But Wait! That's not a Flat-Coated Retriever - Rüdi
The newest member of our clan is Rüdi (or Ruedi, for the umlaut-impaired — like the AKC!), a Greater Swiss Mountain Dog (FCI standard, English translation), aka “Swissy” in the US. (In Europe, a “Swissydog” is actually a hybrid of the mountain breeds.) While there is no “Lesser” Swiss Mountain Dog, the Bernese Mountain Dog, the Appenzeller Sennenhund, and the Entlebucher Mountain Dog are the other three related Swiss mountain breeds. A nice comparison picture, in the order above, is in the Wikipedia article on Swiss mountain dogs (auf Deutsch: Sennenhund).
Why a Swissy? Because I (Mike) decided I'd like a dog of “my own”, and that I'd like a “big ol’ farm dog” type of dog. Swissies certainly fit that description, since we expect him to be about 130–140 lbs when he's full grown.
[For the flat-coat people out there: No, Julie is not changing breeds! Flat-coats will always be in our home. The addition of a Swissy is Mike's choice.]
Rüdi was born on June 29, 2022, and his official name is
Hoberg's GSMD Adelboden Adventure CD BN RE RAE FDC DD CGCA TKN
[Sire: GCHG CH Northwoods Breaking The Law]
[Dam: Snowy Mountain's Majestic Mia]
He was named in honor of some of my very distant Berner Oberländer ancestors, some of whom were named Rudolf (or Rudolfus), and/or lived in Adelboden. Thanks to his breeder, Rüdi is in the big Swissy database, “Grosse Schweizer Sennenhunde World Wide Database”; his page is Dog ID 51462 if you are interested in the particulars.
Because I like braggin' about my dog, this page was getting way too long, so I broke it up into sections. Click on any of the below links to find out what we are up to in each. (Because I'm still working on the split, the sections are still rather rough — apologies.)
- Conformation - what most people think of as a “dog show” [AKC Description]
- Obedience - something Rüdi is not :-) [AKC Description]
- Rally - navigating a course together doing the skill signs [AKC Description]
- Drafting - one of the Swissy's original jobs was to pull a cart [AKC Article, GSMDCA description]
- Other stuff - Farm Dog, Trick Dog, Canine Good Citizen, etc.
- 2023 GSMD NS - The 2023 Greater Swiss Mountain Dog National Specialty Show that we went to
Some pictures of Rüdi are now located in the photo gallery. For additional fun, AKC.TV was recording during his very first show in Palm Springs in 2023 when he was 6 months old. Since he was the only Swissy, he got to go into the Groups where his performance was recorded for posterity. You can watch him during the January 7 show with me “handling” him (I'm not sure my skills were up to that lofty label, but fast forward to 29:03), and the January 8 show where Julie was handling him (considerably better, go to 18:36). He managed to do a repeat at the 2024 Palm Springs show. On Sunday he earned Best of Breed over two other Swissies, so you can watch him 1 year later at 18 months in the January 7, 2024 video clip (at the 19:02 mark).
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