What is a Schipperke?
What is a Schipperke?
By Mary Casey
What kind of dog is at home on a farm, in the city, or on a boat? A schipperke!
Schipperkes are small black dogs originally from Belgium, probably bred down from the now extinct Belgian sheepdog. In the 1700’s, only wealthy people and royalty owned large dogs, so the common folk like the farmers and the fishermen, decided to breed a small dog to suit their needs. By the 1880’s, the schipperke was the most popular dog breed in Belgium because the Queen took a fancy to the rowdy little devils and had many of them at her palace. There is a famous painting of the royal hunt with the usual assortment of hunting dogs, and in a corner is seen a tiny all black dog with upright ears and one paw up in expectation from that time period.
The name schipperke has been translated to mean both ‘little captain’ because of their reputation as being wonderful boat dogs, to ‘little shepherd’ because of their possible herding dog genealogy. Whatever the word means, any schipperke owner can tell you they have distinctive personalities. They are the meaning of a ‘big dog in a small dog’s body’!
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