Picture of a group of fluffy dogs – Samoyeds?

The group of four in the middle look like Samoyeds to me.

Fluffy dogs group. Samoyeds?
Fluffy dogs group. Samoyeds? Photo: Reddit.com.

Some more about the Samoyed dog breed

I’m going to proceed on the premise that the four dogs in the picture above at the centre are Samoyeds. They are a medium-sized herding dog with thick, white, double-layered coats. They are a spitz-type dog which I’ve written about before. Spitz dogs are also called dogs of the northern dog group. Samoyeds come from Northwest Russia and Western Siberia. They were bred for wool many years ago.

The breed standard for this dog requires that they are between 45 and 65 pounds in weight and between 21 and 23.5 inches at the shoulder for males and for females the requirements are: 30-50 pounds and 19-21 inches to the shoulder. Their eyes are normally black or brown and are almond-shaped. Show dogs are not allowed to have blue or other colour eyes but they do occur.

Their ears are covered with thick fur and are triangular in shape. The fur on the ears is almost always white but they can have a biscuit-coloured tint around the tips. The tail is carried curled over the back like an American ring-tailed cat. The tail touches and lies on the back and is held to one side. When sleeping they might place their tails over their noses for warmth. The tail is held like this when relatively alert compared to when relaxed such as when being stroked or while eating when it falls.

They have a double layered dense coat. The topcoat contains course and straight guard hairs which keeps the undercoat clean while the underlayer consists of a dense, soft short fur to keep the dog warm

The dog is said to have a friendly and affable disposition and therefore is unsuited to being a guard dog. They tend to smile and are described as having a happy expression on their face. They are sometimes referred to as the “smiley dog”. However, if they become bored they can become destructive or perhaps dig. They have a sled pulling heritage and therefore don’t mind pulling things. As a working dog they also are used to herd reindeer.

As is the case for all selectively bred, purebred dogs, they suffer from known genetic, inherited diseases and conditions such as kidney disease and hereditary glomerulopathy. This is a “set of diseases affecting the glomeruli of the nephron”. ‘Glomerulus’ means ‘a cluster of nerve endings, spores, or small blood vessels, especially a cluster of capillaries around the end of a kidney tubule’. So this disease affects the kidneys.

The breed has an extensive list of potential health issues which is quite concerning and which also includes diabetes mellitus (sugar diabetes). This occurs in middle age at about seven years of age. It is caused by the pancreas becoming chronically inflamed. In addition this breed may suffer from progressive renal atropy, short legs in conjunction with eye abnormalities, pulmonary stenosis, hip dysplasia and sebaceous adenitis. That sounds like a long list which is a bit disturbing but by God they look great in the picture.

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Post Category: Dogs > dog breeds