Mudi

The Magyars (the original name for Hungarians) kept sheepdogs starting around end of the ninth century, but pedigree breeding and classification of dogs only started in the second half of the 19th century. Before then, Hungarian sheepdogs were simply divided into two categories: large and small. When breeding, the small dogs were divided from the big ones (Kuvasz, Komondor), but the small ones were interbred. Therefore, the early history of the Mudi is more or less the same as those of the Pumi and the Puli.

Around 1930, Dr. Deszö Fényesi, director of the museum in Balassagyarmat, was one of the first breeders to become involved in separate breeding of this small sheepdog. He is also the one who named the breed Mudi. By 1936, the Mudi was officially recognized as a breed.

During World War II, many Hungarian breeds suffered terrible losses, some almost disappeared, and the Mudi was given no immunity as a rare breed. In the 1960s, it was rehabilitated from survivors, and in 1966, a new breed standard was written by Dr. Zoltan Balassy to apply for FCI recognition. This standard was based on only a handful of Mudis and the main differences between the original standard and this one were accepted sizes and colors. The FCI approved the breed standard in 1966, but very few people were involved in breeding then and this is still the case today.

As the restoration of the breed went on over the next few decades, a naturally-occurring variability in color came to light that differed from the standard written in ’66. A new standard was written in 2000 to add back most of these original colors and the present FCI breed standard dates from 2004.