That the Norwegian Elkhound isn’t a hound in the strictest sense of the word never entered our minds until we came across a reference to it being a controversy within some breed circles. Some sources point out that the Norwegian Elkhound is indisputably a member of the Spitz family, while another suggests that the breed is a combination of the traits found in both the spitz and hound breeds. And then there was this colorful comment: “The breed is not a hound; it doesn’t look like a hound, it doesn’t hunt like a hound and it doesn’t run like a hound.” What say Norwegian Elkhound owners and breeders?
Less debated is that the name, Elkhound, was a mistranslation of the dog’s name in Norwegian; Norsk Elghund means “moose dog.” The breed isn’t an “elkhound” because it wasn’t bred or used to hunt elk. Over time, “Elghund” morphed into “elkhound.”
Norwegian Elkhound stained glass, and other Elkhound glass by Sunny Brook Studio is available here.
That Americans have called Elk Moose for a couple of hundred years is of little consequence. For the last thousand years or so we have called it Elk, Elg, Älg, Elch or Alces in Latin. So a Norwegian Elkhound is very correctly named an Elkhound, it is indeed for hunting Elk.
Americans do not and never have called an elk a “moose.” Elk travel in herds and are much smaller than a moose, which is a solitary animal unless it is mating. The elk (Cervus canadensis), also known as the wapiti from the native Ameican Indian word (although no one here ever calls it that) is in the deer family, Moose, (Alces alces) are on the Cervidae (order Artiodactyla) and the name is derived from the word moosh (“stripper and eater of bark”) in the Algonquian language of the Innu people of Quebec, Canada. In the photo below, a deer is on the left and a moose is on the right. Clearly a “big” difference
Thanks for the comment, Don. You get no argument from us that Americans have never called an elk, a moose, and that there are significant differences between the two.
Dachshunds are in a similar category. A mistranslation of badger dog in German led them to being considered a hound. They do have some hound traits in that they trail on scent well, but their original purpose was to go to ground which is more terrier than hound.
Great comment, Kathleen, and really interesting