The Maremmano-Abruzzese Sheepdog, ( it, ), also called Maremmano, the Maremma Sheepdog or Abruzzese Sheepdog, and Cane da Pastore Abruzzese or Pastore Abruzzese (''Abruzzese Sheepdog'' and ''Abruzzese Shepherd'', respectively) is an Italian
breed
A breed is a specific group of domestic animals having homogeneous appearance (phenotype), homogeneous behavior, and/or other characteristics that distinguish it from other organisms of the same species. In literature, there exist several slig ...
of
livestock guardian dog
A livestock guardian dog (LGD) is a dog type bred for the purpose of protecting livestock from predators.
Livestock guardian dogs stay with the group of animals they protect as a full-time member of the flock or herd. Their ability to guard t ...
. It is frequently described as a “gentle giant” due to its large size and passive and gentle nature (and also due to its Abruzzese origin, as residents of
Abruzzo
Abruzzo (, , ; nap, label=Neapolitan language, Abruzzese Neapolitan, Abbrùzze , ''Abbrìzze'' or ''Abbrèzze'' ; nap, label=Sabino dialect, Aquilano, Abbrùzzu; #History, historically Abruzzi) is a Regions of Italy, region of Southern Italy wi ...
are known stereotypically as “strong but kind”, a descriptor utilized by
Primo Levi
Primo Michele Levi (; 31 July 1919 – 11 April 1987) was an Italian chemist, partisan, writer, and Jewish Holocaust survivor. He was the author of several books, collections of short stories, essays, poems and one novel. His best-known works ...
). It is indigenous to central Italy and northern areas of
Southern Italy
Southern Italy ( it, Sud Italia or ) also known as ''Meridione'' or ''Mezzogiorno'' (), is a macroregion of the Italian Republic consisting of its southern half.
The term ''Mezzogiorno'' today refers to regions that are associated with the peop ...
, particularly to
Abruzzo
Abruzzo (, , ; nap, label=Neapolitan language, Abruzzese Neapolitan, Abbrùzze , ''Abbrìzze'' or ''Abbrèzze'' ; nap, label=Sabino dialect, Aquilano, Abbrùzzu; #History, historically Abruzzi) is a Regions of Italy, region of Southern Italy wi ...
and to the
Maremma
The Maremma (, ; from Latin , "maritime and) is a coastal area of western central Italy, bordering the Tyrrhenian Sea. It includes much of south-western Tuscany and part of northern Lazio. It was formerly mostly marshland, often malarial, bu ...
region of
Tuscany
Tuscany ( ; it, Toscana ) is a Regions of Italy, region in central Italy with an area of about and a population of about 3.8 million inhabitants. The regional capital is Florence (''Firenze'').
Tuscany is known for its landscapes, history, art ...
and
Lazio
it, Laziale
, population_note =
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, population_blank1 =
, demographics_type1 =
, demographics1_footnotes =
, demographics1_title1 =
, demographics1_info1 =
, demographics1_title2 ...
. It has been used for centuries by Italian shepherds to guard sheep from
wolves
The wolf (''Canis lupus''; plural, : wolves), also known as the gray wolf or grey wolf, is a large Canis, canine native to Eurasia and North America. More than thirty subspecies of Canis lupus, subspecies of ''Canis lupus'' have been reco ...
. The literal English translation of the name is "shepherd dog of the Maremma and Abruzzo". The English name of the breed derives from that of the Maremma marshlands where, until recently, shepherds, dogs and hundreds of thousands of sheep over-wintered, and where the dogs are still abundant although
sheep-farming has decreased substantially. It is widely employed in Abruzzo, where sheep herding remains vital to the
rural economy
Rural economics is the study of rural economies. Rural economies include both agricultural and non-agricultural industries, so rural economics has broader concerns than agricultural economics which focus more on food systems. Rural developmen ...
and the wolf remains an active and protected
predator
Predation is a biological interaction where one organism, the predator, kills and eats another organism, its prey. It is one of a family of common feeding behaviours that includes parasitism and micropredation (which usually do not kill th ...
.
It may share a common ancestor with other breeds of similar appearance including the
Pyrenean Mountain Dog
The Pyrenean Mountain Dog
(french: Chien de Montagne des Pyrénées) is a breed of livestock guardian dog from France, where it is commonly called the Patou. The breed comes from the French side of the Pyrenees Mountains that separate France an ...
