History and tales

The story about how the Swedish Vallhund was "saved" and became a breed has many good points. It has been told many times, and is probably true in its essential parts.
In 1942 Count Björn von Rosen was engaged in what was called "The Jämthund Fight", some people trying to find evidence that the breed Jämthund was purely Swedish without any Norwegian blood. He then remembered the small herding spitzdogs, that he had seen in his childhood, when he spent the summers in Västergötland. He advertised in the lokal newspapers and asked if anybody had seen or knew something about these dogs. He then got an answer from the teacher, later headmaster, at Vara Folkhögskola (a special schoolform for adults who often haven´t done so good at school as youngsters, mostly found in Denmark and Sweden) K-G Zetterstén, who engaged some pupils of the school to help him find the dogs. They used their bikes and searched the neighbourhood. They finally found one dog and four bitches, which were of the right type.
These dogs were shown in an exhibition in Gothenburg and the judges there decided that this really was a breed of its own. The Västgötaspets was born....
Count Björn von Rosen has written about all this in his book "Mitt Hundliv" (My Dog Life). I don´t know, but don´t think that you can find the book in English. Maybe it´s a task for someone to translate at least the chapter "Intermezzo i Västergötland", where he tells the story. 

With this as a background people often say that all our vallhunds come from these five dogs. That´s probably not true; later on more dogs were found, but they were not many, and anyway it´s a good story. You can give some thoughts to the fact, that this 1000-year old breed is not older as a breed in modern terms than about 50 years...

The first breed standard was written in 1943, and the breed was then called "Svensk Vallhund" (Swedish Vallhund). This name was changed to "Västgötaspets" in 1953, nobody really knows why. 
Before 1943 the breed hadn´t even got a name. They were just called "hunn" ("dog" in the local dialect), but that didn´t make them less valuable.
Nowadays we try to keep to the standard when we breed dogs, which wasn´t easily done in the times when there was none. But nevertheless the farmers exactly knew what kind of dog they wanted to have:

More history and stories

If you are a real fantast of Västgötaspets you are sure of lots of things considering your breed, i. e. in which direction the import and export of dogs went during the Viking era (800-1000 AD). It´s quite clear that the vikings brought their small dogs to the British Isles, that the dogs then changed (some would say degenerated) and became corgis. Just count how many different kinds of spitz dogs you find in Scandinavia (many fingers, need some toes too) and in the British Isles (thumb of left hand)... 

Trying to talk a little serious: The subject  has been discussed many times, and you can´t deny the similarity between Västgötaspets and Welsh Corgi (pembroke). The thought that you could see these little dogs a thousand years ago is fascinating. There are some evidence pointing to that, i. e. bones found in Viking tombs.

What about the tail? Are you allowed to dock it?

Different answer in different countries. In Sweden you haven´t been allowed to dock tails for many years now. On the other hand we get short tails anyway. Between 40 and 50% of the dogs are born with tails, with a length of one decimeter (about 4") or less. These tails still have all the right bones there, even if they are small, sometimes so small you can´t see any tail at all. 

But it is such a small dog...

No, it isn´t. It just looks like that. A grown male dog often weighs about 15 kilos, a bitch a couple of kilos less. But it has short legs, that´s for truth. That depends on its human companions, who have used this mutation to get strong little working dogs. We don´t really know why, but a good guess is that the size is convenient when you are a herding , barking, biting dog. A kicking cow kicks above the dog; especially when the dog has hit the ground, flat on its belly, faster than lightning.  But - don´t let them cheat you! What you handle is a small packet  of dynamite - which is what you  have to be if your job sometimes is to move a bull of 600 kilos... 

But can you use a Västgötaspets in any way?

Of course you can:
   The breeds specialty is herding. They don´t herd like e g  border collies do, and they are not supposed to. 
       Sheep are some kind of self-herding animals; cattle are not.
   They don´t mind working with animals in a smaller scale too; they can e g also catch rats and  herd chicken. 
       (But watch out again; we don´t want it to be the other way, do we?) 
   It is a really good, careful and loving companion to the family children - and all other children too.
   Most of them are very alert guard- or watch dogs, who very loudly and distinctly tell when strangers are coming. 
   Many of them, depending of the humans living with them, are really good obedience and/or agility dogs.
    There are  hunters who use them to trace wounded game. They are really good at finding animals, that are shot at 
       but not killed.

But most of all it´s a real member of the family, taking part in the entire family life if allowed to, and it makes it with joy and for many years. The breed is strong and healthy, and they often live a long life. The Västgötaspets is at it´s best when allowed to use its brightness and intellect. But never forget who is making the rules. If you don´t, your dog will, and it´s very possible that you don´t have the same opinion of what good rules are...