collie X ,has what I’ve always assumed to be a birth defect, six toes on one of his back feet, looks very similar to the photo here, This dog looks like it would be a great friend for an energetic person with not too many neighbors! It defiantly has an ‘Aussie dog’ appearance to it, thanks for the education of a new breed, I’m always interested.
thanks
Susan

zeitha jalamala says:

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I was visiting a friend recently and her neighbour has a great pirenees. wow!!! how beautiful does this dog look. can you please do an article on this majestic looking creature. he was white, huge and simply stunning. the owner also said that there are not too many of them in australia, can this be true? are there so few like the norwegian lundehund. how rare are they in australia and where do they come from? any info would be appreciated.

Geoffrey and Nancy says:

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We are lucky ebough to have have 2 such amazing dogs, in Florida. There are only about 3 breeders in the US and they breed very few litters per year. There are probably on a few hundred in the US… no one really knows how many are actually alive in the US or the world. The 1500-2000 figure cited above is just a guess. Worth mentioning is that they are capable of bending their necks over backwards because they have an extra vertebra in their neck. And they are actually, like dingos, off the traditional canine lineage tree. Because of this, they have different teeth pattern than regular dogs. Their limbs are all double jointed which allows them to spread them out straight 180 degrees. While many different breeds have a few of these characteristics (including the ability to close the bottom half of their ears while leaving the top half open), no other dog breed has as many or all of these bizarre characteristics. They have been proven to have the oldest original canine DNA, unchanged without “breeding” dating back 10,0000+ years to the last ice age. They are exceptionally warm, sweet, and cuddly. As a breed, they genrally require sleeping on your bed cuddled next to some human body part (head, legs, arms). They are very quick but do not have great stamina, tiring easily. And they love to sleep… alot. They only bark when someone comes to the house or they hear a neighbor; this can be reduced, but not cured, by spraying them with water. Their barking is sometimes unusual, like a wolf howl. They all have almost the exact same coloring because they are all descended from the 6 remaining purebred dogs that survived the 1962 distemper outbreak. Genetically, as a breed, they do not particularly like water as going in the water on the island they lived on off Norway would be deadly. They are great around other kids and other animals, are not hyper like Jack Russells, and are extrenely calm and mellow. Despite what was written in the above article, the gastrointestinal problem (LundeHund Syndrome) is actually exceedingly rare. Our breeder actually has never seen it or heard of any dog getting it. They typically live, like any small dog, to about 14 or 15.

Any other questions, please feel free to contact me at medpsych@comcast.net

Geoffrey

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