Not Your Average Lap Dogs

By the lunar calendar observed throughout Asia, 1994 is the Year of the Dog--and no dog is more respected in all Korea than the Jindo.

Isolated on the remote island of Jindo off southwestern Korea, the breed evolved into fierce hunters. Their job was to catch wild game and bring it home to their masters. Sometimes several dogs would work together to bring down a deer or other large animal, then one dog would go get their owner while the others stayed behind to guard the game.

“Natural selection favored the mightiest dogs to breed while the weaker ones died out,” says In Sub Yang of the 400-member Korean Jindo Club in Los Angeles. “That explains their aggressive nature.”

Jindo folklore is rich with tales of an ancestry that includes Mongolian war dogs and Asian wolves. During the 1930s, the breed nearly became extinct when the Japanese military rounded up more than 300,000 of the dogs to make fur coats for soldiers fighting in Manchuria.

Today, there are an estimated 14,000 dogs on the island and perhaps 2,000 in the United States, despite efforts by the South Korean government to control export of purebred Jindos.

The dogs are prized for their intelligence and perseverance, says Junnie Yoon, a dog show judge from South Korea. Stories abound of Jindos overcoming great difficulties and distances to find their way home.

“However aggressive Jindo dogs are, that aggression is only directed at wild animals,” Yoon says. “Jindo dogs should never show aggression toward people unless they perceive harm intended to them.

“It is not a fighting dog, but when it is confronted with an aggressive dog, it will fight until it drops.”