The Icelandic Sheepdog is a spitz breed whose ancestors were first brought to Iceland by the Vikings about 1,000 years ago.   In Iceland, they are used for herding sheep and horses.  The terrain of Iceland is rugged and life was difficult for the early Icelanders, so you can understand why the Icelandic Sheepdog is a sturdy and healthy breed of dog.  There have been different historical events in Iceland, such as famines and a distemper epidemic,  which significantly reduced the breed’s numbers. It took the efforts of some dedicated fanciers in the 1950s and 1960s to revive the breed.   The national breed of Iceland, it remains rare, but is no longer endangered

The Icelandic Sheepdog has been bred to have a wonderful temperament,  friendly to humans, since Iceland was a small-scale rural community.  It does not have a great instinct for hunting since there are no predators on Iceland besides large birds.

Icelandic Sheepdogs  are wonderfully expressive; they use their ears, tail and facial expression  to indicate how they feel.  They communicate very well in doggy language between each other.  Both the medium and long-coat dogs have luxurious coats which are dense, weather resistant  and somewhat coarse so they are not prone to tangling and matting.  Then there are the colors; Icelanders have always had an affinity for varieties of colors in their livestocks, and the Icelandic Sheepdog breed has one of the widest range of colors of any breed of dogs.   Common colors are red in many different shades, wheaten (chinchilla), and tan shades, and dogs of these colors may have black masks and black-tipped hairs.  Often puppies are born very dark and change to lighter colors.  There are also cream dogs that are born nearly white. Other colors are black  tri-color, chocolate tri-color and grey dogs.  Icelandic Sheepdogs should always have some white markings, from white socks or patches on the chest, to white collars and blazes, or dogs may be pied with large white patches like Sóley’s dam, Dart.