, the
Kuvasz
The Kuvasz is a traditional Hungarian breed of flock guardian dog. Mention of the breed can be found in old Hungarian texts. They have historically been royal guard dogs, or guarded livestock, but have been increasingly found in homes as pets ...
of Hungary, the
Polish Tatra Sheepdog, the
Slovenský Cuvac of
Slovakia
Slovakia (; sk, Slovensko ), officially the Slovak Republic ( sk, Slovenská republika, links=no ), is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is bordered by Poland to the north, Ukraine to the east, Hungary to the south, Austria to the s ...
, the
Šarplaninac
The Šarplaninac ( sr-Cyrl, Шарпланинац; mk, Шарпланинец; sq, Qeni i Sharrit), formerly also known as Illyrian Shepherd Dog (Macedonian and Serbian: Илирски Овчар, Ilirski Ovčar; sq, Deltari Ilir), is a do ...
(although that is not white), and to the
Akbash
The Akbash ( tr, Akbaş), is a traditional Turkish breed or type of flock guardian dog from western Anatolia. The word ''akbaş'' means 'white head', and thus distinguishes this dog from the Karabaş, or 'black head'. It was recognised by t ...
of
Turkey
Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a list of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolia, Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with ...
.
History
Ancient history and iconography
Descriptions of white flock guardian dogs are found in ancient Roman literature, in works such as those of
Columella
Lucius Junius Moderatus Columella (; Arabic: , 4 – ) was a prominent writer on agriculture in the Roman Empire.
His ' in twelve volumes has been completely preserved and forms an important source on Roman agriculture, together with the wo ...
,
Varro
Marcus Terentius Varro (; 116–27 BC) was a Roman polymath and a prolific author. He is regarded as ancient Rome's greatest scholar, and was described by Petrarch as "the third great light of Rome" (after Vergil and Cicero). He is sometimes calle ...
and
Palladius. Similar dogs are depicted in numerous sculptures and paintings from Roman times to the present. Among the earliest is the series of large statues (two in Rome, one in Florence, one – the
Duncombe Dog
The Jennings Dog (also known as The Duncombe Dog or The Dog of Alcibiades) is a Roman sculpture of a dog with a docked tail. Named for its first modern owner, Henry Constantine Jennings, it is a 2nd-century AD Roman copy of a Hellenistic bronz ...
– in England) copied from a
Hellenistic
In Classical antiquity, the Hellenistic period covers the time in Mediterranean history after Classical Greece, between the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC and the emergence of the Roman Empire, as signified by the Battle of Actium in ...
bronze from
Pergamon
Pergamon or Pergamum ( or ; grc-gre, Πέργαμον), also referred to by its modern Greek form Pergamos (), was a rich and powerful ancient Greece, ancient Greek city in Mysia. It is located from the modern coastline of the Aegean Sea on a ...
.
[
Iconographic sources identified as relevant to the history of the Maremmano include:][
* A Hellenistic ]bas-relief
Relief is a sculptural method in which the sculpted pieces are bonded to a solid background of the same material. The term ''relief'' is from the Latin verb ''relevo'', to raise. To create a sculpture in relief is to give the impression that the ...
, of which a drawing was published by Max von Stephanitz
Captain Max Emil Friedrich von Stephanitz (December 30, 1864 – 22 April 1936) was a German cavalry officer and dog breeder who is credited with having developed the German Shepherd Dog breed as it is currently known, set guidelines for the ...
in 1901[
* A ]votive
A votive offering or votive deposit is one or more objects displayed or deposited, without the intention of recovery or use, in a sacred place for religious purposes. Such items are a feature of modern and ancient societies and are generally ...
statuette in the Museo Archeologico of Capua
Capua ( , ) is a city and ''comune'' in the province of Caserta, in the region of Campania, southern Italy, situated north of Naples, on the northeastern edge of the Campanian plain.
History
Ancient era
The name of Capua comes from the Etrusc ...
* A 14th-century mediaeval fresco
Fresco (plural ''frescos'' or ''frescoes'') is a technique of mural painting executed upon freshly laid ("wet") lime plaster. Water is used as the vehicle for the dry-powder pigment to merge with the plaster, and with the setting of the plaste ...
in the church of San Francesco in Amatrice, at the foot of the Monti della Laga
Monti della Laga is a mountain range in the central Apennines of Italy. Their ruggedness and inaccessibility makes them one of the lesser known areas of the Italian peninsula.
Geography
The mountains run for a length of about between the Italia ...
, in the comune
The (; plural: ) is a local administrative division of Italy, roughly equivalent to a township or municipality. It is the third-level administrative division of Italy, after regions ('' regioni'') and provinces (''province''). The can also ...
of Rieti
Rieti (; lat, Reate, Sabino: ) is a town and ''comune'' in Lazio, central Italy, with a population of 47,700. It is the administrative seat of the province of Rieti and see of the diocese of Rieti, as well as the modern capital of the Sabina re ...
