KENAI
Maremma Sheepdog

The breeds · working

UKC Guardian · FCI standard 201

Maremma Sheepdog.

Flock and property guardian of the Abruzzes and Maremma, Italy. FCI 201 utilization: shepherd dog used mainly for the protection of flocks and guarding of properties; its function is guard and defence dog of flocks, carried out with perception and devotion to his master. UKC: principal function is flock and property guard; perceptive, assertive, devoted to his master. Royal Kennel Club: a herding dog from northern Italy that can still be seen fulfilling its original purpose. Bionda et al. 2022: the Maremma and Abruzzi sheepdog are the livestock guardians most widely used in Italy to protect flocks from wild predators, and national and international projects have supplied them to farmers to limit wolf damage. Modern use abroad: in Victoria, Australia, free-ranging Maremmas guarded sheep and goats where wild dogs (dingoes, feral and domestic dogs and hybrids) were the main threat, with foxes and wedge-tailed eagles also present; predator losses were large before the dogs arrived (van Bommel and Johnson 2014). Maremmas made up 56 percent of the dogs in an Australian and North American survey of poultry farmers using guardian dogs, mostly against foxes (McKellar et al. 2023).

Breed sets the odds. The parents set the dog. Every number here shows its source, its spread and how sure we are. Nothing on this page is a prediction about one dog.

0INHeightdogs null, bitches null. An ideal from the standard, not a range.
66–115LBWeight, all linesbreed dogs 77 to 115 lb; breed bitches 66 to 99.2 lb.
2.5+ HRSExercise, every dayRoyal Kennel Club: more than 2 hours per day, large house and large garden, country. The constraint most homes get wrong.

The body

What the breed is built like. Registry standards give an ideal, not a range.

Height at the shoulder

dogs 25.5 to 28.9 in · bitches 23.5 to 27.6 in

Breed clubFCI Standard N° 201, 2025

Low and high span FCI and UKC; center blank.

Weight

dogs 77 to 115 lb · bitches 66 to 99.2 lb

Breed clubFCI Standard N° 201, 2025

Low and high span FCI and UKC; center blank.

Coat

FCI 201: very well furnished, long, rather harsh, close to straight horsehair, flat on the body (slight wave tolerated); important collar, fringes of limited length on the hindquarters; short on muzzle, skull, ears and front of limbs; to about 8 cm on the body. Solid white; ivory, pale orange or lemon tolerated only within limits (a solid ivory or isabella dog is disqualifying under FCI). UKC: curly coat is a disqualification. Black pigment on rims, nose and pads

Breed clubFCI Standard N° 201, 2025

Shedding

FCI 201: undercoat is abundant only in the winter. UKC: undercoat seasonal. Royal Kennel Club: sheds

Breed clubFCI Standard N° 201, 2025

Heat tolerance

3 of 5 · FCI 201: long, rather harsh coat to about 8 cm, flat on the body, collar at the neck, short on the muzzle, ears and front of limbs; undercoat abundant only in winter; solid white. UKC: somewhat long harsh coat up to 3 in on the body, undercoat seasonal

DerivedFCI Standard N° 201, 2025

Derived from the coat description (3 = medium double; the undercoat is thin outside winter).

The dog at home

What the breed asks of a day. The first thing most homes get wrong.

Exercise need

Royal Kennel Club: more than 2 hours per day, large house and large garden, country

Breed clubThe Royal Kennel Club

RKC band "more than 2 hours" mapped to 150 min per library rule. The dog is a free-ranging working guardian, so a pet home rarely matches the work.

Exercise need

Royal Kennel Club: more than 2 hours per day. Working use: free-ranging Maremmas in Victoria spent on average 90 percent of their time in the sheep paddocks and showed a distinct early-morning and late-afternoon activity peak (van Bommel and Johnson 2014)

Breed clubThe Royal Kennel Club

Grooming load

3 of 5 · Royal Kennel Club: grooming more than once a week, coat length medium, sheds

Breed clubThe Royal Kennel Club

RKC band "more than once a week" maps to 3.

Grooming

Royal Kennel Club: more than once a week. FCI 201: long, rather harsh, nearly straight hair to about 8 cm on the body, with a collar (marked in males) and short fringes behind the thighs; short on face, skull, ears and front of limbs

Breed clubThe Royal Kennel Club

The work

What it was built to do in the field, and what a test or trial asks of it.

