What can we do? 

How can we help the breed?

All these suggestions may not suit all our arctic breeds but they apply to most of those already divided into sub-populations (Samoyed, Alaskan malamute, Siberian husky).

Breeds such as Greenland Dog and Yakutian Laika (which have not yet been divided into subpopulations but today suffer from a genetically small population internationally) can apply large parts of these suggestions, on their respective breed pages more is clarified about the genetic problem these two breeds are facing.

Below are some examples of what we can work on to help our breed:

1. We must all contribute and cooperate both between breeders within the country and across national borders. 
2. Accept and realize that we have a big problem with the working part of our breed populations and realize that they may be lost as working dogs if we don't help to counter it. As well as accepting and respecting that we have to talk about the problem and keep the debate alive both in terms of the anatomical appearance/build of our dogs, the mental characteristics and the genetic variation.
3. We must dare to talk about the fact that you cannot, for example, buy any dog ​​of a certain breed and expect the entire population to be within the same type of dog and characteristics. We need to work for an acceptance to dare to talk about the fact that different breeders have different content in their dogs, different characteristics (mental and physical), and people have to accept and respect that different lines actually have different abilities depending on what the breeder has prioritized in their breeding. Some lines may have completely lost qualities important to performance and work ethic and needs to bring it in from the outside.
   
4. We must dare to talk about our dogs objectively and be able to highlight both advantages and disadvantages. We must learn not to weigh the feelings of the individual dog when we judge its ability and breeding value. Our own dog will always be the best in the world in our own heart regardless, but we all have dogs with faults and shortcomings and we must be able to talk about that if we are to be able to preserve the breed into the future. Emotions must not take over our intelligence and objectivity.
   
5. We must dare to talk about the fact that exhibition activities in many countries have contributed to the degeneration of our working breeds. We must dare to raise the problem against our kennel clubs and the judges to try to create a change.
   
6. Create an understanding that the working part of our breeds populations around the world is extremely small genetically and we cannot afford to let more bloodlines or variants of combinations die out.
   
7. Share knowledge between us in subjects that affect the survival of our breed, for example contribute interesting articles to this website.
   
8. If we ourselves cannot offer a puppy at the moment, refer suitable interested parties to other breeder colleagues with the same focus, a working dog. This is in order not to lose potentially good people who could become an asset in breed management in the future.
   
9. Protect the anatomical and mental characteristics for work and function already in our breeding selection. If we want dogs that work, we also have to consolidate that in our breeding. 
10. Use more dogindividuals in breeding. 
11. As a breeder, take responsibility for and contribute to making even dogs sold as family dogs available for breeding to help the breed genetically.
12. Ensure that own and sold dogs are not neutered other than for medical reasons. This as they can constitute an important genetic resource in their own or another country.
    
13. Make mating combinations that do not contribute more than necessary to the inbreeding of the breed. But as the working part of the breed population today is very small, it is difficult to impossible not to duplicate certain dogs in our pedigrees if we want to maintain an anatomically functional dog and characteristics necessary for the work attitude, something we need to accept, at the same time as we try to mix it up with something new too.
14. In cases where we duplicate dogs in the pedigrees back in the ranks, be well aware and well educated about what it is we are duplicating and be clear about what it means and can result in. 
15. Place a maximum number of litters per individual in each country and continent. But at the same time make a dog available for breeding in countries where its genetics can be useful, assuming that they had enough litters already in their home country.
16. Check the grandchild statistics to see how the different dog individuals affected the breed development. 
17. Choosing male dogs for our bitches based on what genetically favors the development of the breed instead of, for example, choosing the dog that lives near. 
18. Cross country borders to mate our bitches. 
19. Better to use a sibling than the same male dog again as even siblings can differ greatly genetically from each other. 
20. Make it easier for our breeder colleagues when importing and exporting between countries and national borders. For example, by not making it more expensive than necessary as dog people who work for the preservation of the breed are rarely particularly rich, as well as helping out with the practical. 
21. Personally contribute to going far to mate our bitches or importing unrelated material from other continents and countries. We all have to help each other and contribute to bringing home new blood, we can't just rely on someone else to do it for us and then use what's around. 
22. Increase the generation interval, maybe look at the father of an interesting male dog. 
23. Premier dogs of an older, more classic type that favors the preservation of the breed and the dog's function in work.
    
24. Make wise balances between bringing in new blood and maybe forced to standing back on some part of the function. Can we, for example, find anatomically sound dogs that are untested in work and use them as a "wild card" to increase the genetics within the working part of the breed. How far outside the working population we can go without losing too many features (physical and mental)?
25. Evaluate our dogs in practical use, in physical work, regularly.
    
26. Contribute to our breedclubs and kennelclubs setting up working tests (pulling-/sleddingtests) with sufficiently high requirements on average speed to give us an evaluation of our dogs' abilities and performance. A test that differentiates the performance of the dogs, only the dogs that are better than the average pass the approved limit, this to measure the characteristics of our dogs.
27. Collaborate and discuss how we can take care of the various bloodlines that remain today. We need help finding matches and recommending to each other combinations that can help the breed population in the long run. We have to map which bloodlines remain, which bloodlines continue in breeding, at the same time we have to make sure that the lines whose breeders stop their breeding work for some reason remain alive in the population. We can only achieve that by jointly discussing which combinations everyone should make. We should keep in mind that the combinations we make should be to the delight for breeders in the future. If we use only closely related male dogs on the remaining femalelines (bloodlines), we will have difficulty combining them in the future, etc. This mapping must be done within the subpopulation that is still functioning as a working dog. 
28. We need help to inspire more people to work with conservation work of our breeds. We need more people to engage in breeding within the working subpopulation. Otherwise, it will be difficult to create a sufficiently large genetic variation and keep more bloodlines alive. We need to encourage more people to take an interest in breeding, but with the right basis and conditions. We all need to try to look after new breeders and offer our help and guidance.
    
29. Follow/study the projects that the kennel clubs in some countries have started to work on, to open the studbooks in order to wisely cross in new blood and characteristics that the breed has lost. Some breeds have already started crossbreeding projects and maybe it will be a necessary solution for our arctic breeds to survive genetically in the future? We should at least follow the projects and start reading a little about it and think about what we think of it and how we could possibly make use of it while still keeping the dog type.
    
30. We can also think about whether a transition to pure functional breeding within a certain framework for an appearance is preferable to today's appearance-fixed breeding selection?
    
31. Is it possible to bring home new blood from the Arctic regions of origin of our breeds?