"Breed the Iceland Dog to the FCI standard; make them more like the standard than the mother and father. From my current litter, there are two of five that should be bred. Both parents are champions, but only two from their litter are better.  

A soft coat, for example, would be a disaster if the Iceland dog had to swim across a river. It would be weighed down and drown. An Iceland Dog that you throw into water, when he comes out of the water, he should be able to shake himself dry in one or two moments. This is one of the characteristics we must not lose. It is a main characteristic. The dogs were not carried over the river or the brooks, they swam through them and have to be able to not drown. 

The herding character of the Iceland Dog is very much unlike the Border Collie. The Border Collie collects the sheep into a group, then the man goes before the group and the Border Collie follows the man. The man shows him where to move them. With the Iceland Dog, the man follows the dog. The Iceland Dog can work independently, the man rides a horse and the Iceland dog works fast. 

The sheep are in the mountain in the autumn and they need to be collected and brought together for sorting out to each farmer. The group of sheep is mixed and the dogs bring them together and bring them down the hill. The Iceland Dog works in a horseshoe pattern, not a circle, pushing the sheep into the fold. The Iceland dog was the worker for the farmer and is able to do the same job today.  

I watch the Iceland Dog work today on my farm bringing in the cows and it is wonderful for me to watch them. Ólafsvellir is a farm of over 1500 acres. On my land, they work three together, one collects the difficult ones and the male moves the whole thing. The bitches collect and he pushes. It is such a beautiful thing to see. This is the job of the Iceland Dog. This is correct. This has been the natural way for them to work throughout the centuries.  

They can work with all animals, sheep, cows and horses. They work differently with each kind of animal. It bears with it the special characteristic of this dog. It is not necessary for them to live this way, but they must have the ability to herd, in form and in mind. They protect the herd. The Iceland Dog, he is collecting them, the family, and driving them toward safety. They have to be able to trot from morning to evening without tiring. Movement is extremely important. They rarely move slowly, they trot. If you tell an Iceland Dog to guard something, he will give voice.  

People are going away from what the old farmers thought was important and moving from the original understanding of how the Iceland Dog should be. The emphasis of the double dew claws, the form and placement of the ears, the curl of the tail should not change. We are seeing dogs without dewclaws, with ears that are triangles and too big. Each ear should be one third of the head with the space between the ears being one third. This is correct spacing. The placement of the ears is also important.  

The tail should always be in a circle and a tail that is not a curl is not okay. The Iceland Dog goes up on its hind legs to look for the sheep or whatever he is collecting. He jumps on his hind legs. The Tröfaldir Sporar (double dew claw) helps to spread out the feet and the dew claw keeps him better afloat in swampy areas. Part of our land is very, very swampy and I have seen them work. We are losing the dew claws, the correct dew claws. We must give better points, as judges, when dewclaws are correctly placed. If it is too far up, it could be left off. It needs to be useful.  

This is why it is so important to keep the Iceland Dog unchanged from what they looked like years ago, like in the picture Mark Watson made for me. That is the correct Iceland Dog, like the copper etching. It is a copper etching that was used around 1900 and Mark Watson bought it for me.  

When we got them, there were only short haired Iceland Dogs and we studied how the dog looked 30 years prior. I was possessed with learning everything possible.  

Please don’t change our Iceland Dog. The first ten years were so difficult, finding and keeping our original breed. We worked so hard."

"Conformation showing is important because the dog needs to be correct to the standard, the FCI standard. Correct breeding means the correct choice of parents. The puppies should be able to beat the parents in conformation. If you don’t choose very carefully, the breeding material, you are not breeding, you are only producing dogs. Breeding is a thing we have to think carefully about. “What are we breeding from?,” you should ask. The offspring should preferably be better than both mother and father, then you are breeding seriously. That is the goal to aspire to, sometimes we can’t do it, but it should be our goal."