Instead, the film featured only eight dogs: two Alaskan Malamutes named Buck and Shadow and six Siberian Huskies named Max, Old Jack, Maya, Dewey, Truman, and Shorty. A second film from 2006, Eight Below, provided a fictional version of the occurrence but did not reference the breed. The breed spiked in popularity upon the release of a 1983 film about Taro and Jiro, Nankyoku Monogatari. Jiro died in Antarctica in 1960 of natural causes and his remains are located at the National Science Museum of Japan in Ueno Park. Taro returned to Sapporo, Japan and lived at Hokkaido University until his death in 1970, after which he was stuffed and put on display at the university's museum. Incredibly, nearly one year later, a new expedition arrived and discovered that two of the dogs, Taro and Jiro, had survived and they became instant heroes. However, poor weather conditions prevented the relief team from reaching the outpost. The researchers believed that a relief team would arrive within a few days and left the dogs chained up outside with a small supply of food. An emergency evacuation resulted in the abandonment of 15 sled dogs. This breed's claim to fame came from the ill-fated 1958 Japanese research expedition to Antarctica. Offshoots of the Sakhalin Husky are theorized to be the progenitors of longer-coated Akitas. They were used by the Red Army during World War II as pack animals, but that affair was short-lived because it was found that they have a strong dietary preference for salmon. This breed is rarely used now therefore, few breeders remain in Japan.Įxplorers who went to Franz Josef Land, conquerors of northern Alaska, and South Pole explorers (including Robert Falcon Scott) used these dogs on expeditions. The name 'Karafuto Ken' comes from the combination of Karafuto (the Japanese name for Sakhalin) and Ken (a Japanese word for dog) and hence provides the breed's geographical origin. The Sakhalin Husky evokes a sense of power due to its strong skeletal structure and well-developed muscles. Sakhalin huskies can have black, red, gray, and brindle coloring. The tail is held straight or slightly bent to the side. The body of the Sakhalin Husky is elongated, with a thick double undercoat.

Before his death, Lyubykh stated that there were no longer enough living specimens of the breed to provide the genetic diversity necessary for continued breeding. The sole remaining breeder on Sakhalin, Sergey Lyubykh, located in the Nivkh village of Nekrasovka, died in 2012. In 2011, there were only two surviving purebred members of the breed in Japan. As of 2015, there were only seven known dogs of this breed on their native island of Sakhalin. While bred primarily as a sled dog, some Sakhalin Huskies were used for hunting bear.

The breed is also known as Karafuto Ken, Sakhalin Laika, or Gilyak Laika. The Sakhalin Husky (Japanese: 樺太犬, Russian: Сахалинский хаски) is an extinct sled laika bred by the Nivkh people of Sakhalin Island and adjacent areas. Karafuto Ken, Sakhalin Laika, Gilyak Laikaīlack, Gray, Brown, White, Russet, Cream, Biscuit Stuffed Sakhalin Husky named ' Jiro' at the National Museum of Nature and Science, Tokyo

Laika husky