Canada's Native Dog Breeds Date Back Centuries

Four Survive, but the Tahltan Dog and St. John's Water Dog are Gone

Apr 15, 2009

Of Canada's four remaining recognized dog breeds, two are well known. Two survived near-extinction in the late 20th century, thanks to people determined to save them.

The best known Canadian dogs are the Labrador Retriever and the Newfoundland. One retrieves waterfowl and the other retrieves people, but both are descended from St. John’s Water Dogs from the island province of Newfoundland. Both were later developed in England.

The first Labradors were taken to England in the mid to late 1800s. Aside from adding two new colours (yellow and chocolate), the breed has remained virtually unchanged. Labs average 22-24 inches and 60-75 pounds. They have short, dense, waterproof coats and a tail that is covered in thick muscle and resembles that of an otter. They excel as gun dogs and are capable of performing many different jobs.

The Newfoundland evolved into a much bigger dog with a long coat plus a luxurious plumed tail. His swimming and water rescue abilities are legendary. Like the Lab, the Newfie loves people and can be trained for many activities, although his size keeps him from being chosen for some jobs. Newfs can be all black or black and white (Landseer).

Dog Breeds Rescued From Near-Extinction

The Qimmiq, or Canadian Eskimo Dog, is the original legendary “husky”. Its history goes back thousands of years with the Inuit people of Canada’s north, who used them to pull sleds and hunt polar bears. The Qimmiq nearly died out after becoming interbred with other breeds such as the Alaskan Malamute. In the 1970s, biologist Dr. Bill Carpenter set out to rescue the breed by travelling to remote Arctic villages and locating as many pure Qimmiq as he could for a breeding program. Although numbers remain very low, today this tough survivor is no longer endangered, and it is CKC recognized.

Canadian Eskimo Dogs accompanied the early Antarctic explorers, and their descendants lived in Antarctica until just a few years ago, when they were rescued and brought back to Canada, the United States and Australia.

The Nova Scotia Duck Tolling Retriever is a little gun dog whose forebears existed in Canada’s Maritimes for centuries. His coat is similar to a Newfie’s, but very soft with an extremely thick undercoat. The Toller is a specialist with ducks and geese, luring them towards a hunter with his foxlike tail and playful attitude, then fetching the downed birds.

Tollers average 18-20 inches tall and 35-45 pounds. This is another versatile breed, and can do almost anything its size will allow. Tollers are always red or gold, usually with white markings on the feet, face, chest and/or tailtip.

Tollers were Canadian Kennel Club (CKC) recognized in 1945, but almost vanished in the 1950s. Although no longer threatened with extinction, every registered Toller of today is descended from just 11 dogs registered between 1959 and 1962, and all of those trace to a female named Buffy, born in the early 1950s.

Canadian Dog Breeds That Have Disappeared

The black St. John’s Water Dog was the forerunner of the Labrador and the Newfoundland, but never became a recognized breed. There are only a handful of them left in Newfoundland, and they are no longer purebred.

The Tahltan Bear Dog was a black and white spitz dog developed by the Tahl-Tan people of the British Columbia interior to hunt bears. It was about the size of a large fox terrier, and had a bushy tail that was docked to half length so that it stood up like a bottle brush. This breed was so adapted to its environment that, when specimens were taken south, they simply died.

The breed was CKC recognized in 1939. There were still a few purebred Tahltans alive in the 1970s, but sadly they were all neutered. Today, the breed is no longer recognized and is believed to be extinct, but there is hope that a few may survive in remote regions of B.C.

Sources

Audubon, John James, and John Bachman. The Viviparous Quadrupeds of North America. Originally published in three volumes (1845-1848),

Churchill, Janet I. The New Labrador Retriever. Howel Book House, New York, NY, 1995.

Hubbard , Clifford L.B. Dogs In Britain, A Description of All Native Breeds and Most Foreign Breeds in Britain, 1948.

Warwick, Helen. The Complete Labrador Retriever. Howell Book House, New York, NY, 1965.

The copyright of the article Canada's Native Dog Breeds Date Back Centuries in Dog Breeds is owned by Terry McNamee. Permission to republish Canada's Native Dog Breeds Date Back Centuries in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.