; the dog wears a ''roccale''
* A 14th-century fresco in Santa Maria Novella
Santa Maria Novella is a church in Florence, Italy, situated opposite, and lending its name to, the city's main railway station. Chronologically, it is the first great basilica in Florence, and is the city's principal Dominican church.
The chu ...
, in Florence
Florence ( ; it, Firenze ) is a city in Central Italy and the capital city of the Tuscany region. It is the most populated city in Tuscany, with 383,083 inhabitants in 2016, and over 1,520,000 in its metropolitan area.Bilancio demografico an ...
* A 'Nativity' of Mariotto di Nardo (active 1394–1424); the dog wears a spiked collar
* ''Abraham and Lot on their way into Canaan'' by Bartolo Battiloro, in the Collegiata of San Gimignano
San Gimignano () is a small walled medieval hill town in the province of Siena, Tuscany, north-central Italy. Known as the Town of Fine Towers, San Gimignano is famous for its medieval architecture, unique in the preservation of about a dozen of ...
* A detail of the '' Journey of the Magi to Bethlehem'' by Benozzo Gozzoli
Benozzo Gozzoli (4 October 1497) was an Italian Renaissance painter from Florence. A pupil of Fra Angelico, Gozzoli is best known for a series of murals in the Magi Chapel of the Palazzo Medici-Riccardi, depicting festive, vibrant processions wi ...
, c.1460
* Rough ink drawings on the maps of the pasture-lands of the Tavoliere di Foggia published in 1686 by Antonio and Nunzio Michele di Rovere
* A seventeenth-century engraving of the Roman campagna
The Roman Campagna () is a low-lying area surrounding Rome in the Lazio region of central Italy, with an area of approximately .
It is bordered by the Tolfa and Sabatini mountains to the north, the Alban Hills to the southeast, and the Tyrrhe ...
by Joannes van den Hecke
* An eighteenth-century maiolica
Maiolica is tin-glazed pottery decorated in colours on a white background. Italian maiolica dating from the Renaissance period is the most renowned. When depicting historical and mythical scenes, these works were known as ''istoriato'' wares ( ...
of a bear-hunt by Candeloro Cappelletti (1689–1772) of Castelli, Abruzzo
* ''Hunting the Wolf'' by Jean-Baptiste Oudry
Jean-Baptiste Oudry (; 17 March 1686 – 30 April 1755) was a French Rococo painter, engraver, and tapestry designer. He is particularly well known for his naturalistic pictures of animals and his hunt pieces depicting game. His son, Jacques-Ch ...
, 1746, from the collection of Louis XV
Louis XV (15 February 1710 – 10 May 1774), known as Louis the Beloved (french: le Bien-Aimé), was King of France from 1 September 1715 until his death in 1774. He succeeded his great-grandfather Louis XIV at the age of five. Until he reache ...
; the dogs to the left and right of the wolf are described in a catalogue of the museum as "large dog with long hair".[V llot F édéric(1855]
''Guide through the galleries of paintings of the Imperial museum of the Louvre''
Paris: De Soye and Bouchet, p. 620, entry 387 Wolf dogs from the Abruzzo were imported into France at about this time. They were used by François Antoine, " Antoine de Beauterne", in his successful hunt for the Beast of Gévaudan in 1765;[ according to Gobin, under Louis XV (r.1715–1774) the Venerie Royale or Royal Hunt was composed in large part of Abruzzese wolf-dogs and Sicilian mastiffs.][
* The ''cane da lupo'' or wolf-dog used by Vincenzo Dandolo to defend Spanish sheep on the mountains above ]Varese
Varese ( , , or ; lmo, label= Varesino, Varés ; la, Baretium; archaic german: Väris) is a city and ''comune'' in north-western Lombardy, northern Italy, north-west of Milan. The population of Varese in 2018 has reached 80,559.
It is the c ...
[
* An illustration in '']The Penny Magazine
''The Penny Magazine'' was an illustrated British magazine aimed at the working class, published every Saturday from 31 March 1832 to 31 October 1845. Charles Knight created it for the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge in response to ...
'' (1833)[
* An engraving by ]Arthur John Strutt
Arthur John Strutt (1819 – 1888, in Rome), was an English painter, engraver, writer, traveller and archaeologist.
