Samoyed Articles
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As dogs with a long history of strenuous physical activity as a working breed that includes such tasks as herding reindeer and pulling sleds in temperatures that could go as low as -70 degrees F, the Samoyed has some unique exercise needs that must be met if you're to provide your animal with a truly happy home and lifestyle. This doesn't necessarily mean that you'll need to buy a large sled and move to a northern climate if you want your Samoyed to be properly exercised, it just means that you need to take a few steps to educate yourself about the breed's unique needs. [...]
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The Samoyed is a dog well known for its beautiful and luxurious white coat. The secret to their full and bouncy appearance lies in the fact that they actually possess not one, but two coats: an undercoat with a coarse, woolly texture, and an outer coat with longer and softer guard hairs. Because of this somewhat unique configuration, the Samoyed's coat brings with it some similarly unique grooming concerns which we'll attempt to outline in this article.
The first thing you should know is that two times a year, a Samoyed will totally (yes, totally) shed the entirety of their undercoat. This can be a very dramatic experience for someone who hasn't gone through it before as you're very likely to just wake up one morning and find huge clumps of hair all throughout your home that will need to be vacuumed up or otherwise gotten rid of. The good news is that these periods of shedding are fairly brief, and apart from this phenomenon the breed hardly sheds at all. [...]
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The Samoyed as a breed takes its name from the tribes who originally domesticated it. The Samoyed tribes of Siberia were natives to the land who had become experts at living off of the unproductive land of the region and contending with its harsh and unforgiving climates. The breed was named Samoyed, because in their native Slavic tongue, the word translates roughly to "living off themselves". This is a kind of tribute to the self-sufficient nature of the dog that was something which the tribe both respected and valued. As such, the Samoyed dog began to live with the tribe of the same name and to work with them at various tasks. [...]
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Samoyeds have such a reputation for friendliness that in many circles they've even been called "the friendliest breed". Indeed, there is something about the Samoyed nature that immediately puts one at ease. Even people who are normally threatened by the presence of big dogs can feel comfortable around a Samoyed because of their gentle demeanor and ever-present smile. Just how much of this reputation, however, is in accord with the truth and which is just propaganda? [...]
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The Samoyed is a Northern breed, and among other things, this means that training them presents a unique challenge. This is not to say that the Samoyed is "difficult" to train; rather, they simply require a different approach than a dog who is more inclined to readily accept textbook training techniques than they are.
Their willful and stubborn attitude has given many people the impression that Samoyeds are stupid. This couldn't be further from the truth! A Samoyed is a very highly intelligent dog and as such, any training regimen that you try to put them through had better appeal to their sense of curiosity and low threshold for boredom or else you're setting yourself up for failure. With a dog as intelligent as the Samoyed, variety is critical. Never focus on the same aspect of training for more than maybe half an hour at a time or you will simply exhaust the Samoyed's attention span and end up frustrating both yourself and your dog. Keep things exciting by teaching multiples tricks or commands at the same time and alternating between them throughout the course of a single training session. And remember, once it learns a command, the Samoyed will rarely forget. [...]
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The Samoyed has a strong reputation for being an excellent dog either as a household pet or as a working dog. Indeed, their unique characteristics as a breed make them equally suitable for either extreme, but in their enthusiasm to tell you what's so wonderful about their pet, many owners will overlook certain facts that might make for an important consideration when determining whether or not you want to bring a Samoyed into your own home. Before you commit to anything, be sure that you're making the right decision for both yourself and your future dog by taking a step back and reviewing the pros and cons of the Samoyed breed. [...]
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The Samoyed has a highly deserved reputation as one of the most beautiful of dog breeds, and rightly so. Anyone who has felt their luxurious coat or observed the degree of sincere happiness they receive at a simple gesture like a pat on the head will agree that the Samoyed is a breed that quickly endears itself to even the hardest of hearts. That said, there is much more to the Samoyed than meets the eye. The breed has existed for centuries as a dog that performs what amounts to hard labor in some of the harshest climates on the face of the planet. Because they've changed so little since their inception as a breed, the modern Samoyed is still very much suited to taking up their role as a working dog should the desire arise. [...]
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The Samoyed is a very beautiful breed who requires very little in the way of maintenance. They're highly skilled at preserving their own appearance and take well to obedience courses, so they're natural candidates for performing in the show ring. If you intend to show your Samoyed, however, it's not enough to simply rely on his or her natural graces to carry you through to victory. You must know precisely the things that the judges will be looking for and train your Samoyed to cultivate these desired behaviors and appearances. With the natural edge that the breed offers and the information in this article, you should be well on your way to earning those blue ribbons in no time. [...]
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The Samoyed, despite its many unique qualifications, belongs to a larger subcategory of dog known as the Spitz breeds. The Spitz breeds in general are characterized as having long thick fur and pointed ears or muzzles, with a tail that usually curves over and above the dog's back. Aside from this general physical description, however, dogs in the Spitz breed category tend to share much more in common. [...]
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? The Samoyed is one of the only breeds of dog to possess no real natural odor. Even when wet, they don't possess the characteristic "dog smell" that usually prompts people to let their pets spend the night outside. When they are marked by an outside source such as a skunk, they even seem particularly adept at shedding this scent more quickly than other breeds would be capable of doing so. [...]
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Malamutes and Huskies are two very hardy breeds of dogs that have been developed to withstand horrifically cold temperatures and work in the most inhospitable climates and conditions. These wonderful dogs, though healthy and hardy, can have one major health problem and that is an inability to absorb and use the zinc in their diets. Some of the giant breeds such as the Great Dane may also have inherited problems in absorbing zinc, leading to long term zinc deficiencies that do not respond to typical feeding routines.
Zinc deficiency can also occur in dogs that are not fed enough meat in their diet or are fed a mostly vegetarian diet. In some cheap types of foods the zinc may be bound in unusable forms to the dog and therefore is just the same as not having it in the diet at all. [...]
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