Pastore Maremmano Abruzzese Livestock Guarding Dogs of Italy |
Our Pastore Maremmano Abruzzese are bred to want to be with the stock. The bitches whelp in te stable the sheep, as the pups grow they start to follow the sheep around. We have no fences that the dogs can not either jump or crawl under or both. All our pups are very well socialised and handled. Our two doughters now ten and eight and all their visiting friends are incoureged to play and handle them from a few days old. |
Grando at 3yrs with Genziana and pups of 2 months |
We live practically ten minutes from the center of Rome in an Urban Park. This means the dogs have to guard our animals from, two legged theives, stray dogs, dogs off leads or unsupervised, foxes, as well as an assortment of birds at lambing time. Due to the climate our sheep lamb outside. They are out on fields off property, in winter we take them out in the morning and bring them home at night. In summer due to the heat ( over 32°C with peaks up to 40°C.) they are left out at night also as this is when they do most of their eating. We have only a dry feed lot at home on the premises. |
Grando at 11 months |
The animals are looked at twice a day. If the sheep are coming home at night the dogs get fed at home, if as now they stay out the dogs get fed once a day out in the sheep's field. Pups get fed initially four times a day then three, two and by the time they are over a year old only once. A lot of our bitches have the habit of regurgitating food to the pups. We have a kennel with a concrete floor and wire netting right round even over the top to be able to keep bitches in season in as we have found that most of the Pastore Maremmano Abruzzese's we have ever had have thought nothing of jumpimg 2mt to get back to the sheep. |
Maremma's have been known as Livestock Guarding Dogs's in Central and Southern Italy since Roman Times.Here they are a well known breed. As working Livestock Guarding Dogs (LGD), their area of distribution goes from Tuscany, Umbria right down to the beginning of Calabria and Puglia. They work in groups of up to ten or more. In Italy the Pastore Maremmano Abruzzese is a well known breed and used a lot as a companion /house guardian. In the north of Italy they are not found as working LGD's. We have working dogs. As a hobby my husband shows the dogs. |
Maremma Sheep Dogs |
Maremma Sheep Dogs |
We now have the fortune of being able to keep the sheep permenantly on a 23 hectar property one kilometer from home. This has simplified matters immensly. The sheep now have a barn out in the fields and it is no longer necessary to move them back an forth every day, from the house to the fields. Accordingly the dogs have been split up. Some guard the donkeys and goats at home, the others guard the sheep and horses at the 'campo'. |
This page was last updated on:
December 3, 2001
Two young bitches we have kept have bonded very strongly to the Clydesdale mare we brought from Scotland last year. |