Life
Strutt was born in Chelmsford, Essex, England. He was the son of the landscape painter Jacob George Strutt (1790–186 ...
of a shepherd and his dog in the Roman campagna in 1843
* Several engravings by Charles Coleman in his collection ''A Series of Subjects peculiar to the Campagna of Rome and Pontine Marshes''[
File:Dog statue in Vatican Museum.jpg, The ''canis pastoralis'' of Classical antiquity, in the ]Vatican Museum
The Vatican Museums ( it, Musei Vaticani; la, Musea Vaticana) are the public museums of the Vatican City. They display works from the immense collection amassed by the Catholic Church and the papacy throughout the centuries, including several of ...
s; the ears are a restoration. See also the Duncombe Dog
The Jennings Dog (also known as The Duncombe Dog or The Dog of Alcibiades) is a Roman sculpture of a dog with a docked tail. Named for its first modern owner, Henry Constantine Jennings, it is a 2nd-century AD Roman copy of a Hellenistic bronz ...
File:Mariotto di nardo, natività, 1385 ca..JPG, Mariotto di Nardo, ''Natività'', ca. 1385, showing a white shepherd dog with a spiked collar
File:Gozzoli Magi Chapel shepherd detail.jpg, Detail of the '' Journey of the Magi to Bethlehem'' by Benozzo Gozzoli
Benozzo Gozzoli (4 October 1497) was an Italian Renaissance painter from Florence. A pupil of Fra Angelico, Gozzoli is best known for a series of murals in the Magi Chapel of the Palazzo Medici-Riccardi, depicting festive, vibrant processions wi ...
File:Wolf dogs of the Abruzzi.jpg, "Wolf dogs of the Abruzzi", illustration from the ''Penny Magazine
''The Penny Magazine'' was an illustrated British magazine aimed at the working class, published every Saturday from 31 March 1832 to 31 October 1845. Charles Knight created it for the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge in response to ...
'' of 1833
Recent history
The first registration of the Maremmano in the Libro delle Origini Italiano of the Kennel Club Italiano, as it was then called, was of four dogs in 1898. There were no further registrations for many years. In 1940 there were 17 dogs registered. The first standard for the breed was drawn up in 1924 by Luigi Groppi and Giuseppe Solaro.[
Until 1958 the Pastore Maremmano, or shepherd dog of the Maremma, and the Pastore Abruzzese, or shepherd dog of the Abruzzi, were regarded as separate breeds. A breeder's society for the Pastore Abruzzese was formed in 1950, and one for the Maremmano in 1953. On 1 January 1958 the breeds were unified by the ENCI, the Ente Nazionale della Cinofilia Italiano, the national dog association of Italy. The explanation given is that a "natural fusion" of the two types had occurred as a result of movement of the dogs due to ]transhumance
Transhumance is a type of pastoralism or nomadism, a seasonal movement of livestock between fixed summer and winter pastures. In montane regions (''vertical transhumance''), it implies movement between higher pastures in summer and lower vall ...
of sheep flocks from one region to another, particularly after the unification of Italy
The unification of Italy ( it, Unità d'Italia ), also known as the ''Risorgimento'' (, ; ), was the 19th-century Political movement, political and social movement that resulted in the Merger (politics), consolidation of List of historic stat ...
.[ Until 1860, the mountains of the Abruzzo and the plains of the Maremma lay in different countries. While some older publications refer to the Maremmano and Abruzzese as independent breeds combined to create the Maremmano-Abruzzese, it has been noted that the shorter-haired Maremmano was only ever observed during the winter months, when flocks were grazed on their winter pastures on the milder coastal Tuscany, whilst the supposedly longer-bodied Abruzzese was only observed in the summer months, when flocks were grazed in the ]Abruzzi
Abruzzo (, , ; nap, label=Neapolitan language, Abruzzese Neapolitan, Abbrùzze , ''Abbrìzze'' or ''Abbrèzze'' ; nap, label=Sabino dialect, Aquilano, Abbrùzzu; #History, historically Abruzzi) is a Regions of Italy, region of Southern Italy wi ...
mountains.
As sheep farming developed into an annual trek or transhumance from mountain grasslands of Abruzzo and Molise (and other parts of central Italy) south to lower pasture land in Puglia
it, Pugliese
, population_note =
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, population_blank1 =
, demographics_type1 =
, demographics1_footnotes =
, demographics1_title1 =
, demographics1_info1 =
, demographic ...
