Rare Breeds Caught in the Crossfire: Northern Inuits and the New UK Dog Import Rules

At a glance

• The Animal Welfare (Import of Dogs, Cats and Ferrets) Bill 2024.2025 aims to tackle puppy smuggling and poor welfare imports.

• A blanket ban on importing puppies under six months risks harming rare dog breeds, Northern Inuits and Kennel Club vulnerable native and import register breeds by blocking vital new blood.

• Behaviour science shows the key socialisation window is well before six months, so moving adolescents isn’t automatically “better welfare”.

• Without thoughtful exemptions or a permit system for ethical breeders, small gene pools get tighter, and long-term health suffers.

• If you care about rare breeds, including Northern Inuits, the animal welfare import bill in its current form should worry you.

We will explain our point of view relating to the new UK dog import rules, Northern Inuits and how it impacts on rare breeds.

How the new UK dog import rules work

The Animal Welfare (Import of Dogs, Cats and Ferrets) Bill is being sold as a major welfare win. On paper, it looks like exactly what most dog lovers want:

• crack down on puppy smuggling

• stop vanloads of mutilated, sick puppies

• raise welfare standards at the border

No ethical breeder has a problem with that goal.

But buried in the details is one deceptively simple change with huge consequences for rare dog breeds:

No importing puppies under six months of age.

This is where the animal welfare import bill, rare breeds and reality collide.

For high-volume commercial breeders who already have a large domestic pool, this rule is an inconvenience at most. For small populations – including Northern Inuits, vulnerable native breeds and other rare dog breeds in the UK – it’s potentially devastating.

Why rare dog breeds and Northern Inuits need imports

If you work with a mainstream, high-registration breed, it’s easy to forget that not all breeds have thousands of puppies hitting the ground every year.

For rare dog breeds, Kennel Club vulnerable native breeds, import-register breeds, and small companion breeds like the Northern Inuit dog, carefully planned imports are not a vanity project. They’re a lifeline.

• Many rare and vulnerable breeds register under 300 puppies a year. That’s why the Kennel Club has a specific “vulnerable native breeds” list.

• Without fresh lines from abroad, breeders are forced to reuse the same few dogs again and again, pushing coefficients of inbreeding (COIs) higher and higher.

• Higher COIs mean more inherited disease, more problems, and less resilience in the long term.

For a small wolf lookalike dog breed like the Northern Inuit, bringing in one or two carefully chosen, health-tested puppies or young dogs over several years can make the difference between:

• a genetically sustainable, healthy future, or

• a slow, unavoidable genetic dead end.

Northern Inuits already live in a small, international gene pool. Ethical breeders plan matings with COIs and diversity in mind, work with trusted overseas breeders and import sparingly, at huge personal cost, specifically to protect the breed.

Blanket restrictions on imports don’t hurt people buying random fashionable crossbreeds off the internet. They hurt the people quietly doing the unglamorous work of preserving rare breeds.

Puppy development, welfare and the six-month rule

The six-month rule is being marketed as a simple welfare improvement. It sounds tidy. It isn’t.

Behaviour science and welfare guidance have been consistent for years:

• The critical puppy socialisation period runs roughly from 3 to 12–16 weeks.

• That’s when puppies are most open to new experiences and form the foundations of how they cope with the world – people, dogs, environments, noises, the lot.

• Good breeders and trainers agree: those early weeks are when you lay down the mental wiring for a stable adult dog.

By the time a puppy is six months old:

• The main socialisation window has already closed.

• Adolescence is either underway or just around the corner – hormones, confidence swings, fear periods.

• The puppy has bonded, settled and built routines in its original home.

Uprooting a six-month-old adolescent at that point – flights, long van journeys, new country, new people, new pack, new everything – is not automatically “better welfare” than moving a younger, well-prepared puppy.

For many dogs, it’s an emotional wrecking ball.

Add in the practical reality: good overseas breeders are not lining up to keep puppies until six months, at their expense, just to satisfy another country’s political soundbite. Many simply won’t do it. That means fewer – or zero – ethical imports for the breeds that need them most.

So when you hear the phrase “animal welfare import bill dogs will benefit”, look closely. For breeds like the Northern Inuit, the welfare picture is a lot more complicated than that.

Ethical breeders vs greeders: who really wins?

Let’s be honest about who this hits and who quietly carries on.

If you are:

• a high-volume backyard breeder,

• a puppy farmer with a stack of closely related dogs, or

• someone who has never heard the term “COI” in your life…

…this Bill doesn’t stop you doing anything with your domestic dogs. You were never relying on carefully imported Northern Inuits or rare dog breeds to keep your lines healthy. You can carry on breeding the same combinations you always have.

If you are:

• a Northern Inuit breeder trying to protect a small gene pool,

• a custodian of a Kennel Club vulnerable native or import register breed, or

• a serious enthusiast of any rare dog breed in the UK…

…you’re the one who gets hit.

You’re the one who:

• spends years finding the right overseas lines,

• pays for health tests, transport, paperwork and import costs,

• brings in very small numbers of puppies or youngsters purely to widen the gene pool and strengthen long-term health.

That work is already time-consuming, expensive and emotionally heavy. A blunt six-month rule makes it:

• harder to plan ethically,

• riskier in terms of development and welfare, and

• in some cases, completely unworkable.

And when those breeders eventually say “enough” and bow out, who’s left?

Not the people obsessing over temperament, health testing and diversity. The ones left breeding are those who were never particularly bothered by any of that in the first place.

