Have you ever noticed that when researching something, you sometimes find information you didn’t want to know?
Our post begins with our interest in the etymology of breed names, always fascinating to those of us who are students of dogs, and we use the Siberian Husky as an example. Half of the breed’s name makes sense, the “Siberian” part, but have you ever wondered what exactly “husky” means? We did when we came across an obscure connection linking the word to old English sailors.
Evidently, “Huskimo” or “Huskimaw” was how the word, “Eskimo” was pronounced by old English sailors on trading vessels when referring to aboriginal Arctic people. “Husky became a contraction of “Huskimo,” the word’s usage recorded from 1852 for dogs kept by the Inuit people.
It was while back-checking this information that we also learned that Huskimo is also the name of a designer breed, the result of a breeding between the Siberian Husky and the American Eskimo Dog.