, where sheep were over-wintered, the dogs came to play a central role in the centuries-old migration, an annual event vital to Abruzzese culture. Maremmano dogs continue to be widely used by Italian sheep farmers in areas where predation is common, such as the Apennines of central Italy and the open range land of national parks in Abruzzo. The dogs have also been used to guard animals in Australia, Canada and the United States.
Characteristics
The Maremmano has a solid, muscular build, a thick white coat, a large head and a black nose. According to the breed standard, males should weigh and stand at the shoulder, while females weigh and stand . Some dogs may be considerably larger. The coat is long and thick; it is rough to the touch, and forms a thick collar around the neck. It should be solid white; some minor yellowing may be tolerated.[
Some divide the breed into various subtypes, largely based on small differences in physical attributes and with subtype names based on village and provincial names where the dogs may be found, e.g. the Maremmano, the Marsicano, the Aquilano, the Pescocostanzo, the Maiella, and the Peligno. However, ]biologist
A biologist is a scientist who conducts research in biology. Biologists are interested in studying life on Earth, whether it is an individual Cell (biology), cell, a multicellular organism, or a Community (ecology), community of Biological inter ...
s dispute this division, as well as over-reliance on minor physical differences, as the dogs were bred over the centuries for their behavioral characteristics as flock guardians.
Use
The traditional use of the Maremmano is as a guardian for the protection of sheep flocks against wolves. Columella
Lucius Junius Moderatus Columella (; Arabic: , 4 – ) was a prominent writer on agriculture in the Roman Empire.
His ' in twelve volumes has been completely preserved and forms an important source on Roman agriculture, together with the wo ...
, writing in the first century AD, recommends white dogs for this purpose, as the shepherd can easily distinguish them from the wolf, while Varro
Marcus Terentius Varro (; 116–27 BC) was a Roman polymath and a prolific author. He is regarded as ancient Rome's greatest scholar, and was described by Petrarch as "the third great light of Rome" (after Vergil and Cicero). He is sometimes calle ...
suggests that white dogs have a "lion-like aspect" in the dark. The dogs work in groups; three or four dogs are an adequate defense against wolves and stray dogs. Their function is mostly one of dissuasion, actual physical combat with the predator being relatively rare.[ Nevertheless, working dogs may be fitted with a '' roccale'' (or ''vreccale''), a spiked iron collar which protects the neck in combat. The ears of working dogs are normally ]cropped
Cropping is the removal of unwanted outer areas from a photographic or illustrated image. The process usually consists of the removal of some of the peripheral areas of an image to remove extraneous trash from the picture, to improve its framin ...
.
Dogs used for flock protection are placed among the sheep as young puppies – no more than 40 days old – so that they bond
Bond or bonds may refer to:
Common meanings
* Bond (finance), a type of debt security
* Bail bond, a commercial third-party guarantor of surety bonds in the United States
* Chemical bond, the attraction of atoms, ions or molecules to form chemica ...
with them; human contact is kept to the indispensable minimum. If there are already guardian dogs in the flock, the puppy imitates and learns from their behaviour. The traditional use of the Maremmano is with sheep, but the dogs can form a similar bond with cattle and have been used to protect them.[Coppinger, R. and L. Coppinger. 1995. Interaction between livestock guarding dogs and wolves. Pages 523–526 in L.N. Carbyn, S.H. Fritts and D.R. Seip, editors. Wolves in a changing world. Canadian Circumpolar Institute, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.] A small number have been used since 2006 on Middle Island, off Warrnambool
Warrnambool ( Maar: ''Peetoop'' or ''Wheringkernitch'' or ''Warrnambool'') is a city on the south-western coast of Victoria, Australia. At the 2021 census, Warrnambool had a population of 35,743. Situated on the Princes Highway, Warrnambool (Al ...
, in Victoria
Victoria most commonly refers to:
* Victoria (Australia), a state of the Commonwealth of Australia
* Victoria, British Columbia, provincial capital of British Columbia, Canada
* Victoria (mythology), Roman goddess of Victory
* Victoria, Seychelle ...
, Australia, to protect a small population of the little penguin
The little penguin (''Eudyptula minor'') is a species of penguin from New Zealand. They are commonly known as little blue penguins or blue penguins owing to their slate-blue plumage and are also known by their Māori name .
The Australian lit ...
(''Eudyptula minor'') against foxes. In Patagonia
Patagonia () refers to a geographical region that encompasses the southern end of South America, governed by Argentina and Chile. The region comprises the southern section of the Andes Mountains with lakes, fjords, temperate rainforests, and gl ...
they have been used to protect sheep from pumas.
References
{{Livestock guardians
FCI breeds
Dog breeds originating in Italy
Livestock guardian dogs