The Amazing Norwegian Lundehund

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This little dog breed has amazed me for quite some time and I wanted to share some information about them with my friends here at MyLot. The Lundehund, which takes its name from the lunde, puffin, (Fratercula arctica) is one of the world's rarest breed of dog not only because of its modest numbers, but also because in one and the same breed we find a whole series of unusual anatomical characteristics. Some of these characteristics are found, but only sporadically, in other breeds. The lundehund is rare but is also remarkable--what other breed of dog is marked by so many unusual characteristics? The lundehund has at least 6 toes on each foot; can close its ears so that the ear-canal is protected against dirt and moisture; has neck-joints which enable it to bend the head backwards over the shoulders, so that the forehead touches the back--this is useful when the dog has to turn in a narrow passage. Furthermore, this dog has extremely mobile fore shoulder-joints, so that both front legs can stretch straight out to the sides. The lundehunds' unusual characteristics were very useful in a particular kind of hunt. The many toes gave the dog a good foothold when it had to balance on steep cliffs or slippery rocks, and they were a great help when the dog had to crawl through difficult passageways. The dog used this extra toe as support, also to brake himself on slippery or uneven terrain, so that on the whole the dog was equipped to go where the man could not. The characteristic fore shoulder-joints enabled the dog to "throw out his arms" if he lost his footing on slippery rock and was, as we have noted, useful when he had to turn or shift in cramped passages. The mobility of the dog's neck was undoubtedly of great usefulness when he had to reverse himself in order to come out from the passages to the birds' nests. It is indeed unbelievable what nature has created here: the Lundehund is so unusually distinguished by his characteristics as to make one ask if, all in all, this IS a dog. If the little fishing village, Måstad, on the island of Væroy in the Lofoten Islands, had not had such hopelessly poor communications with the outside world, the world's most unusual dog would now be only history. The lively little lundehund is, actually, just as rare and select among breeds of dog as are the Arabian and ling horse (ling is a moor with heather) among horses. Furthermore, had the inhabitants of Måstad not lived in such isolation right down to our own times, it would have gone with the lundehund as with the gyrfalcon (a large falcon, Falco rusticolus, of the northern hemisphere). The Lundehund's foot has five fully developed three-jointed toes and one two-jointed---the latter resembles man's thumb. This can be clearly seen in an x-ray. There are muscles for flexing and stretching trotting these toes which resemble the muscles in man's thumb. All other breeds of dog normally have only four toes and the musculature for them. One may well ask--why do they have this foot? The people of Måstad insist that a good lundehund has to have many toes. When one goes out in the countryside with lundehunds one can see at once what help this special foot is: when a lundehund cannot crawl into a tunnel because there is little space overhead, he can lie on his side and squeeze himself farther in. In this position, he has to use the innermost toes, else he could get no foothold. Whenever he has to turn or wriggle in this sideways position, it is always this innermost toe which holds to the floor of the tunnels. The lundehund has eight foot pads on each forefoot and seven on each hind foot. Their large foot pads are quite different from those of other dogs. The normal position of the ears is upright. One can easily see how the lundehund can close his ears by bending them forwards or backwards, leaving a little space open on the outermost part of the ear. It is far more difficult to explain WHY they have this characteristic. Clearly it has something to do with keeping their ears free of dirt and water, but this is too easy an explanation. We might believe that the characteristic has something to do with their need to orient themselves in a narrow passageway. When the passage, as so often is very narrow, the ear is flattened in against the head while the upper half of the cartilage can be raised separately and thus works as a receiver for sound. The tail is carried in different positions, entirely according to the dog's mood. During play or rest, the tail is lightly rolled upward. If the dog is excited or running hard, the tail streams out behind. If the dog is unwell, or uncertain, the tail falls right down between the back legs and slightly under the stomach. Those who see a lundehund out on the scree (the old Norse word is uren - the landscape is that of north Norway, Northern England, Iceland -- rocky, steep, slippery cliffs or slopes from the mountains down towards the sea) or up on the mountains are greatly struck by its agility: the dog is completely adapted to the terrain. In addition to their foot's natural part in their particular movements, their unusual neck- and shoulder-joints are astonishing. The way a lundehund can arch its head up and backwards over its spine is a characteristic we can not explain with any certainty. Among mammals, only a reindeer has the same flexibility. If one takes a lundehund up by the front legs and swings them out to the right and the left, the lundehund shows no discomfort. To understand why this is so one needs to imagine oneself right out in the lundefugl (puffin) screes. When one sees a lundehund in action--up, down, slantwise over the rocks and unevenly over the cliffs -- one sees a lightning-swift, sure-footed dog. If one has seen the lundehund here, one can better understand the unusual development of its body: nothing could have been at all different in its body, otherwise he could not have functioned so well. It is tempting to ask if it is not the hundreds of years' experience which has shaped the lundehund. Has this dog been capable of adapting itself so well, or do we possibly catch in the lundehund a glimpse of something far older than the usual dog of today? The scientist Torbjorn Aasheim says, "We have now the remains of an old breed of dog which, because of the area where it has been a working dog, has characteristics which are not found in other parts of the world. We know that the breed is genetically undisturbed by foreign blood. The breed has therefore not alone an antiquarian value, and is not merely a canine rarity. It represents perhaps the most valuable material for scientific investigation of areas in which we can learn how heredity is modified, and how a species or breed can modify itself to its specialized milieu. Science has not yet come far enough to answer all our questions, for it is tomorrow's "dog science" we are talking of here. It is the responsibility of dog-lovers to make sure that this sort of investigation and its source are not destroyed. The lundehund is the canine world's last example of undisturbed breeding. It is our duty to guard it as such."**Note: DNA studies have shown that the Lundehund, along with all other breeds of dogs, has descended from the wolf, Canis lupus. Today's lundehund has many unique characteristics. It has the same jaw as the Varanger Dog (a fossilized dog found in north Lapland, Russia), which dates back 5000 years. Both these dogs have one less tooth, on both sides of the jaw, than other dogs. Some scientists suggest that lundehunds are the original, ur hund, and that it has survived from before the last Ice Age, on the outermost islands of Lofoten.