Arno v. Fryberg S.H.S.B 29413 born
1929
Sire: Bello v. Steinberg #22935 born 1926
Dam: Lina v. Sandgrube #14401 born 1923
Welcome to bastian-net History of the Große Schweizer
Sennenhund
In the month of May, 1998 I was fortunate to visit Switzerland, home of the Swiss Sennenhunde. It was a great learning experience which allowed me to visit with Swissies, Appenzellers, even some Galloway Cows. History is an area I enjoy investigating, it is open to interpretation and is continually changing. On one of my day trips walking thru Bern I wandered into the Natural History Museum which houses the collection regarding the evolution of the canine and S.H. S. B. records. Although under construction and without an appointment Marc Nussbaumer graciously took me to his office where we dug up the very early records of the GSMD. Thrilled with my interest Marc copied these records which are organized on the following pages. Please remember translation of some documents is open to to interpretation and I make every attempt to provide the reader with the original as well as the translation. Pictures and data are original property of the Natural History Museum in Berne. |
Arno v. Fryberg:
pictured above was one of Heim's favorite examples of the breed, |
| Kennel Names - list includes registered
kennel names from 1909-41 Members - list contains members and their occupations from 1909-41 Registry - these pages contain all the dogs registered from 1909-41 Heim Speech to Club - written in 1936 translated to English includes link to actual speech Card - honorary membership card of Prof. Heim ______________________________________________ Bastian-net Mtdog - back to my main Swissy Page |
|
As we all know at times history is changed with new and unfolding
information. The first documentation of a Swissy coming to the states was in 1968. J.
Frederick and Patricia Hoffman saw the dogs at a show in Frankfurt Germany the year
before, they were of course intrigued by the breed, and the first two imports were Kastor
von Fryberg and Diana von Urtenenburg. The first litter was whelped from these two dogs in
1970, 3 males and 3 females. |
| What’s in the name? "grosse Schweizer-Sennenhunde" As it is written above in early Swiss club records the word grosse is implying that it is the largest of the other three recognized Schweizer Sennenhunde. Sennenhunde with the "e" is plural. There is of course great debate over the proper translation of the breeds name. Many Europeans with knowledge of English and German feel Big is a better choice, some feel Great is correct. Both of these words essentially mean the same thing. Great typically brings to mind something that is more then just large or big, something that evokes thoughts of mass, power, quite large, leadership. Possibly this is why Big is often used by people in Europe. The Big Swiss dog must not be confused when naming, with other breeds such as the Great Pyrenees or Great Dane, you see there are not smaller Danes or Pyrenees. And that is why I assume Greater was used when our breed was named in the States, the word Greater implies that there are in fact lesser or smaller Schweizer Sennenhunde. Of course getting into to the direct translation of Sennenhunde is a whole other matter. ;-) OK here goes "Senn" means a special sort of shepherd, herdsman, or maybe better, "cowboy". These guys in former times went up with the cattle to the meadows (Almen) on the mountains when the snow was melting in the spring and went down with the cattle in autumn. During the summertime they produced milk and all the milk related products like butter and cheese, were then brought down into the valleys."Hunde" or "Hund" is dogs or dog. |
"The Big Swiss Alpine Herdsman Dog" |
- offsite link to GSMD
at the Museum in Bern
