Family-friendly: | 5/5 |
Exercise needs: | 5/5 |
Easy to train: | 3/5 |
Tolerates being alone: | 1/5 |
Likes other pets: | 5/5 |
Energy level: | 5/5 |
Grooming needs: | 3/5 |
Shedding: | 4/5 |
- Dog suitable for owners with some experience
- Extra training required
- Generally healthy breed
- Enjoys vigorous walks
- Enjoys one to two hours of walking a day
- Medium dog
- Some drool
- Requires grooming once a week
- Chatty and vocal dog
- Barks and alerts to visitors/anything unusual
- Could have issues with unknown dogs but gets along with known dogs
- May need additional training to live with other pets
- May need additional supervision to live with children
- Needs a small garden
- Can live in semi-rural areas
- Can be left occasionally with training
The Finnish Spitz breed can be prone to:
- Patellar luxation
- Epilepsy which is a condition where abnormal brain function can lead to seizures which damage the brain.
Priority Kennel Club health schemes and testing:
None but there are several recommended schemes that the Kennel Club recommends which can be found here.
Personality
The Finnish Spitz is lively and alert, bold and brave with a keen desire to hunt, and to bark about anything they have seen. Loyal with loved ones and said to be excellent with children, they are clever and quick witted and require consistency in training. In Finland they are trained only to bark at their specific quarry and to ignore anything else so it is evidently possible to teach them not to bark indiscriminately, but this will require work.
Did You Know?
- In Scandinavia there are official barking competitions run for Finnish Spitz to find the ‘King of the Barkers’, and they don’t just bark loudly, they bark fast. Finnish Spitz have been recorded barking at 160 barks per minute. Do consider whether your neighbours will appreciate this type of achievement before getting one for yourself!
- The breed has been known by many names over the years including Suomen Pystykorva, Finnish Barking Birddog, Finsk Spets, Spitz Finnico, Spitz Finlandes, Finse Spits and Finnenspitz.
- The ancestors of the Finnish Spitz date back several thousand years.
- The Finnish Spitz is the national dog of Finland and is actually referenced in many Finnish patriotic songs.
- This breed takes a long time to mature and generally retain a puppylike behaviour until 3-4 years of age.
Found your perfect breed?