The Italian Trip

The long awaited trip to see working Maremmas had come at last and appropriately, the very first thing we saw as we drove into the little Italian village where we were staying was a Maremma. Fortunately for us, because none of us spoke the language very well, the people we had to see about the apartment spoke English certainly a lot better than we spoke Italian, they also owned this dog. Before we had even seen where we were staying, we were taken down to the farm. Even though we drove into the farm yard accompanied by Lucca the grandfather of the couple who ran the farm, we fully expected to be surrounded by barking dogs. To our great surprise, not one bark, just curiosity and a few sniffs followed by complete acceptance. We were astounded by the wonderful temperament and were able to handle them with ease and confidence. There were three litters of puppies, two litters of about the same age, approximately eight weeks, the two dams, we were informed, suckled each others pups, but as Lucca pointed out, these two bitches were related to each other. The third litter was three weeks old and none of the bitches were in the least bit bothered about us handling them, they were extremely laid back and did not view us as a threat. The pups needless to say were very endearing and I for one felt extremely broody! All the dogs were of good quality with excellent bone, conformation and pigment.

Lucca and his granddaughter Giuseppina were so welcoming and seemed pleased that these strange English people had come just to see their dogs, they obviously had great pride in their Maremmas and justifiably so, as they were wonderful animals. They showed us one bitch who was actually in the pen with the sheep, they said that she had lived her entire life with them and never left them, she was the only one to show any wariness towards us but even so did not bark. We were then invited to the local bar where we had a drink and talking to Lucca about life there was very interesting, he was amazed at the poor sheep prices over here, their sheep fetch a lot more, it appeared that they just sold them on but not at market, although they used to have markets, this seemed to no longer happen. Lucca had spent four years in Canada hence his good command of English. They also told us that National Geographic had spent some time there filming a programme about the life there with the dogs. I am currently trying to find out if I can get a copy of this.

Apart from the first Maremma we saw who actually lived just yards from where we stayed (his name was Peter and he too had a superb temperament, he’d come up tail wagging whenever he saw us and I could have brought him home) there were three others that we knew of, one belonging to the doctor across the road and another two at the other end of the village, a dog and a bitch, the dog was quite wary but completely non aggressive but the bitch came up to Tony one evening whilst we were having a drink and laid her head on his lap for a fuss. None of the dogs were restrained in any way, just roaming about at will but in true Maremma style, never wandered away from their territory.

It would appear that postmen throughout the world get the same reception from Maremmas, Tony went out early one morning for a walk and the postman arrived in the village in his Fiat van to empty the post box, he dived out, rushed across to the box, opened it, grabbed the letters and threw himself back in his van. A strange happening Tony thought until two Maremmas arrived out of the ether barking furiously and chased the van out of the village, and for quite some distance down the road. It must be dreadful to be a postman in Italy as Maremmas seem to roam at will everywhere. Dave our postman now gets no sympathy when our dogs just make blood curdling sounds but from a secure ( for the postman ) position.

One morning we arranged with Lucca to go up the mountain with the sheep and dogs, normally it is only the dogs that accompany them, the sheep are just released from the pen to make their own way up the mountain accompanied by the dogs, however that morning Jacqui, Nicky and I went up with them guided by Lucca, Giuseppina, her friend Christina and Andrea, another man there at the farm. Earlier I had dropped Tony off a couple of miles up the road as he wanted to do some walking in the mountains, with the intention of finishing his walk down by the farm. The paths were quite steep with a lot of loose stones and as neither Jacqui or I like heights we didn’t go all the way up, all the same it was wonderful seeing these dogs doing what they were bred for and we enjoyed it immensely, we left Lucca to continue up further, he said he’d stay up there for the day and bring the sheep down later and the rest of us sat and talked for quite a while about Maremmas, (what else) In the meantime, Tony was continuing his walk when suddenly he was confronted by six Maremmas barking and warning him away from their sheep, there was no real aggression just a message telling him to leave their territory, of course he did and found another path down, he looked back to see one of the dogs standing at the top making sure he “left town” It was very interesting to see these two sides of their behaviour, the gentle, laid back one that we observed when we were with them and the protective side when the flock is, (to them), threatened.

Before we left for Italy, Jacqui was in touch with Marco Petrelli who breeds working Maremmas, Jacqui telephoned him one morning and he kindly arranged to meet us at the Autostrada exit near his home and took us to see his dogs, (we were actually told off for calling them Maremmas, he calls them Abruzzese Shepherds believing that there are two separate breeds, the Maremma and the Abruzzese Shepherd dog.) Once again we were greeted with complete acceptance, in fact we were amazed at the wonderful temperament and character of his dogs. Marco has a lovely relaxed manner towards them as did Lucca and his family and it obviously transmits itself towards the dogs The were very affectionate animals and once again we felt completely at ease with them, we were there for some time and talked at length to Marco about the breed, his family have bred working Abruzzese for many generations and a lot of thought goes into breeding for the correct type, they are extremely conscious of all the aspects of this. (For ease I will continue to say Maremma as that is what we are used to but I respect Marco’s views on this)

We were invited the next day to accompany Marco and his partner Sara into the Abruzzo National Park as he wanted to show us more working dogs, in truth we should really have set off earlier as some of the flocks were already on their way up the mountains but although we did not get as close as we would have liked, we were able to see several flocks of sheep with their guardians. Marco also told us that it was quite early in the season and a lot of the dogs were still on the lowlands and would come into the mountains later on. Every time Marco spotted a Maremma he would stop and point it out, one or two just lying in farm yards and on another stop we actually saw a couple of Maremmas in a meadow with horses, sadly were too far away to get a decent photo of them. Quite apart from seeing so many of our breed we thoroughly enjoyed the beautiful scenery in the Abruzzo National Park, the mountain tops were still snow capped and the area is certainly worth visiting in its own right, we were also extremely lucky with the weather which was warm but not unbearable.

Everywhere we went we saw Maremmas, we’d drive around a bend on the mountain roads and there would be one lying on the grass verge having a snooze, three we saw doing this at different times, Nicky and I got out of the car and took photo’s of one of them and he wasn’t in the least bothered by us. Another one we saw lying on a rock on his own, not sure if he was taking the day off but there were certainly no sheep to be seen, after some discussion we came to the conclusion that he was playing “hooky” for the day!!! We also saw another one wandering across the road in a town, again on his own, another two wandering down on the pavement in another town, plus the one we passed on a mountain road whose owner we could hear whistling to him, true Maremma that he was, he completely ignored this and just stopped to have a scratch! On one occasion, we saw Maremmas and sheep on a hillside, I got out of the car to take some photo’s and unknown to me, whilst I was walking back to the car one of the dogs came tearing down the hillside to chase off this intruder, but realising I was going away returned to the flock.

We also visited Civitella where there’s a wolf museum and also wolves in a massive enclosure, by walking up a ramp at the side of this and looking over we were able to see several wolves, beautiful creatures but not a large as we had thought, certainly no match for a full grown Maremma we felt.