Her name was Ursula Berkowitz, a breeder and resident of Oxnard, California. In 1964, she founded the Oxnard Obedience Club, later to be renamed the Buenaventura Dog Training Club, but a year later, she did something else that was rather special. She imported the first Canaan Dogs into the United States.

For two years, Ursula had been regularly corresponding with Dr. Rudolphina Menzel, a noted cynologist and responsible for getting recognition for the Canaan Dog. Knowing that she needed to increase the profile of the Canaan Dog beyond the borders of Israel, Dr. Menzel hoped that by introducing the breed to the U.S., the popularity of the breed would increase and lead to healthy numbers for the gene pool. And so it was that on September 7, 1965, Dr. Menzel sent the first of four dogs to Ursula. That same year, Ursula helped form the Canaan Dog Club of America, and studbook records were kept from these first reports. The photo at the top is of Ursula with “Toro” and “Belith” the first of the four to come to America. It is shared here courtesy of the AKC.

Birion”, “Belith”, “Toro”, and “Waf”, the original four Canaan dogs in America. Image sourced by Brynn White.

If the breed is uncommon today, it was especially so twenty-five years ago, though it got some attention in 1995 when John F. Kennedy Jr. acquired a Canaan Dog whom he named “Friday,” so named for the one day a week when his dog went to work with him at George magazine. Painfully aware of the pitfalls of celebrity, John Jr. never identified “Friday” as a Canaan Dog, and never felt compelled to correct the record when Friday was said to be a mixed breed. How “John John” came to be interested in the breed is unknown to us, and we welcome any insights.

Image above:  John F. Kennedy Jr. with his wife, Carolyn Bessette Kennedy, and Friday