Tumblr Thread: The Unexpectedly Adorable Type Of Dog Vikings Used For Hunting

Author image for Mariel Ruvinsky
Mariel Ruvinsky • Writer and Editor
Apr 14, 2022 11:00 AM EDT

Dogs are amazing, we can all agree on that, right? Not only are they loving and sweet and an endless source of wholesome entertainment, they also actually do some incredible things for us humans. Service and therapy dogs are incredible, bomb-sniffing puppers are incredible, dogs who somehow literally save their humans lives instead of us saving theirs are incredible. All of these things are not new. They have been known through time and space. There's a reason why we say that dogs are men's best friends. 

Even the Vikings knew it. Apparently, not only did Vikings have an intense appreciation for cats - yeah, Vikings used to gift kittens to their newlywed brides - they also thought the same of dogs. They actually used dogs for hunting. Except… it's not the type of dog that you would really expect it to be.

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  • 01
    Rectangle - homunculus-argument Follow I wanted to look up what kind of dogs the vikings had in order to make a historically accurate shitpost meme, but while googling "viking dog", figuring l'd find pictures of some kind of big cool war dogs or dogs used for hunting moose and bear, but instead I found this
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    We would say that we agree, that we also would have expected something different, but the more we learn about Vikings' treatment of animals, the less surprised we are. Like- never in a million years did we think they'd gift kittens - kittens - to their brides, but they did, and we want our husbands to do the same thing for us one day. 

  • 02
    Dog - the noble vallhund
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    Okay, fine… maybe we are a little bit surprised. It's just that it's hard to imagine this itty bitty pupper with it's cute little curled tail and its tiny paws and its pawfect little triangle ears doing anything other than flopping over onto its back and asking for belly rubs. We just cannot. 

  • 03
    Dog - herder of cows and biter of ankles
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  • 04
    Dog - This is literally a viking corgi.
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  • 05
    Font - kinka-juice Follow The Pembroke Welsh Corgi developed starting roughly 1,000 years ago from a mix of the 3,000yo breed that was the historical Cardigan Welsh Corgi (first brought to Wales with Celtic groups emigrating from continental Europe), and Spitz type dogs that were brought in with the Viking raids 1,000 years ago. Corgis are a mix of Viking and Celt, and that's neat. The vallhund is literally very close family to at least the Pembroke corgi.
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  • 06
    Font - There are a number of Scandinavian dog breeds that might be also associated with Vikings, most of which are spitzen. The Norrbottenspetz, Karelian Bear Dog, Finnish Lapphund, Icelandic Shepherd, Finnish Spitz, etc. Special additional shout out for the Norwegian Lundehund, which was developed to hunt puffins. (Lunde means puffin). They look like a generic medium dog at first.
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  • 07
    Dog - Except they have secret weapons just for clambering over rocks to get puffins. They have six fully-formed and muscled toes per foot, as well as extreme range of motion in their joints.
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  • 08
    Dog
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  • 09
    Clothing
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  • 10
    Water - And there's your lesson in weird Viking dogs.
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  • 11
    Sky - ripperblackstaff Follow And this is my Ezio Auditore, the weird Viking dog
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    Dog
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    Dog
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    Dog
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  • 15
    Dog - A big war dog lives inside him, ya know 090 19,340 notes
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aww wholesome dogs adorable thread tumblr puppy cute doggo viking tumblr thread
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