Bergamasco

About the Bergamasco

The Bergamasco Shepherd comes from the valleys above Bergamo in the Italian Alps, where it moved and guarded flocks on the summer pastures, and it is best known for a coat that mats deliberately into flat felted plates the Italians call flocks. Those plates take years to form and are a working weather shield rather than a show affectation.

Dogs stand around 60 cm and are heavier than they look under the coat, which runs from grey to grey with darker patches through to black; solid white is not permitted. A Bergamasco is calm, slow to anger and disinclined to obey an instruction it can see no reason for, which is guardian thinking rather than stupidity. A stud should be settled and tolerant, with a coat forming properly for its age.

The breed is uncommon in Britain, so the first question is genetic: ask what the coefficient of inbreeding for the proposed mating would be and where the stud's parents came from. A Bergamasco stud should have a hip score under the BVA/KC scheme and a current eye certificate. Ask about longevity in the line, and about any skin trouble under the coat, which is easily hidden and easily missed.

Health & breeding

We check every hip, elbow, eye and DNA result you give us against the Royal Kennel Club’s public records by hand, and we record who checked it and when. The Royal Kennel Club’s public records may not include all the screening a dog has had, so a dog with no Royal Kennel Club record showing is not necessarily untested.