I freely confess that I fell in love at first sight when I turned over a page of a comprehensive book on dog breeds I had checked out of Galway’s main library and was bowled over by the first Finnish Lapphund I had ever seen. No other canine came close: not only was the black and tan specimen undeniably handsome, but, just as importantly, it wore an expression of joie de vivre, bonhomie, 
and a subtle something along the lines of, ‘Curiosity might kill the cat, but, not me: I’m a quirky, clever, resourceful herding dog.’
Years later, when my cat-owning era ended due to my last beloved feline’s disappearance in France, a country where Lappies are making considerable inroads into the dog popularity stakes despite loyalty towards traditional native breeds and the ubiquity of border collies and Australian shepherds, I decided to search for a lappy puppy online. After two months of trawling through websites featuring adorable youngsters with reserved notices attached I hit it lucky with a litter of eight newborns posted two days previously. My new friend would be one of two brown masked sable brothers, owing to the fact that a woman had reserved her future choice between the two. When I drove up north to visit the breeder’s Lapphunds shortly thereafter Beautiful crawled into my lap and started sucking my thumb. I would have opted for his green-eyed brother, but perhaps it has been easier to have had the choice made for me. That particular sibling was destined to become a service dog.
Beautiful’s puppy name of Woolly Bear, and official name of Canela, metamorphosed into his current moniker in response to the reactions of passersby, in both France and the U.S., to his stunning appearance.
‘Il est beau’. ‘
Hello, beautiful’. ‘Aren’t you a beauty?’ ‘What a beautiful dog!’
Outside the library here in Green Bank, West Virginia, a visiting Dutch documentary maker’s teenage son exclaimed,
“That must be the most beautiful dog in the world.”
Having justified my website’s title, I will add that choosing to buy a Lapphund coincided with my decision, as a person afflicted with electrohypersensitivity, to translocate to the world’s only official ‘Quiet Zone’ or ‘White Zone’, a place free of unhealthy cell phone tower generated microwave radiation, and set in the mountains of Appalachia, a fine location for dogs enamored with snow, cold weather, and gnawing discarded deer legs.
After a further two months of ineffectually
searching online for a female Lapphund in the U.S., Canada and England, I returned to scanning French sites, and reserved Electra, who I picked up on a return visit to France to marry my man. My canines are currently enjoying each other and the forests of Virginia.
Beautiful dogs with a kind and cuddly mi
en: what more could you want? A chihuahua, a poodle hybrid, a golden retriever, a beagle or a pug, evidently. Lapphunds rate an undeservedly low 176th most popular breed out of 189. I sincerely hope to see more of them in the U.S. in the near future in the possession of owners willing to meet their dogs’ requirements in terms of cold winters, frequent brushing, space and loving companionship.