The Home of Family Raised Swissy Mountain Doodles
We’ve been getting a lot of requests to see how all the litter mates are growing up. We’ve added a page called “Watch Them Grow” that has a slider that shows the puppy pictures and how they are looking now. I hope you love looking at them as much as we do!
The Swissy Mountain Doodle is a hybrid breed of a Greater Swiss Mountain Dog and Poodle. This page goes into the history and temperament of both breeds, the thought process behind the creation of the breed and the health pros and cons of each of the parent breeds.
The Greater Swiss Mountain Dog, otherwise know affectionately as a “Swissy”, is the largest of the four Sennenhunds, The Swissy is an ancient working breed of dog that has a colorful beginning and almost tragic ending.
There are several theories to the origin of the species. The most prevalent theory is that the all Sennenhunds descend from the Roman Molossus when Julius Caesar brought his legions over the Alps. From there they were incorporated and bred into the local population of dogs.
Due to their great size, Swissies were utilized by herders, farmers and merchants. Their faithful, family-oriented and dependable temperament could herd, guard, and pull great amounts of weight (the current world record for a Swissy is 4,800 pounds!). For an agrarian society, there is little doubt to why they were were thought to be Switzerland’s most popular breed. However, by the early 1900’s, with the advent of tractors, people didn’t need the “poor man’s horse” anymore so the breed almost went extinct. By 1945 there were only 350-400 known Swissies left.
If it hadn’t been for the work of Dr. Albert Heim, who resuscitated the breed and J. Frederick and Patricia Hoffman with the help of Perrin G. Rademacher, who imported the breed into the US in the late 1960’s, we might not have one of the best family oriented, child friendly, loyal dogs around.
To read a more detailed version of the breed visit:
The Background of the Poodle
The Poodle has been one of the most popular breed for years and is the primary foundation for over 100 hybrid breeds. This ancient breed of high intelligence was originally bred to be a waterfowl retriever, but over the years it has become so much more.
There is a difference of opinion about the origin of the species. The British and American Kennel Clubs’ state the origin as German, however, the French Kennel Club report the origin as French. According to the American Kennel Club
The Poodle is the national dog of France, and the French sure do love their Poodles. There is, however, no such breed as the “French Poodle.” In France, Poodles are known as the Caniche, or “duck dog.”
Despite the Poodle’s association with France, the breed originated as a duck hunter in Germany, where the word “pudelin” refers to splashing in water.
AKC.org
Regardless of the origin, the Poodle has been associated with aristocracy since the 1800’s as there are countless painting of Lords and Ladies with their poodles, The Sun King (Louis the XIV) had a favorite named Filou, and Queen Anne is reported to have owned several of them. However, the seemingly pompous haircut was not born of the aristocrats, but of the hunters that used them. The lion cut, where the hair on the head and chest were kept long, and the pompons (not pompoms), the tufts left on the joints and around the hips, were there to keep vital organs and joints warm, while the shaved areas were to allow better mobility through the water.
Today’s popularity of the poodle stems from their temperament, intelligence, personality, and their low shedding fur type. This is why out of all the hybrid breeds the poodle cross is so prevalent.
To read more about the Poodle:
The Thought Behind The Swissy Mountain Doodle.
When researching breeds, we were set on Golden Doodles, a Golden Retriever/Poodle hybrid. This was due to our experience with Barklee, our silver Golden Doodle, who is arguably one of the best dogs I have ever owned. He is smart, loyal, chill, loves to swim, is a big cuddle bug and like all doodle hybrids, hardly sheds.
This path was cut short. We were shocked when we read about a longitudinal study of Golden Retrievers and cancer rates. Over a 27 year period and 655 golden retrievers, “424 of the 652 (65.0%) were determined to have died because of cancer”(Kent, 2018) We were crushed. This was unacceptable. We continued the search.
