Salish Wool Dog  Information & Dog Breed Facts

The Salish Wool Dog was an important part of Coast Salish life throughout southern Vancouver Island, what is now Washington and British Columbia. They were described as small dogs, usually with white long hair, a thick coat, a fox-like face, and ears that stood up. The breed was developed and lived along with indigenous people for thousands of years before European contact happened. According to experts, the oldest remains were found in the Puget Sound and Strait of Georgia from 4000 years ago. There are many stories and theories about the Salish Wool Dog but none has the evidence to back it up. According to a 19th-century naturalist John Keast Lord, the dogs originated from a Japanese shipwreck on the Pacific Coast, but as I mentioned, he had no evidence for his claim.

Moreover, the breed was actually used because of its hair, which people used for clothing and blankets. Salish Wool dogs were kept separate from other dog breeds so that Coast Salish people could maintain the breed and keep the strong coat. This meant that they were often confined to small isolated islands in the San Juans and around Vancouver Island. Often the dogs would live in packs of about 20 to 30 and were fed a diet of fish and elk tallow to keep their coats healthy as well. At least once a year, but probably more, the dogs were sheared. When the dogs’ coats were long enough, female weavers washed the animals with white clay to remove the dirt, and then they often used sharp stones or knives made of mussel shells to shear the dogs. According to the researcher, the explorer Captain George Vancouver once said that the coat from Salish Wool Dogs was so thick once sheared that you could pick up a corned and the whole fleece would hold together. The cut hair was then stored with dried clay to extract oil and kill any parasites. These dogs and their fleece were highly prized within the Coast Salish communities as there weren’t any native sheep. Also because mountain goats were never really domesticated in the area, gathering wool from only these animals was difficult and never fully amounted to enough for a full blanket. However, the Salish Wool Dogs allowed for the people to have easily accessible wool for textiles and blankets before sheep were imported by European settlers around 1862. Many people would mix in other fibers, like fleece from plan fibers) to make the wool from dogs last longer.

Furthermore, the Salish Wool dogs were most likely owned by high-ranking families within Coast Salish communities. Among the Olympic Peninsula Indigenous nations, the dogs were owned by women and inherited through the female line. They were highly valued and often buried wrapped in a blanket to honor them. However, the Salish Wool dog population declined throughout the 1800s. The increased presence of the European settlers meant that the settlers’ dogs were bred with the Salish Wool dogs, decimating the latter’s population. In addition to this, Indigenous populations also declined because of the land displacement and disease caused by settler colonization. By the 1820s, fur-trading posts had introduced inexpensive, machine-made blankets from England. These European blankets meant that there was no need to keep the dogs for their hair, especially since feeding a herd of dogs required fish that could otherwise be used to feed people. By 1900, the long, woolly fur characteristics of the breed had disappeared, though there were a number of rare sightings of the dogs on reservations up to 1940. Unfortunately, the breed is currently extinct and has been for many many years now.