What Breed Are They?
This is usually the first question we get from our friends, people out at breweries, everywhere we go. At the Common Ground Fair we answered it about 150 times, so I figured it was time to write it all down!
I'll get the easy one out of the way - Tink is an All-American Mutt. She embarked as heavily Boxer, some Beagle and a pile of other things.
The more complicated answer for the rest of them: these are purpose bred sprint sled dogs. They are not an AKC recognized breed. Mushers call em Sprint Hounds (I like to say do you vibe with the Sibes or are you down with the hounds?)
The long answer…
Before, there were Alaskan Huskies, which come from Alaskan village dogs, and Siberian Huskies, the more commonly known husky (and the one that IS an AKC breed). Alaskan Huskies were never bred for looks, just for what they could do, so they've always been a bit of a mix.
Then folks were aiming to go faster, and maybe didn't need to run 200 miles. In Scandinavia, once Norway started allowing Alaskan Huskies to race in the 80s, mushers started crossing their speedy Alaskans with pointers (mostly German Shorthaired Pointers) and the Eurohound was born. Sprint mushers here started mixing in German Shorthaired Pointers, English Pointers, Greyhounds, Salukis and other sighthounds too, for more speed and a little more heat tolerance for warmer weather (which extends the season, especially for dryland).
Then they bred the best of those mixes to the other best of those mixes and on and on and on… until now Bolt, E-Claire and Clip come back from Embark as 100% Alaskan-type Husky even though they look nothing like what most people think of when they think of Alaskan Huskies. That's because Alaskan Huskies have their own genetic signature at this point, and there's a split in the family tree: sprint dogs on one branch (more pointer and saluki) and distance dogs / old-school Alaskans with no out-crosses on the other.
The more pro folks have developed the lines they like that look / perform like they want: more sighthoundy for some, beefier dogs like Clip for others, bigger dogs like Nacho for monosports, smaller dogs like B, E, H for 6-8 dog / open class, etc. When we go to races in Canada, people usually ask if B is a Dagenais dog for example (though their team has gotten beefier and bigger in more recent years!) All of them breed for drive and usually for gets-along-w-other dogs, cool with people (makes having a large number of dogs much easier!)
Other people are still hoping that by adding in something new, they will have a competitive edge. Some of the Frex are more recent crosses:
Sriracha is 50% GSP - her dad is a full GSP
Hannah's 38% GSP because her GSP cross in was more recent
Ig is 25% Saluki - her grandfather is a full Saluki
Heavy GSP crosses in lead, little Toody-Loo (aka Igloo) Saluki cross just behind em
A few other terms you might hear:
Eurohound: Alaskan Husky + pointer (usually GSP)
Greyster: skip the Alaskan and just do Greyhound + German Shorthaired Pointer (I don't have any of those!)
Sprint Hound: what a lot of us just call all of em
So next time someone asks "is that a husky?!"... the answer is yes. Kind of. It's complicated!
And if I've gotten any of this incorrect - please send us a note and I'll update!
Sources
Most of this I learned from other mushers over the course of the last 9 years (thank you all for answering my endless questions!). For the fact checkers, here's some further reading:
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