What is an Alaskan Klee Kai?
While living in Alaska, Linda Spurlin and her family developed the Alaskan Klee Kai to be a companion-sized version of the Alaskan Husky after meeting a curiously small Husky when visiting relatives in Oklahoma. “Curious” as she was named was a curiosity at a mere 17lbs and Linda asked if she could take her home back to Alaska with her to which her relatives agreed, what help was a 17lb farm dog anyway?
Wherever Curious would go people would flock to meet her and Linda knew then that she had to find a way to duplicate this wonderful little dog and so began her journey to create the Alaskan Klee Kai.
From the early ’70s through 1987, the Spurlin’s carefully selected dogs for their appearance and soundness and in 1988, Linda felt that her little huskies were ready for the world and she sold the first pup outside of Alaska.
Journey out of Alaska
One day a good friends of Linda’s named Chris took her mother Eileen to meet these little huskies and Linda allowed Eileen to take some photos of the dogs as a memento of her time in Alaska to take back to Colorado with her little did Linda expect what would come next…
Once Eileen arrived back in Colorado it began. Eileen launched a full scale assault on Linda to convince her that the WORLD needed these little dogs and that it should all start with her!
In 1988 Linda finally gave in and sold the first Klee Kai to Chris as a Christmas gift for Eileen. This began the never ending flood of letters, phone calls and newspaper reporters contacting Linda that continues to this day!
So now these little huskies needed a name as “miniature Husky” was just not going to cut it. Linda and Chris decided that “Klee Kai” was the perfect fit as it derived from the one of the Eskimo dialects words for “Little Dog”.
In 1995 Linda decided to retire from breeding Alaskan Klee Kai and flew all nine of her remaining dogs down to Colorado to Eileen.
Now (2020) you can find Klee Kai in countries throughout the world, from their native America to Australia and many countries in between. Everywhere their owners go they are stopped just as Curious was all those years ago and still the fanfare that surrounds them grows.
The AKK was recognised by the American Rare Breed Association (ARBA) in 1995, by the United Kennel Club (UKC) on January 1st, 1997 and by the AKC’s Foundation Stock Service (AKC FSS) on October 13th 2020 but is not recognised by the Kennel Club in the UK as yet.
AKKAOB 