I'm having a hard time tracking down any info on the origin of different sleddog breeds, especially their names, and I remember you've talked about it before.
I searched your blog but only managed to find a post about malamutes.
Any chance you could tell me about the etymology of other breeds like the Siberian Husky and if there are names I should use instead, like Inuit Qimmiq for the CID? Or if maybe you could point me towards good sources?
(also your dogs are lovely)
I mean some names are pretty self explanatory such as "Greenland Dog" and "Yakutian Laika" and "Inuit Sled Dog" (note that any indigenous breed is also going to have its own name in its native language as well, an example of this being Qimmiq).
I talk about the general etymology of the word "husky" and its usage as a generalized term HERE.
I talk about the etymology of the term husky and its use as a racial slur, as well as the use of racial slurs as dogs names HERE.
I talk about using alternative names for said racial slurs and some problems you may come across in the dog world when doing so HERE.
Also CID, as in Canadian Inuit Dog, and Inuit Qimmiq are both considered perfectly fine to use as it uses the proper term for the people originating the dog. It is the Canadian Kennel Club's official breed name of "Canadian Eskimo Dog" that there are (obvious) issues with. The campaign for name change desired "Canadian Inuit Qimmiq" as a compromise but did not go through.
Beyond listening to the various indigenous groups affected by these particular racial slurs and the racially charged and bizarrely still prevalent theme of naming new dog breeds after random, unrelated indigenous groups as a nod to their "wildness" I would not say there is a concrete source. Indigenous people are not a monolith and two individuals from the same community could likely have very different feelings on particular word usage. As an example of this divide, some people who are involved in working Canadian Inuit Dogs in their historical way take issue with the (many) campaigns to rename the breed, seeing the Canadian Inuit Dog as the true working dog and the registered Canadian Eskimo dogs as more pet bred and different. HERE is an article from the Fan Hitch about that. Now I personally know breeders of registered CEDs that are non-native across multiple continents who take great care to import dogs from their native country and from native sources so....not my circus, not my monkeys, but an interesting argument in this discussion nonetheless.
As with any of my etymology posts I merely seek to bring awareness to the origin on these terms so we can all have a greater sensitivity when interacting with the breeds of dogs that we love. I don't have answers and perhaps there is not really a one size fits all answer to this problem. I myself am not of any of the groups affected by these slurs and mythologizing, so I also don't think i can be considered a definitive source on the subject.
