Meet the ‘little big dog’ that’s now an American Kennel Club breed

The pooch often described as “the little big dog” now has a shot at being crowned top dog.

The American Kennel Club on Wednesday added the Danish-Swedish farmdog to its list of recognized breeds, making it eligible for competition at club events, including its marquee competition: the AKC National Championship.

Fans of the Danish-Swedish farmdog – the club’s 202nd recognized breed – say they’re happy to win recognition for the “small, compact dogs with a big attitude and a passion for a job and a challenge” but are also worried that increased exposure could lead bad actors, such as puppy mills, to exploit increased demand for the dogs.

“It’s a double-edged sword,” said Carey Segebart, president of the Danish-Swedish Farmdog Club of America, although she thinks it will be positive overall for the breed.

With their energy, small stature and short hair, Danish-Swedish farmdogs resemble Jack Russell terriers and beagles. They usually weigh 15 to 20 pounds, with a height of up to 14½ inches and a life expectancy ranging from 11 to 13 years. They’re affectionate with family and good with young children and other dogs.

The Danish-Swedish farmdog started the process of gaining AKC recognition in 2011. Over the past 13 years, Segebart and others created breed standards, wrote an ethics code, and waged a campaign to educate the competition world and the public at large about the dogs.

“There’s a lot of boxes you have to check,” Segebart said.

In 2021, the breed earned induction into the AKC’s “Miscellaneous Class,” enabling the dogs to compete in performance competitions such as agility, obedience, herding, tracking and dock diving. But they were still barred from the club’s conformation competitions, where dogs are judged against the standards of their breed. These are the competitions viewers watch at the AKC National Championship as dogs compete in their breed, group and eventually against other finalists until one is named “Best in Show.”

This week’s designation changes that, giving the Danish-Swedish farmdog a shot at being named top dog.

Danish-Swedish farmdogs may be new to the AKC pantheon, but they have a deep history in Europe. Skeletal remains at Viking burial sites suggest that farmdog-like dogs were helping Vikings 1,000 to 1,200 years ago, according to the AKC. For hundreds of years, they helped Danish and Swedish farmers work their lands, killing vermin, herding livestock and alerting them to possible intruders.

“They’re extremely versatile,” Segebart said, adding, “They’re up for trying anything, and they seem to excel at whatever they do.”

As agriculture industrialized and farms grew larger, farmers needed more intense dogs to help with their growing acreages. The farmdogs got laid off.

But kennel clubs collaborated to save them, the AKC said in a news release. Segebart said the farmdogs were largely brought indoors as pets for full-time companionship. Now, the breed is popular in Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Germany and the Netherlands.

From the 1980s into the ’90s, dog show competitors in Denmark and Sweden started the process of getting the breed recognized well before the first official farmdog was sold in the United States, in 1998.

As farmdog owners like Segebart set out on a similar effort in the United States in the early 2010s, they worked with their Danish and Swedish forerunners to essentially import the breed standards – height, head shape, body proportion and tail positioning – to America.

Farmdogs are using their new status to enter the mainstream of dog show competitions. This weekend, they’re joining the pack at competitions in St. Paul, Minnesota, and Palm Springs, California. In a couple of weeks, it will be Segebart’s turn when the Central Iowa Kennel Club holds its dog show in Des Moines.

Or, rather, it will be the turn of Moxie and Keeper, two of her five farmdogs. Segebart said she’s especially excited for Moxie, a 10-year-old farmdog she has owned since 2016. He has competed and won awards for years, but always in open events – never the main ones.

Now, the little big dog will get a chance to go up against the big big dogs.

“He’s older,” Segebart said. “It’s exciting for him to get the chance for him to do that while he’s still able to show.”