Meet the Alaska Klee Kai

​​​​​​​​We Alaskan Klee Kais are a very new breed and one of the most rare breeds around! Our breed started with one determined human named Linda Spurlin. Linda Spurlin was from Wasilla, Alaska, where she became very acquainted with my Husky cousins. Linda and her husband took a trip to Oklahoma to visit family in the early 1970s where she came across a 17-pound Mini Alaskan Husky named Curious. She fell head over heels for Curious, so much so that she brought him home with her to start a breeding program with her family. To ensure our small size, the Spurlins crossed the Siberian Husky and Alaskan Husky with smaller spitz-type breeds like the American Eskimo Dog and the Schipperke. We were meant to be companion dogs, not working dogs like our Husky ancestors, but still needed to be strong enough to withstand that Alaska cold!

​​​​​​​​​​Linda Spurlin named her new breed Klee Kai, which is Inuit for “little dog” (though our name was later changed to Alaskan Klee Kai). She was very particular and only accepted dogs that fit her very specific breed standard, which is why there are so few of us in the world even today. In the 1980s, a woman named Eileen Gregory visited Alaska, where she met Linda Spurlin and fell in love with her little husky dogs. Eileen Gregory wanted to bring my breed to the continental United States, where she lived in Colorado, so that more people could learn about us. The two women teamed up and created the Alaskan Klee Kai Association of America to spread the word about us, but they still maintained a very strict breeding program. We are still a very rare breed and we are not officially recognized by the American Kennel Club (yet!), but we were recognized by the American Rare Breed Association in 1995 and the United Kennel Club in 1997. We may be Alaska’s best kept secret, but those who know us absolutely love us!