Samoyed History
From all the dog breeds the Samoyed is thought to be one of the oldest and also one of the most beautiful in existence.
The problem with this particular breed is that they simply look so ‘pretty’ that people do not take them seriously but their appearance belies their hardy natures. They were originally from the very north of Russia and Siberia and worked for the Samoyed tribes, hence their name.
They were ‘employed’ to pull the tribe’s sledges and to herd their reindeer, the breed was never really known to be a hunter but when they worked together they could actually frighten the mighty polar bear.
It is thought that due to the Samoyed’s double coat and beautifully soft and dense fur that they were also used to keep their masters warm by snuggling into their coats. The Samoyed tribes learnt how to respect this wonderful dog and through the dog’s intelligence and ability to cope with the colder climates it was happy to be with them.
During the Arctic and the Antarctic polar expeditions between 1870 and 1912 Samoyeds were mentioned all of the time; they were brought in from Siberia especially for the expeditions. The dogs proved to be more useful than other animals such as horses, mules or oxen.
They did not even consume the same amount of food as the others and were capable of travelling over greater distances than them before tiring, so on the whole the Samoyed was one of the better animals to use.
One of the initial Samoyed dogs to be registered in the USA with the American Kennel Club was from St.Petersburg, Russia. Then any of the dogs that survived the polar expeditions were bred in the UK for their outstanding beauty and their hardworking natures.
A Samoyed called Rex, who was from a kennel in the USA called White Way, often demonstrated how willing the breed was in general to work. Rex took the place of the lead dog regularly on a run over a 7,200 foot tall mountain pass, the run lasted for 64 miles; Rex never gave up he just kept on going. He even served as a rescue dog and was at the front of the rescue involving a Californian plane that crashed in 1949.
Rex held the world record in weight pulling as he managed to pull 1,870 lbs over a frozen sheet of ice in Montana in the year 1953. He became a celebrity and made appearances at parades, fairs and rodeos his nickname was the ‘Blizzard King’ due to the way he simply seemed to just break through trails even in extreme weather conditions.
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