How well do you know your Livestock Guardian Dog breeds? So many of them are white, can you tell them apart? The pictures may not be the best examples of each breed, but there are still differences. The answers appear below the picture upside down (don’t scroll past the bottom edge of the collage or you’ll see them). Please tell us how you did, and if you are the owners of one of these breeds, please tell us in the comments section below in what way your breed differs from the other LGDs.
Very proud of myself for getting them all. The Komondor and Pyrenees are obvious. The Kuvasz has a bit of a wavy/curly coat. The Maremma looks like a kuvasz but with straight fur. The Akbash looks like a Maremma but with a narrower face and body; sometimes their fur is much shorter, more Anatolian-like, as well. And that leaves the Tatra, which tends to be fluffier than the maremma, more like a pyr but not as long.
Thanks for our comments, Sarah, and for leaving them here. I value the wisdom of our readers and always want their remarks to be part of the post!
My herding instructor has 3 akbash so that was easy. One of the places I trial has Maremma so that was easy. The Commondor and the Great Pyr are easy to spot. The Kuvasz was a complete guess and I’ve never hear of the Tatra!!
We envy you having access to these fabulous breeds, Mags, and isn’t it funny how your “rare” breeds are less so to us (Komondorok and Kuvasz are breeds we see a lot of), while we’ve never, to our knowledge, laid eyes on an Akbash in person – and you see three of them! We’d guess a whole lot of people struggled with the Polish Tatra!
If nr 5 is the akbash, where is the slovensky cuvac?
I own and breed the Polisch Tatra or officieel named Polski owczarek podhalanski
Melanie, there are far more LGDs out there than what was presented in this little visual quiz. Great idea, though. Next time, we’ll include the Slovensky! We’d like to learn more about your breed! Are there many in the US?
I’ve never seen a cropped Maremma. That threw me. Four out of six, though. I own 2 Akbash Dogs and one Kuvasz.
The cropped ear threw a lot of people, Peggy, and while it’s not a common look, it’s not unheard of for an LGD to have its ears protected from predators. We came across many references to it on-line and in some books.
I would have gone with CAS for #1. Also, there’s the Slovak Cuvac, very similar to the Kuv.
I owned the first Sarplaninac to brought to the USA back in the 70s. She was fci registered and pure white.
Now THIS is really cool, Margie. We’d love to pick your brain about the breed, are you game to “talk” to us about it (email)?
5 is not an Akbash. Wrong head, wrong coat.
Funny. We were pretty careful to make sure that the images we used were of the breeds the captions said they were. Ahhhh, the Internet.
Natalie is %100 right.number is not an akbash at all,I m from Turkey and I know what they look like very well,there is hundreds of wrong phenotype akbash dogs in USA,some mixed breeded before coming to USA and sold as pure breed,people think that they have pure bred akbash but unfortunately they are not..
Thanks…
Thankfully, I got them all! If I didn’t I would have been so mad at my self!! haha! Thank you for putting this up, I found it very fun!