Georgian Shepherd

 The Georgian Shepherd (Georgian: ქართული მთის ძაღლი) also known as Georgian Mountain Dog is a molosser-type livestock guardian breed of dog with ancient working origins in the Georgia Caucasus.^[1]

Georgian Shepherd Dog
Georgian Shepherd
Other names	Georgian Mountain Dog
Common nicknames	Qartuli Nagazi or Nagazi
Origin	Georgia
Traits Height Dogs minimum 70 cm (28 in) - Bitches minimum 65 cm (26 in) Weight Dogs 60 kilograms (130 lb) - 100 kilograms (220 lb) Bitches 50 kilograms (110 lb) -80 kilograms (180 lb) Coat Thick double coat—thick undercoat Color any color, white Litter size 3–10 puppies Life span 11–12 years
Kennel club standards Cynological Federation of Georgia standard
Notes	National animal of Georgia.
Dog (domestic dog)

There are two kinds of Georgian livestock guardian dogs: the short haired "Lion" type, typically pure white or white with dark patches on its coat and the long hair "Bear" type are typically dark brown to black head and lighter brown covering the rest of the coat.

In Georgia they are known as, Qartuli Nagazi. The short hair "Lion" type is considered to the oldest or Aboriginal variant of the breed, with the pure white being the rarest coat color. The "Lion" variant was predominantly found in the north-east regions of Georgia.

DescriptionEdit

Georgian shepherds fall into the Molosser category. Male Georgian mountain dogs should be at least 65 centimetres (26 in) in height at the withers; females should be at least 60 centimetres (24 in) in height.^[2] Physically, these dogs are strongly-boned, muscular, and athletic, with a large head and powerful legs. Georgian mountain dogs tend to be assertive, brave, and alert. Shepherds traditionally used Georgian mountain dogs for defending sheep from predators.^{[citation needed]}

HistoryEdit

After the removal of most of the Qartuli Nagazi from Georgia, Georgian enthusiasts with support from the Ministry of Environment began expeditions to the regions of Georgia to describe and take photos of the remaining Georgian shepherds. Following the Soviet collapse, Georgia began to popularise this dog, advertising the breed using television broadcasting and printing articles about Georgian shepherds in order to popularize the breed.

This article uses material from the Wikipedia article  Metasyntactic variable, which is released under the  Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.