Swedish Vallhund

A small herding dog, the Swedish Vallhund has a muscular build, powerful gait, and intelligent, alert expression.

This breed has a soft, dense undercoat and harsh topcoat with medium-length hair—which is close and tight but never woolly, curly, or fluffy. The Swedish Vallhund's hair is shorter on the head and foreparts of the legs and longer on the chest, neck, and back of the hind legs.

The breed standard requires a sable pattern with colors ranging from gray to red (or combinations of these colors in various shades). The most desirable coloration is lighter shades of gray through red on the chest, belly, buttocks, lower legs, feet, and hocks, and darker shades on the back, neck, and sides of the body.

The Swedish Vallhund should have a well-defined mask with lighter hair around the eyes, muzzle, and throat compared to the head. In shows, white is allowed as a narrow blaze, neck spot, or markings on the legs and chest. But it should not make up more than one-third of the body.

Being long and low to the ground, Swedish Vallhund can nip at the heels of cattle without getting kicked. These dogs have strong, muscular builds and wedge-shaped heads, short, square muzzles, dark brown, oval eyes with black rims, and medium-sized, pointed ears. Their tails may be long, stub, or bobbed. And the dogs can be shown natural or docked, according to breed standards.

You might mistake the Swedish Vallhund for a Corgi. Though the breeds appear similar and are likely related, they actually have distinct histories and traits. Experts think this so-called "Little Viking Dog" may have resulted from the crossbreeding of Welsh Corgis and Scandinavian spitz dogs during regular Viking raids of Britain between the 8th and 11th centuries.

But beyond that, the details of where and when the breed developed are hazy. More recent records suggest Swedish Vallhunds—also known as Vastgotaspets and Swedish Cattle Dogs—almost went extinct in the 1940s. Fortunately, Swedish Count Bjorn Rosen helped restore the breed's numbers.

Prized in Sweden as active, rugged cattle dogs and excellent all-around farmhands, Swedish Vallhunds eventually achieved worldwide popularity. They have now appeared on postage stamps in Sweden, Nicaragua, Ukraine, Mali, Russia, and Tajikistan.