Work In progress
After many many hours scouring the Internet in an attempt to find recent pictures of a dog that in any way resembles our modern day Samoyed I drew a complete blank. Not one single recent photograph could I find of an all White Samoyed. The closest thing I could find was these pictures on a web site dedicated to the Nenet people.
There are of course the amazing pictures taken by Vladimir Beregovoy hosted on the Samoyed.org website maintained by some friends of mine. But I am looking for something more recent.
My search on the internet goes on as does my search through the world of video.
12:26:2006
Last Christmas I received a boxed set of Michael Palin's adventure documentaries. It has taken me quite a while to get through them. On one of his journeys he flew into a very remote area of North Eastern Russia to meet some Evenk Reindeer herders who had dogs. This is probably a thousand miles from the area where Samoyeds originate from but it is interesting non the less. Unfortunately the dogs don't look much like a Samoyed. The dogs do bear a some resemblance to Karelian Bear Dogs or perhaps a Russo European Laika.
Evenks:
Reindeer herders in extreme North Eastern Russia Captured from the BBC video "Michael Palin Full Circle" [1997].
A fellow Samoyed enthusiast and myself have discussed traveling to Siberia to see if we can find some Samoyed dogs amongst the Reindeer herding peoples. The stark reality is that the only practical way to visit these remote peoples is to buy your way on to an ex military Helicopter like the one shown in the picture above. Its not cheap and not all that safe. [still from BBC DVD 1175]
This vocal little dog looked to be similar in size to an American Eskimo dog. The dog had a very high pitched bark. Apart from a curly tail I cant really see that much in common with a Samoyed.
Another shot with ears up. I think if this dog had a bushy coat it might look somewhat similar to a samoyed in this shot.
A close up head shot.
The other two dogs featured on the program look Quite different and very close to Karelian Bear Dogs. The one at the front looks very muscular and has the classic Spitz curly tail.
I don't recall ever seeing a Samoyed with ear position like this.
I bet he or she would make a great sled dog
This is the whitest dog I have found in my search :-).
