Northernwolf Siberian Huskies | The Communists | Dogs, Decided, Other, Were, Had

Line of the nose straight from the stop to tip.

The Communists

Joseph Stalin 1878 - 1953

During the height of the Stalinist era, in the 1930s, the Communists, not satisfied with nationalizing Tussia's industry, such as it was, decided to go after the dogs. They put forth a major efort to destroy every vestige of traditional, non-Soviet culture, including the native dog breeds. Although such policies seem counterproductive and shortsighted today, the early Communists probably thought that they were doing everyone a good turn. They decided sled dogs were bourgeois and outdated creatures anyway, and that they all should be replaced by up-to-date motorized vehicles. At least that's what they thought until they actually got to Chukchi land and found that all their up-to-date motorized vehicles got stuck in the snow.

At that point, even the pet phobic Communists were compelled to admit the dog's economic, if not spiritual, usefulness. But instead of doing the sensible thing and leaving the Chukchis and other native peoples in peace to breed dogs most suitable to their lifestyles, the Soviets decided to reorganize the dozens of existing northern breeds under four artificial headings: sled dogs, reindeer herders, big game hunters, and small game hunters. This worked for a while, at least for the Russians. There's no evidence that the Chukchis paid any attention to it.

In 1947, the Russians had yet another reorganization attack. The Soviet Congress, which apparently had nothing better to do, decided that the Worker's Paradise really didin't ned any sled dogs r reindeer herding dogs after all, and they reclassified the hunting dogs into four new subdivisions, none of which corresponded to any real breed.

The dog we now call the Siberian Husky was left out of all these classifications; the Soviets, in their infinite wisdom, decided that they were too small to pull anything, even though they had been hauling sleds all over Siberian for the past few thousand years or so.

The Siberians were indeed much smaller than the oter Arctic breeds, topping out at around 50 pounds, which is why the Russians sneered at them. But the Chukchis didnt mind. They knew that nothing ocud surpass their native dogs for long distance sledding. When the Chukchis needed more power, they simply hitched up more dogs. And becasue of the Siberian's super excellent temperament, as many as 18 or 20 dogs could be hitched to a single sled. And there was no fighting. This kind of cooperation was simply not possible with the other, more short-tempered Nordic breeds.

Besides, Siberian Huskies had other advantages, which made them unlike most of the other northern breeds. Becasue that had been raised in a family setting, and not left out to fend for themselves, they could be trusted with children, and they could run faster, longer, and on less food than any other breed in the world. All this is still tue of the Husky today.

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