Sulimov Dog
- Origin
- Russia
- Type
- Crossbreed
- Status
- Rare; not registered as a breed
The Sulimov dog is a jackal–dog hybrid from Russia, not a formally registered breed. It was developed by Klim Sulimov from crosses between golden jackals and herding dogs of the far north, with the aim of joining the jackal’s sense of smell to the northern dog’s resistance to cold. The airline Aeroflot uses these dogs at airports to detect explosives.
History
Dogs and golden jackals belong to the same genus and can interbreed. The surgeon John Hunter first wrote about such a cross in 1787, and experimenters in France, British India and Germany bred them afterward. Their accounts describe first-generation hybrids in which jackal traits dominated: upright ears, hanging tails, no barking and a wild temperament. Some later generations showed reduced fertility. Hybrids were confirmed in the wild for the first time in Croatia in 2015.
Sulimov’s breeding program began in 1975. At the start, male jackal pups had to be fostered on a Lapponian Herder female so that they would accept dogs as their own kind; female jackals took to male dogs more readily. The half-jackal offspring proved hard to train, so they were bred back to huskies to give quarter-jackal dogs. To make the line easier to train, a Nenets Herding Laika, a Fox Terrier and a spitz were bred in as well. The hybrids were then bred among themselves for seven generations to fix the type.
The dogs were first put to work on bomb detection in 2002. Aeroflot has used 25 of them at Sheremetyevo Airport in Moscow. Only about 40 exist, all owned by Aeroflot, and they may one day be registered as a working breed.
Temperament
The hybrids are small and agile. The finished dogs are easy to train and have an excellent nose. They are taught from puppyhood to recognise twelve components of explosives and, unlike more common sniffer dogs, take the initiative when searching. Sulimov said his dogs combine Arctic reindeer-herding dogs, which can work at −70 °C, with jackals, which are at home in heat of up to 40 °C.
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