The Kennel Club, rare breeds and a very awkward contradiction

There’s a contradiction at the heart of all this that’s hard to ignore.

On one hand, the Kennel Club:

• runs campaigns about vulnerable native breeds,

• warns that some established British breeds are at risk of disappearing,

• talks about the importance of protecting genetic diversity and responsible breeding.

On the other hand, the direction of travel with the Animal Welfare Import Bill is:

• to severely restrict puppy imports under six months,

• with limited, unclear provision for the small populations that depend on carefully managed imports.

In other words, we’re told:

“We’re very worried about the health and future of pure-bred dogs and rare breeds…”

…while pushing rules that quietly make life much harder for exactly those breeds and the breeders holding them together.

For recognised Kennel Club vulnerable native breeds, for rare imported breeds, and for unrecognised but carefully managed breeds like the Northern Inuit dog, that’s not a small detail. It’s the whole ballgame.

What a better system could look like

The maddening part is that this didn’t have to be a blunt instrument.

A genuinely welfare-focussed system could have targeted smuggling and poor-welfare imports while still protecting rare breeds and small gene pools, for example by:

• Creating a permit scheme for ethical, health-focussed breeders – Kennel Club recognised or not – who can demonstrate:

  • robust health testing,

  • transparent record-keeping and pedigrees,

  • a clear genetic diversity plan for their breed.

• Limiting the number of puppies or young dogs imported per breeder per year, focused on rare dog breeds, vulnerable native breeds and small populations like Northern Inuits.

• Applying tough checks and serious penalties for anyone using the system as a loophole for commercial mass imports.

That kind of system would:

• hit puppy smugglers and mutilated imports hard,

• protect welfare at the border,

• and still allow carefully managed, low-volume imports that are critical for genetic diversity in rare dog breeds.

Instead, we’ve ended up with a version of the animal welfare import bill that looks clean in a press release, but messy for the people actually keeping rare breeds alive.

Where Fireborn Northern Inuits stands

We’re a small, ethical Northern Inuit breeder in North Yorkshire. Our dogs live in the house as family, not in rows of outdoor kennels. We:

• follow health testing protocols,

• raise puppies with Puppy Culture and real-world socialisation,

• match homes carefully based on lifestyle and expectations,

• and plan matings with genetic diversity and long-term health at the centre.

For us, using imports has never been about chasing trends. It’s about:

• avoiding dangerous levels of inbreeding,

• bringing in complementary health and temperament lines from trusted overseas partners,

• giving this wolf lookalike dog breed a realistic shot at a stable, healthy future.

The animal welfare import bill, as it stands, doesn’t make that work impossible overnight – but it does make the path narrower, riskier and far less dog-centred.

We will adapt, as we always do. But we will also keep saying, clearly and publicly, that rare breeds, Northern Inuits and small populations deserve more than a blunt policy written for someone else’s problem.

FAQ: Northern Inuits, rare dog breeds and the new import rules

Is the Northern Inuit dog a rare breed?

Yes. The Northern Inuit dog is a rare wolf lookalike companion breed with a relatively small, international population. It is not currently recognised by the UK Kennel Club, but is managed through independent breed clubs and registries with their own health testing and breeding rules. In practice, Northern Inuits face the same small-gene-pool issues as many recognised rare dog breeds.

Why do Northern Inuit breeders need imports at all?

Because without carefully chosen new blood, the coefficient of inbreeding creeps up. That means:

• more inherited problems,

• less genetic resilience,

• and a weaker future for the breed.

Responsible Northern Inuit breeders use imports sparingly – often one or two dogs over many years – specifically to protect long-term health and diversity, not to churn out more litters.

Doesn’t the Animal Welfare Import Bill just stop puppy smuggling?

It certainly aims to, and that part is welcome. Few people oppose clamping down on puppy smuggling, ear-cropping and poor-welfare imports.

The issue is that the six-month minimum import age also makes it far harder to bring in young puppies ethically for rare dog breeds and small populations. Behaviour science shows the main socialisation window is well before six months, so forcing a major, stressful move at adolescence isn’t automatically better for welfare – especially when those imports are low-volume and carefully planned.

How does this affect Kennel Club vulnerable native and import register breeds?

Many Kennel Club vulnerable native breeds already struggle with low registration numbers each year. They rely on imports to keep the gene pool open and healthy.

By making it much harder to import puppies under six months, the Bill risks boxing those breeds into ever smaller genetic corners – the opposite of what you’d want if you genuinely care about the future of rare dog breeds in the UK.

What can owners and breed enthusiasts do?

If you care about the impact of the animal welfare import bill on rare breeds, you can:

• Learn the basics of genetic diversity, inbreeding and small populations.

• Support ethical breeders of Northern Inuits, vulnerable native breeds and other rare dog breeds who are transparent about health testing and pedigrees.

• Contact your MP and ask for sensible permit schemes and exemptions for health-focussed breeders, not just blanket bans.

• Hold big organisations – including the Kennel Club – to their own promises about protecting rare breeds and long-term health.

Want to learn more about Northern Inuits and our approach?

If you’d like to understand more about our breed and how we’re navigating these changes, have a look at:

• About the Northern Inuit Dog – overview of the breed, temperament and lifestyle fit

• Our Ethical Breeding Approach – health testing, Puppy Culture and genetic diversity

• About Fireborn Northern Inuits – who we are and how our pack lives