The Greater Swiss Mountain Dog or Grosser Schweizer Sennenhund is a breed of dog, the largest of the traditional Swiss Sennenhunds, a dog type that includes four regional breeds. The name Sennenhund refers to people called Senn or Senner, dairymen and herders in the Swiss Alps.

History

The Greater Swiss Mountain Dog is believed to be descended from large molossers brought to Switzerland by the Romans in the first century B.C., although another theory states that they arrived many centuries earlier with Phoenician traders. In any case, they are almost certainly the result of the mating of indigenous dogs with large Mastiff-type dogs brought to Switzerland by foreign settlers. Although the Sennenhunds had existed in the Alps since antiquity, the Greater Swiss Mountain Dog had almost become extinct by the turn of the 20th century. As a large dog, it had been used both as a butcher's dog and to pull carts, and had been "popular with butchers, cattle dealers, manual workers and farmers, who used them as guards, droving or draught dogs and bred them as such." It may have been the advent of mechanized vehicles, as well as a declining need for butcher's dogs, that led to the decline in popularity of the the largest Sennenhund. In 1889, an International Dog Show was held in Winterthur, in northern Switzerland, and various Sennenhunds were exhibited, but not differentiated into breeds. On the 25th anniversary of the founding of the Swiss Kennel Club (Schweizerische Kynologische Gesellschaft or SKG) in 1908, some of the few remaining examples of the large Sennenhund were shown by Franz Schertenlieb to the judge and Swiss native breeds advocate Albert Heim. The dogs were recognised as a separate breed by the SKG in 1909 and entered as "Grosser Schweizer Sennenhund" in volume 12 the Swiss stud book, and the first breed club was formed in 1912 "for the care and promotion of this breed." Due to the meticulous nature of the process of selecting dogs for breeding, the lack of worthy brood bitches, and the requirement that all puppies be reexamined as adults for temperament and conformation to the requirements of the selection process before being certified as suitable for breeding, the Grosser Schweizer Sennenhund breed grew slowly in number. In 1945 over 100 puppies could be registered, indicating the existence of about 350-400 dogs of the breed at that time. The breed was first recognised internationally in 1939, when the Swiss Standard was first published by the Fédération Cynologique Internationale.

Appearance and Size

The Greater Swiss Mountain Dog is a large, muscular dog with a tricolour coat. Males should weigh around 110 - 130 lbs and females 90 - 110 lbs. Height at the withers is 66.8 - 74.4 cm (26.3 - 29.3 in) for males and 64.6 - 70.6 cm (24.6 - 27.8 in) for females. The length to height ratio is around ten to nine. There is black on top of the dog's back, ears, tail and the majority of the legs. There should be rust on the cheeks, a thumb print above the eyes and also rust should appear on the legs between the white and black. There should be white on the muzzle, the feet, the tip of the tail, on the chest down and some that comes up from the muzzle to pass between the eyes. The fur is a double coat, the top coat being around 5 cm long, the bottom coat being thick and a type of gray which must be on the neck, but can be all over the body; with such an outstanding coat, most Swissies blow coat twice a year.

Personality

The Greater Swiss Mountain Dog is a patient and calm dog. As with other draft breeds, this dog is loyal and loving and makes an excellent household pet.

Wikipedia and GNU

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