Most of my previous writing on my dogs was related to Mindy. And as with this introduction, she will make appearances now and then, but there is a reason that the main category includes the word “Two.” And that reason is that it includes Nicholas. Nicholas, or rather Nick, is an American Eskimo dog. He was born, as I understand it, in October of 1995. I’m pretty sure that the paperwork sitting out in my garage, and at my vets office has his actual birthday listed somewhere, but I’ve never been too concerned about it.
To understand Nicholas, you have to start by understanding the breed. The American Eskimo dog, or Eski is recognized in the US by the United Kennel Club, and the American Kennel Club. However in Europe it is not recognized as a distinct breed from the collective breed known as the German Spitz. Many people consider the Skipperkey to be a sibling breed. The Distinctive characteristics of the Eski and Skipperkeys are their coat coloring. The Eski is a White or White with Biscuit coloring, and the Skippers are black in color. There are other characteristics that can be considered for each, but these really are the determining characteristics differentiating them from the German Spitz.
I have not done a lot of study on Skippers, but the Eski has a fairly storried history of it’s own. The breed was developed around World War II when it was a bad omen for a dog to have the word German in it’s breed name. This also affected German Shepherds to some degree, but they already had a loyal following among the public. The German Spitz was not as well known. It is a small dog in three sizes. Nicholas is in the standard size, standing about a foot at the shoulder, and weighing about 20-22 lb. All Spitz dogs have common characteristics, from the Samoyed down to the Pomeranian. They have a fox face, ears that stand erect and pointed, a broad chest, a double coat and they carry their tail over their back in a curl. They also have what appears to be a mane around their face and head.
A common characteristic of the breed is that they tend to bond to one person and tolerate others, at best. They are very protective of what they consider their territory and will loudly alert at almost any potential risk. As a general rule if an Eski doesn’t know you, it is unlikely to approach you, though as with most rules exceptions do happen. Unless you have gone to a lot of effort to socialize them early, they do not respond well to places and situations where there are many people. That said, if they have bonded to you, and are paying attention to you in places that are unfamiliar to them, they do tend to behave well.
Eski’s tend to respond well in environments with other dogs, and have been known to get along well with cats. The double coat does not require a lot of work to look well, though daily brushing can be a good opportunity to bond with your dog, become familiar with the arrangement of his musculature, and be aware of the condition of his toenails. Unless he is active outside you should practice monthly toenail trimming.
There are a couple of other unusual characteristics of the breed. Males of the breed will roam if they are given the opportunity. While that is not unusual in males that have not been Fixed for most breeds, Eskis commonly do so even if they have been fixed. They are not common guests at the local dog pound however. Their warinesses, speed and dexterity have apparently been many a dog catcher’s bane of existence. And that Bonding with one person characteristic means that even when they rome, they know to return home.
The other very unusual characteristic is their eagerness to please. Now I know what you are thinking, lots of dogs are eager to please. It makes it reasonably easy to train dogs. And while that is true, it is the unusual level of eagerness to please that has brought the American Eskimo dog to some noteriety with the AKC and UKC annals. With most breeds, if you go for the ‘registered purebred with a history of championships in it’s ancestry’ you will find long contrived names standing out. Nothing wrong with that. The Eski on the other hand has an interesting bit of history related to their eagerness to please. The really Stand-out names in the breeding registry are names like Taxi. Their eagerness to please, and the resulting level of training they could go through brought them to the attention of the Barnum and Bailey Circus. They and other circus troupes, recognized that an alert, distinctive and highly trainable dog would be very impressive to a wide variety of people. Especially when the tricks that the dogs were performing were outside of the expectations of the day to day family dog. Their size and weight distribution works well for them to walk on their hind legs for extended tricks, and so on. The Circus was their route to recognition and an interest in bringing these very alert and capable dogs into peoples homes.
One mistake that many first time Eski owners make regarding grooming is at shedding season, at least in the spring, they take the hair trimmers and cut all the fur down to a very short coat. This can, and does lead to problems with the coat later on. As noted earlier the breed has a double coat. The outer coat is somewhat coarser in texture, and serves three principle purposes. First the hairs are attached to very sensitive nerves. If you can get past the dog’s hearing, when approaching from behind, the slightest touch to his coat, at a level you won’t be able to sense, will alert them to your touch. The sensitivity is such that even the change in breeze patterns around you as you approach can be recognized. Second the coat serves to protect the inner coat against rain and snow. The Eski does not secrete a heavy volume of oil into his coat as the lab does, so this is his means of letting watter flow off of his back. Finally the outer coat provides a protection against UV for the inner coat. Cutting the coat back means that the inner coat and skin are far more likely to be exposed to UV, and sustain damage that can pose problems later on.
