English Shepherd

History

The English Shepherd was created in Rome hundreds of years ago, without documentation of the exact bloodlines it took to create this avid herding dog. What we do know about this breed is that they are excellent at herding and now popular today in the United States among farmers.

Appearance

The English Shepherd is a medium to large breed dog with males and females measuring 18-23 inches in height and weighing 40-60 pounds in weight. This breed has a large, wedge shaped head that is rounded at the sides and forms into a long, rectangular muzzle with a scissor bite. Their two medium sized, triangular shaped ears fall alongside of their face. Their two large, round eyes are available in a light hazel to black in color, and sometimes bi color with blue. This breed is built large, sturdy and strong in appearance. Their tail is medium in length and has hair flowing off of it. Their coat is medium to long in length and available in black and tan, sable and white, and tricolor.

Temperament

The English Shepherd is not meant for everyone, and is not meant for apartment life. This breed is very smart, energetic, brave and loyal. Known for taking commands from their owners extremely fast and serious, this breed will respect you and do what he or she needs to do in order to preform the task at hand that you are requesting of them. The English Shepherd is great with children of all ages, although due to their natural and strong instincts to herd, we recommend homes with older children. This breed also does well with other dogs. We recommend early socialization and obedience classes to ensure a proper foundation between owner and new dog. This breed requires a firm and confident owner who is well educated about the breed and meeting their daily needs. This breed is very active and requires a daily job and task to complete in order to be happy. Suited well for the country living environment and needing acreage to roam within safely.

Grooming

This breed does shed. This breed requires daily brushing and bathing when needed. We recommend a trip to a professional groomer at least twice a year.

Special Notes

Please fully educate yourself about the English Shepherd prior to adding one to your family to ensure you are able to provide life long physical and financial care to your new family member. This breed can be sensitive to certain medications due to a gene known as MDR1. This is something that can be tested for, and should be tested for, to prevent fatal reactions. 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.