The Norwegian Puffin Dog

The Norwegian Lundehund is perfectly adapted for hunting puffins. It is multi-toed and super flexible, traits that allow it to climb cliffs and get into tight spaces. It can also fold over and close its ears to keep dust out. I'd never heard of it before, perhaps because it is so rare.

Puffins are small sea-birds. They look rather like small, flying penguins with big colorful beaks, and they like to nest in the narrow, twisting caves which honeycomb the local rocky sea-cliffs. The sheer inaccessibility of those cliffs helps to keep the predators away, while the caves add yet another layer of difficulty to anything trying to get at the puffins. Yet in northern Norway, puffins used to be a major source of winter food, and catching them in enough quantity to make it through the long winters was absolutely necessary.
In order to fill this unique niche, the Norwegians bred a unique dog. The resulting Lundehund was an extraordinary animal with some unparalleled gifts. For all its uniqueness, the Lundehund is vanishingly rare. It has been so close to extinction that at one point there were only five of them in existence.


Fortunately some dedicated breeders have brought the breed back from the brink of extinction.