There are some oddities about Nick that came about, and ultimately made him a good match for me and my household. First up while not really ‘odd’, is somewhat unfortunate. I don’t think that he was properly socialized with people and children as a puppy. I honestly think that this is something that came back to haunt the family who first acquired him. I don’t know his specific history, but my suspicion is that he was adopted into a house consisting of a husband and wife, or possibly a single person. At some point, when he was about 2 years old, the household situation changed. Either the couple had a child, or someone else moved in, and Nick was unable to cope with the change. Subsequently he was put up for adoption, and fostered by one of the placement families in the area.
Fostering was generally good for him, but the first few adoption placements did not work out well. Later on I saw that he did not respond well to changes in his environment that were fairly significant. It would take him a good week before he would allow that the back yard Grill that I had moved from the storage shed to the patio was actually OK. And he would notice it was missing in the fall when it went back to the shed. Along with his territorial instincts, I think this worked against him in being placed. He takes a substantial amount of time to become comfortable with his environment as it changes, and he is not quiet about the changes. Unfortunately this tends to get on people’s nerves in many cases. He had been returned three times by the time I came around investigating, and the foster mom was not sure that he was placeable.
She had him closed in the bedroom when I arrived, and after I was seated, let him out to explore and investigate me on his own terms. Once he had been outside to deal with his excitement, and was sitting over next to a different chair, I moved down to and sat cross legged on the floor. Within 5 to 15 min he was curled up in my lap, which was not a reaction that the foster mother had ever seen. So I paid the fees, picked up the paperwork, and took him home.
How territorial is he? While my car has been broken into or entered a few times, not one of the vehicles I have had has been approached or entered while he was in the car. After my garage had been entered and some otherwise worthless computer hardware had been stolen, I was open to the local gas company providing an alarm system for my home. The salesman pointed out that in almost every case where a family has been relying upon a dog to protect the property, the bad guys come up to the door, break in, let the dog out, go find and steal what they are interested in, and let the dog back in as they leave. I nodded aware that this was not uncommon, and indicated that one of the things I was interested in protecting was my garage. Nick was on the back deck. When he saw a stranger opening the inside back door he turned on guard dog mode and the salesman stopped immediately. I said I would take care of that, went out the front, came around and collected Nick who was still locked on in focus on the salesman, carried him into the front door while the salesman stepped out onto the deck, and when I joined him he declared that he wasn’t really sure I needed an alarm system to protect against break-ins. I said well, that’s partially true, and explained about the garage having been broken into. we continued on, and ultimately I bought the system, the garage didn’t get any sensors, but the house did get front and back door sensors and a smoke detector. There was a CO detector available, but he pointed out that the one I had already was better than the sensor they had available.
I became more aware of the roaming issue after I had acquired Mindy as well. Having two dogs on a trolley line in the back yard wasn’t working, and since I had wood fencing around most of the yard I figured I could add a couple of sections of fencing to fill in the gaps and I could let them both have free run of the back yard. All was well until I went out and realized that he wasn’t in the back yard any more. Turns out he had slipped between a couple of the woven boards where they met a fence post. Back onto the trolleys for another couple of days while I went and picked up three rolls of chicken wire, and lined the inside of that fence. Once that was done, I didn’t have a lot of problems.
Before I adopted Mindy I had taken to setting out food for Nick as I headed off for work in the morning. After a little bit of that I realized it was a waste of time. While I was at work, or otherwise out of the house, he wouldn’t eat. I think he knew that if he ate, then within some period of time he would have to go potty. If I wasn’t home he was going to have to go inside, and he wasn’t going to be happy about the results. The house was now his den and he wasn’t going to put up with the mess.
That changed once Mindy entered the house. I had to spend a long time training her, but ultimately she knew what the procedures were, and honored them. Basically no one got to start eating until they had said thank you to me by shaking my hand. Once I said go ahead, both could eat out of their own dishes. Invariably Mindy would scarf down everything in her dish, and Nick would grab a mouth-full, walk to the carpeting, eat, walk back to the dish, pick up another mouth-full, and so on. Pretty soon Mindy would be done, and she would go over to Nick’s dish. If Nick was there she would sit down.About this time Nick would realize that his dish was fair game and start eating at his dish. As soon as he walked away from his dish, for any reason, she asserted that he was done, and even if his intent was just to take another mouth-full and come back, when he got back it was an empty dish.
In general, Nick never slept with me. There were two exceptions. They both involved the apartment complex that i live in testing the fire alarm system. The noise was loud enough that He would jump up onto bed with me, and curl up with his back up against me. Most of the time he would curl up in a chair in the living room or another room. If he couldn’t get into another room, he might curl up on the floor under the bed. Occasionally he would find his travel crate sufficient.
That’s going to do it for now. Oh, there’s more to tell, How he knew exactly where to get to in a pickup bed for travel, and such, but I’m dropping off, and it would be a good idea for me to actually get some sleep I think. Have a great day.
