Tamaskan Dog

Did You Know?

• Roughly 10% of male Tamaskans suffer from cryptorchidism.
• Epilepsy affects about 1 out of every 100 registered Tamaskan worldwide.
• Northern Inuit dogs were used to portray dire wolves in the television series Game of Thrones.

Northern Inuit dog

The northern Inuit dog originated from dogs of unknown ancestry imported from North America in the 1980s, crossed with Alaskan Malamutes, German Shepherds, Siberian Huskies and possibly Samoyeds. The breeding project aimed to produce a wolf-like dog suitable for companionship and trainable for various tasks. The tamaskan is an offshoot of this initiative, along with the British timber dog and the utonagan.

Description

Tamaskan dogs are large and athletic, slightly taller than German Shepherds but smaller than Alaskan Malamutes. Adults stand 24–28 inches tall and weigh 55–88 pounds, with males heavier and more heavyset than females. They have a lupine appearance with a straight bushy tail and a thick double coat. Guard hairs are agouti banded. Eye colors range from yellow through amber to brown; blue eyes or mismatched eyes are not acceptable. Genetic testing has identified a color variant linked to partial recessive red traits carried by at least 50% of northern Inuit and tamaskan dogs, a mutation first detected in prehistoric dog DNA from 10,000 years ago.

History

In the 1980s, five dogs of Siberian Husky origin were imported into the United Kingdom from the United States and bred to Alaskan Malamutes, Siberian Huskies and German Shepherds to create a wolf-like dog with good temperament. Poor record keeping left most ancestry unknown. Breed founders Lynn Hardey and Jennie Peacock, former committee members of the British and International Utonagan Society, sought genetic diversity abroad and purchased working husky crosses from Finland. When most Utonagan breeders showed no interest, the founders left to start the Tamaskan Dog Register in 2006. Breed clubs exist in the United States, Canada, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Croatia, and the United Kingdom.

Famous Tamaskan dogs

A Tamaskan named Genghis Khan played a wolf in a 2007 music video for Lucretia Choir. In 2010, a male named Wave became the live mascot for NC State University's Wolfpack football team, attending home games as Tuffy. Four Tamaskans appeared on the Croatian show Kućni ljubimci in 2012. Luchta performed as the wolf in Arthur Miller's The Crucible on Broadway in 2016. In 2017, a therapy dog named Kaoru was killed by a hunter in Whistler, British Columbia, after being mistaken for a wolf.