Since our primary criterion was destroyed, we started looking for breeds that fall in the same category as Golden Retrievers, namely an excellent family dog, good with children, not too spazzy and “plays well with other animals” traits. Along came one of the four Sennenhund breeds, the Bernese Mountain Dog (BMD). The BMD is a great family dog, loyal, excellent with children and animals. We got excited, but again studies showed major red flags. In a longitudinal study of 389 BMD’s the life expectancy of male dogs was only 7.7 years and females, while a bit longer was only 8.8 years.(Klopfenstein, 2016). Strike two.
We looked at the other three Sennenhunds to see if there was another one with the same qualities. We looked at the Appenzeller Mountain Dog; too enthusiastic for children, wary of strangers. The Entlebucher Mountain Dog; too high energy and high maintenance. Finally we looked at The Greater Swiss Mountain Dog. “Faithful, Family-Oriented, Dependable” stated the AKC. Looking at the health, we could find no longitudinal studies (which is good), and the AKC says “The GSMD does not have any breed-specific disorders but can have health problems that affect large-breed dogs.” and the average age is 8-11 years, which is in line with most large breeds. When we finished, we knew we had found our breed and purchased our first Swissy, Emmy. She was all they say about Greater Swiss Mountain Dogs. She was a lover, mellow, smart, great with our family, other dogs and strangers. For more information about our dogs temperament and traits visit “Our Dogs”
Health Related Issues to Poodles and Greater Swiss Mountain Dog
Genetics is hugely complicated! I cannot do this subject justice in a few paragraphs, so I have left links at the bottom if you want to get a deeper understanding of hybrid vigor. Genetics are a 50/50 blend of mother and father and dominant/recessives come into play. Because of this, health issues for both breeds must be contemplated. After they are contemplated, and, this is a major key in why we are crossbreeding, we have heterosis. Heterosis is the tendency of a crossbred individual to show qualities superior to those of both parents. Our dogs come from clean health lines, however, there are breed specific diseases.
Breed specific genes come from all dogs within that breed. That is why all poodles look like poodles, they are gene specific homozygous traits. Unfortunately, due to inbreeding, some breed specific homozygous gene defects have arisen as well, now these defects are not in all the dogs, but in a good percentage, and even higher percentages if the gene pool is shallow . What has happened is that homozygosity has taken root in the areas of defect and there is no way to change that unless you introduce outside genes. “… homozygosity reduces fitness, resulting in inbreeding depression. Homozygosity can reduce fitness because it increases the expression of deleterious recessive alleles, some of which are lethal… “(Beuchat, 2014).
In cross breeding, these damaging recessive genes are expressed with the healthier dominant allele. An issue could arise if both breeds have the same ‘deleterious’ recessive allele and this is why both breeds must be contemplated. Hybridization does not mean perfection, it means diversity and diversity in genes is good. I have left a couple articles and official links below because I want you to read the sources, not some cherry picked list of defects a breeder has shown.
Microchipping canines is pretty much a done deal for many people, municipalities and countries. No one thinks twice about it. I didn’t think anything about it until we became a breeder. Now Jozie and I question everything we do because we want to do the right thing. So when it comes to microchipping we naturally did a lot of research on the subject as well.
I started by doing simple google search on microchipping and cancer in dogs and wound up at PetCure Oncology, a premiere pet cancer business, and on their pet cancer myths debunked page state “we have begun hearing rumors that microchipping can cause cancer” and go on to say the current studies that show correlation can be overlooked.
This led me to look up the studies and I found what they said on their website to be slightly misleading. Misleading because 1. There are no reporting mechanisms, that I can find, to report cancer in pets from microchips 2. A search on PubMed yielded no results for any longitudinal study past six years for a correlation between soft tissue sarcoma and canine microchips and 3. The cancer rates in the rats were found incidentally in both the experimental and the control groups.
You can read about the rats in a 2007 Associated Press article by Todd Lewan and watch a more in depth explanation on why the findings should not be overlooked in a 2010 IEEE talk by Dr. Katherine Albrecht (the most relevant info is in the first twenty-five minutes). What we came away with is that the potential cancer rate cannot be overlooked at least until a full life longitudinal study is investigated and that Jozie and I can not and will not make the final decision for your fur baby on microchipping. What this means is we will not microchip your new family member, and if you wish to microchip, talk to your vet during your well pet check-up.