SIBERIAN SLEDDOGS were virtually unobtainable during the period from 1930 to 1990 due to the closure of Siberia to external trade by the Soviet government. The breakup of the Soviet Union in 1989 made it possible to obtain dogs from Siberia again, once the borders of Siberia were re-opened to exterior travel and trade.
In 1990 the Russian Sergei Solovyev and Czech musher Ivan Sibrt selected sleddog stock from various Siberian villages in the Chukotka region. The dogs they obtained were taken to Solovyev's home in Ekaterinburg (western Siberia) where Solovyev bred them as sleddogs using the FCI (European) Siberian Husky standard as a guide.
DURING THE 1990S a few dogs bred by Solovyev and Sibrt reached western Europe and North America, exported via the Czech Republic to Germany and Spain initially. However, kennel clubs such as CKC, AKC, and various European breed registries refused to accept the Russian imports for registration as Siberian Huskies on the grounds that the imported animals were not bred from stock already registered in their own or other approved stud books. The Solovyev Russian bloodline was recognised by Seppala breed pioneers J. Jeffrey Bragg and Isa Boucher as an ideal genetic match for the inbred pure Seppala AKC/CKC Siberian bloodline as it existed in the 1990s. They believed it was imperative to make use of the genetic gift of new Siberian import stock, no matter what objections or obstacles might be imposed by the show-dog registry establishment.
THE FIRST LITTER sired by Russian import male SHAKAL IZ SOLOVYEV on a pure Seppala bitch was born in October 1994. The Canadian Kennel Club rejected both the application for CKC registration of the imported sire and the application to register his first litter, informing the breeders that the imported male should not have been used for breeding since he did not meet CKC's requirements for registration as a purebred Siberian Husky. The Club would not even agree to register his third-generation descendants.
In order to make adequate genetic use of the new Siberia imports, application was made to Agriculture Canada for evolving breed status for the Seppala sleddog population.
Thus the availability of new Siberia import stock was a factor in the founding of the Seppala Siberian Sleddog as a separate evolving breed.
DOGS FROM YAKUTIA out of the Kolyma River region are now becoming available in the west. Efforts are now underway in Russia to conserve and breed autochthonous sleddogs from four separate districts. According to Vladimir Beregovoy (an authority on contemporary Russian laika breeds):
"At present time, at least four aboriginal and geographically distinct groups of Russian sled dogs are distinguished: the Yakutian Laika, the Kamchatka Laika, the Chukotka Laika and the Amur Laika. Russian aboriginal dogs still survived. Despite all troubles and misunderstandings, they have never been devastated as bad as aboriginal dogs of pre-Columbian Indians."
Individuals like Erwin and Sabine Van Wel have imported and bred stock from Yakutia in Europe. Such examples may turn out to be the thin end of a significant wedge. It is to be hoped that some of these indigenous Siberian bloodlines may become established as breeding populations to become a genetic resource for the future.
It is said that data have been furnished to the Fédération Cynologique Internationale by Russian cynological authorities with a view to the eventual recognition of the Yakut sled laika, at least, by F.C.I. If true, this will be a long and uncertain process. I.S.A. would like to help this and similar breeds by offering record-keeping facilities while everyone is waiting upon the deliberations of the European authority.