Role

Flock and property guardian of the Abruzzes and Maremma, Italy. FCI 201 utilization: shepherd dog used mainly for the protection of flocks and guarding of properties; its function is guard and defence dog of flocks, carried out with perception and devotion to his master. UKC: principal function is flock and property guard; perceptive, assertive, devoted to his master. Royal Kennel Club: a herding dog from northern Italy that can still be seen fulfilling its original purpose. Bionda et al. 2022: the Maremma and Abruzzi sheepdog are the livestock guardians most widely used in Italy to protect flocks from wild predators, and national and international projects have supplied them to farmers to limit wolf damage. Modern use abroad: in Victoria, Australia, free-ranging Maremmas guarded sheep and goats where wild dogs (dingoes, feral and domestic dogs and hybrids) were the main threat, with foxes and wedge-tailed eagles also present; predator losses were large before the dogs arrived (van Bommel and Johnson 2014). Maremmas made up 56 percent of the dogs in an Australian and North American survey of poultry farmers using guardian dogs, mostly against foxes (McKellar et al. 2023)

Breed clubFCI Standard N° 201, 2025

The Middle Island penguin project (Warrnambool, Victoria) was seen only in search-result summaries, not on a page that was read, so it is not recorded here.

Also used on

Property guard (FCI 201, UKC); poultry guardian against foxes in Australia (McKellar et al. 2023); wolf-damage prevention on Italian farms (Bionda et al. 2022)

Breed clubFCI Standard N° 201, 2025

Range

van Bommel and Johnson 2014 (free-ranging Maremmas on three Victorian properties, GPS collars): 95 percent home range 31 to 1,161 ha, core (50 percent) range 4 to 252 ha; about 90 percent of time in sheep paddocks; movements away from stock mostly at night, fast and straight, taken to hold a large territory against wild predators. McKellar et al. 2023: two Maremmas on a poultry farm spent 96.1 percent of night locations near the farmhouse and only 0.09 percent near the chicken paddock, bonded more to people than to the chickens

Studiedvan Bommel L, 2014

Sample sizes are small (a few dogs on three properties; two dogs in the poultry study) and the dogs were managed differently, so ranges are not a breed norm.

How common the problems are

Evaluated dogs skew toward breeding stock; the numbers are still the best there are.

Hip dysplasia

17.9% · 17.9% dysplastic of 274 OFA hip evaluations on record (current all-data, accessed Oct 9 2026); 79.6% normal; mild 9.9%, moderate 7.7%, severe 0.4%; breed rank 66

MeasuredOrthopedic Foundation for Animals

Voluntary registry: affected dogs are under-reported and evaluated dogs skew toward breeding stock, so true prevalence is higher. Current all-data figure, undated. OFA row is MAREMMA SHEEPDOG.

Elbow dysplasia

6.3% · 6.3% abnormal of 159 OFA elbow evaluations on record (current all-data, accessed Oct 9 2026); 93.7% normal; grade 1 5.0%, grade 2 1.3%, grade 3 0.0%; breed rank 69

MeasuredOrthopedic Foundation for Animals

Voluntary registry: affected dogs are under-reported and evaluated dogs skew toward breeding stock, so true prevalence is higher. Current all-data figure, undated.

Most common disorders

Royal Kennel Club: recommends the BVA/KC hip scheme before breeding; the breed can be affected by conformational concerns. Bionda et al. 2022, citing the only epidemiological study of inherited eye disease in the breed: over one third of dogs had at least one eye disorder, most commonly cataract, entropion, corneal dystrophy and retinal dysplasia (second-hand citation; the original survey was not read)

Breed clubThe Royal Kennel Club

No VetCompass paper or insurer report was found. The eye figure is a second-hand report in a genomics paper.

What to ask a breeder for

The health clearances the breed’s own club and registry name. Reference only: what to ask for, never a statement about any dog’s health.

How to read this page

Every value carries a label. Measured means peer-reviewed data on many dogs. Studied means peer-reviewed, smaller or indirect. Breed club means a club or registry states it. Editorial means expert opinion with no measurement behind it. Where two good sources disagree, both are shown and neither is averaged.

Published when the entry rests on the best information available from no fewer than three independent sources, checked by a second pass that did not write it. 4 sources on this page. Found something wrong? Tell us and the correction is logged with its date.

Also called
Maremma, Maremma-Abruzzese, Cane da Pastore Abruzzese Maremmano, Abruzzes and Maremma Shepherd Dog, Maremma and Abruzzes Sheepdog

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