Icelandic Sheepdog

Cheerful and inquisitive, quick to bark, likes company.
An Icelandic Sheepdog
Photo: Svenska Mässan from Sweden
Adult male
12–15 kg
27–33 lb
Adult female
10–13 kg
22–28 lb
Lifespan
12–14 yrs
Class · Family
also Working, Sport

What it's like

In temperament the breed is friendly, cheerful and inquisitive, and generally not aggressive. It is quick to bark, enjoys company and stays close to its people.

Day to day
Activity
A good daily walk and play
Intelligence
Learns readily, likes games
Handler demand
Needs steady training
With people
Affection
Affectionate on its own terms
Loyalty
Bonded to its family
Independence
Keen to work with you
Around the home
Sensitivity
Average
Voice
Very vocal
Prey drive
Usually fine with small pets
Breed explains only about 9% of how individual dogs differ in behaviour1. Meet the dog. A good breeder breeds for temperament as well as health, and matches each puppy's personality to the right home2,3.
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Living with one

Most of the shedding comes when the seasons change. The grooming it needs depends on the coat. It needs a moderate amount of exercise compared with other breeds.

Size and growth

An Icelandic Sheepdog is a medium dog, about the weight of a grown Cocker Spaniel. Males end up clearly heavier than females. It is one of the lightest medium breeds. Its weight is an estimate, not a published figure.

It is a compact spitz, slightly longer than tall, with triangular pricked ears and a bushy tail curled over the back. The dense, weatherproof double coat comes in short and long forms. Colours include shades of tan from cream to reddish-brown, chocolate, grey and black, always with white markings. Standards favour double dewclaws on the hind legs.

Puppy growth

Reference curve · community data appears as owners log
By about 5 months, a male Icelandic Sheepdog puppy is already as heavy as a grown Cavalier King Charles Spaniel. They grow fastest between 3 and 4 months old.
Fully grown
10 mo
Both sexes, at 99% of adult weight6
Male
Female
Shaded: expected range
0510152m4m6m9m12m18m
0510152m3m4m6m9m12m18m
Age
Male
Female
2 months
3.1–3.8 kg 6.8–8.4 lb
2.9–3.5 kg 6.4–7.7 lb
3 months
4.2–5.2 kg 9.3–11.5 lb
3.7–4.5 kg 8.2–9.9 lb
4 months
5.9–7.3 kg 13.0–16.1 lb
5.0–6.1 kg 11.0–13.4 lb
5 months
7.3–9.0 kg 16.1–19.8 lb
6.0–7.4 kg 13.2–16.3 lb
6 months
8.5–10.4 kg 18.7–22.9 lb
6.9–8.4 kg 15.2–18.5 lb
7 months
9.3–11.5 kg 20.5–25.4 lb
7.5–9.2 kg 16.5–20.3 lb
8 months
10.0–12.3 kg 22.0–27.1 lb
8.0–9.8 kg 17.6–21.6 lb
9 months
10.5–12.9 kg 23.1–28.4 lb
8.4–10.3 kg 18.5–22.7 lb
10 months
10.8–13.3 kg 23.8–29.3 lb
8.7–10.7 kg 19.2–23.6 lb
11 months
11.1–13.7 kg 24.5–30.2 lb
9.0–11.0 kg 19.8–24.3 lb
12 months
11.3–14.0 kg 24.9–30.9 lb
9.2–11.3 kg 20.3–24.9 lb
15 months
11.8–14.5 kg 26.0–32.0 lb
9.7–11.9 kg 21.4–26.2 lb
18 months
12–15 kg 27–33 lb
10.1–12.4 kg 22.3–27.3 lb

Lifespan

No vet study has measured how long Icelandic Sheepdogs live yet. The 12–14 years shown is a general figure without a published source.

Where it comes from

The Icelandic Sheepdog descends from dogs brought by the Viking settlers between 870 and 930, and on the farms it gathered sheep and rounded up ponies. An 1869 dog tax and distemper cut its numbers, and by about 1950 it survived mainly in remote places. Mark Watson took a few to California to save it, and in Iceland Páll A. Pálsson and, from 1967, Sigríður Pétursdóttir rebuilt the stock4,7.

The Icelandic Sheepdog is Iceland's only native dog breed, and its rescue in the later twentieth century turned a scarce farm dog into a recognised pedigree breed. The Icelandic Kennel Club, founded in the late nineteen-sixties, made the breed's preservation one of its early aims, and breeders worked to keep the old farm type. Recognition by international kennel bodies followed, and the breed is now kept across Europe and North America. Iceland dogs were known abroad long before; Shakespeare's Henry the Fifth uses "Iceland dog" as an insult. On open, treeless land the breed worked largely by voice and movement. It drove and gathered livestock, searched for strayed sheep and barked to warn of visitors or birds of prey.

Breed standard

The Icelandic Sheepdog is judged against standard no. 289, in group 5, Spitz and primitive types4.

Questions people ask

General guidance for dogs rather than a measured Icelandic Sheepdog figure: most females have a first season somewhere between six and fifteen months, and cycles then settle to roughly every 180 days. Smaller breeds tend to start earlier and larger ones later, so a medium-sized breed is most likely somewhere in the middle.

Compare with related

Norwegian Buhund
Spitz & primitive · Medium
Finnish Lapphund
Spitz & primitive · Medium
Swedish Vallhund
Spitz & primitive · Medium
Cirneco dell'Etna
Spitz & primitive · Medium
Or compare the Icelandic Sheepdog with any breed you choose
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Sources

Uncited on this page: Lifespan — no reviewed source yet, so it is a general reference figure rather than a published one.
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Parts of this page were written by AI ·