Family-friendly: | 4/5 |
Exercise needs: | 5/5 |
Easy to train: | 4/5 |
Tolerates being alone: | 3/5 |
Likes other pets: | 4/5 |
Energy level: | 4/5 |
Grooming needs: | 4/5 |
Shedding: | 4/5 |
- Dogs suitable for experienced owners
- Extra training required
- Generally healthy breed
- Enjoys vigorous walks
- Enjoys more than two hours of walking a day
- Large dog
- Some drool
- Requires grooming every other day
- Chatty and vocal dog
- Welcomes everyone happily
- Might not like other dogs
- May need additional training to live with other pets
- May need additional supervision to live with children
- Needs a large garden
- Best suited to countryside
- Can be left occasionally with training
The Greenland Dog is generally a hardy breed with no widely recognised breed specific health problems.
Priority Kennel Club health schemes and testing:
None but there are several recommended schemes that the Kennel Club recommends which can be found here.
Personality
Like all the Spitz types, the Greenland dog is independent and determined, with great stamina both physically and mentally. This is really a dog for someone who enjoys a training challenge and has the patience to build a strong relationship with a dog who is fully equipped to live in the wild, and knows it! Intelligent and adaptable, good natured and affectionate, they love people but are not particularly loyal to anyone person, willingly welcoming thieves and ne’er do wells into the home just as easily as friends and family! They are less affable with other dogs however and care must be taken to socialise well and manage them so that fall outs and trouble cannot occur!
Did You Know?
- The Greenland Dog has an ancient history; their stamina and physical strength meant not only do they survive harsh Arctic conditions but they helped the native Inuits to survive too. Man has been closely associated with dogs for perhaps 4,000 years, although evidence that far back is sparse and we only have a few examples of archaeological remains. However, there is plenty of documentation for the Greenland dog, from their trips to both North and South Poles in the early 20th Century, to perhaps 1,000 years earlier, bringing the Thule peoples, the ancestors of the Inuits, and all their belongings from Siberia, keeping them safe from predators along the way.
- The Greenland Dog is unlike other modern dogs, where most breeds are genetically related via a shared common ancestor to the Grey Wolf, the Greenland Dog is much more closely related to the Taimyr Wolf, now long extinct. This means the Greenland Dog probably developed and became domesticated 1,000’s of years earlier than more modern breeds!
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