Pyrenean Shepherd

History

Born and bred in France, this breed was used to herd large flocks of sheep and hunt; quite the unusual pair of duties for a single dog breed. This breed has many strong working traits and is gaining popularity as a farm dog.

Appearance

With their large personalities to take in, surprisingly the Pyrenean Shepherd is a medium sized breed with males and females measuring up to 20 inches in height and weighing up to 30 pounds in weight. This breed has a wedge shaped head that forms into a long narrow muzzle with a scissor bite. Their two medium sized ears are triangular in shape and folded 3/4 of the way down alongside of their head. Their two eyes are surrounded with longer hair and are round in shape, generally a dark brown to black in color. Their tail is shorter in length due to being cropped and held closely to their body. Their medium to long length hair is wavy in appearance, rough to the touch and is available in all colors and color combinations.

Temperament

The Pyrenean Shepherd is a dog with many different strong personality traits in different areas; they are independant, and at times difficult to train, they are manipulative - this works great during hunting and herding but makes owning them difficult as a human, and they are extremely smart - which makes their owner always need to be on their feet and never too relaxed. This breed requires a skilled owner who is very firmilar with the Terrier and herding breeds, as the Pyrenean Shepherd has many similar personality traits. This breed requires a firm and confident owner who is able to remain pack leader at all times and set rules and boundaries. Early socialization and obedience is recommended. This breed would be best in adult only homes with no other pets. This breed requires a lot of room to run within safely as well as daily mental exercise. If you are able to handle their personality and be as well prepared to take on each day as this breed is, than you will have yourself a hard working farm dog.

Grooming

This breed does shed. Daily brushing and bathing when needed. Professional grooming at least twice a year.

Special Notes

Please fully educate yourself about the Pyrenean Shepherd prior to adding one to your household to sure you are able to provide life long physical and financial care to your new family member. This breed is not meant for everyone. All dogs originate from wolves (Canis Lupus). Each breed of dog was originally created by mixing different breeds together in an effort to bring forth certain characteristics. Once a breeder has created acceptable “breed characteristics” within their bloodline and these “breed characteristics” have shown to be reliably reproduced in the offspring for three (3) generations, the bloodline may be upgraded from the category of “foundation stock” to “pure-bred”. The same “pure-bred” breed standards vary from different continents, countries, territories, regions, breed clubs, and canine pure-breed registries depending on the goals of their breeders. Dog DNA testing companies can have accurate results for a specific bloodline of a small colony of dogs. However, there are tens of thousands of different bloodlines in the world which have not yet been tested for marker baseline results by Dog DNA testing companies as of 2017. For this reason Dog DNA testing companies do not guarantee the 100% accuracy of their breed lineage results and will also show different marker results for the same pure-bred breed in different continents, countries, territories, regions, breed clubs, and canine pure-breed registries depending on the goals of their breeders.