A farm dog from the Canton of Bern
The Bernese is one of four Swiss farm breeds known collectively as the Sennenhunde — the dogs of the Senn, the alpine herdsman. The other three are the Greater Swiss, the Appenzeller and the Entlebucher, and all four carry the same black, rust and white pattern. The Bernese is the only one of the four with a long coat, which is why it is the one everybody can name on sight.
The breed takes its name from the Canton of Bern, in the German-speaking part of Switzerland, where it worked on smallholdings around the city for generations. An older Swiss name for it is Dürrbächler, after the hamlet of Dürrbach where the type was especially common and where buyers went looking for good ones.
The job was general farm work and it had three parts. The dog drove cattle from the barn out to pasture and on to market. It hauled carts of milk and cheese down to the dairy, which is real draft work and the part of the history the breed is best known for. And it stayed on the farm at night, telling the household about anything that came up the track. A dog asked to do all three had to be strong, steady and easy to have underfoot, and that combination is exactly what still walks through our door.
By the turn of the twentieth century the old farm type had thinned out, and Swiss enthusiasts went looking through the countryside for good specimens. The geologist and dog authority Professor Albert Heim took up the cause and gave the breed its modern shape; a Swiss club was formed in 1907, the first Bernese reached the United States in the 1920s, and the American Kennel Club recognized the breed in 1937.
Tricolour, and the pattern underneath it
Everybody registers the Bernese as a black, white and rust dog. What fewer people notice is how precisely those markings are arranged, and once you know the pattern you cannot stop seeing it.
The ground colour is jet black. The rust sits in fixed places: a spot above each eye, a patch on each cheek, a patch either side of the chest, a band down all four legs above the white feet, and a little under the tail. The white is just as ordered — a blaze running up the muzzle and between the eyes without touching them, a broad marking on the chest in the shape of an inverted cross, white toes, and a white tip to the tail.
Put the three together and you get a dog that looks formally dressed. No two are identical: blazes run narrow or broad, the chest marking varies in width, and some carry a tail tip you can spot from the far end of a field. That is one of the pleasures of a litter — a pen of puppies, all obviously the same breed, every one of them marked slightly differently.
Size and coat
This is a large dog, and the tape measure surprises people who have only met one in a photograph. Males stand roughly twenty-five to twenty-seven and a half inches at the shoulder and weigh somewhere between eighty and a hundred and fifteen pounds. Females run a little shorter and lighter. The build is sturdy and square rather than rangy, with real substance through the chest and shoulders — a body made to lean into a harness and pull.
The coat is double, moderately long, and either straight or gently wavy, with a natural shine that comes up beautifully in ordinary daylight. Underneath sits a thick, woolly undercoat, which is the layer that did the work in an alpine winter. There is feathering down the back of the legs and a well-plumed tail carried low.
Puppies grow slowly and stay puppyish for a good while. A Bernese is physically large well before it has grown up in the head, and the gap between the two is one of the funnier stretches of owning one: a dog the size of a coffee table still entirely convinced it is lap-sized.
The temperament that came with the job
Berners are calm. That is the first thing anybody says about them and it holds up. A dog bred to walk beside cattle all morning and then lie in a farmyard all afternoon is not a dog with a switch stuck on. Indoors they are quiet and settled, and most of them pick a spot with a view of the room and stay in it until something worth getting up for happens.
They are also deeply attached to their own people. A Berner wants to be where the family is and would rather lie across your feet than on a bed on the other side of the room. They are good-natured with children, straightforward with other dogs, and welcoming to visitors once introduced — this is a farm dog’s sociability rather than a guard dog’s reserve.
The one habit worth knowing about in advance is the lean. A Bernese greets someone it likes by turning side-on and putting its full weight against a leg. On a hundred-pound dog that is a considerable gesture of affection, and you will find yourself bracing for it without thinking.
Socialization is the investment that shapes the adult, and it is worth spreading across the first year rather than the first month. New floors, car rides, umbrellas, hats, bicycles, calm adult dogs going about their business. A Berner that has met a hundred ordinary things by six months treats the hundred and first as ordinary too.
Grooming as a weekly habit
A coat like this has a schedule attached, and once it settles into one it becomes a companionable half-hour that both of you look forward to. Two or three sessions a week with a slicker brush and an undercoat rake, worked in sections down to the skin, keeps the coat lying properly and the feathering clear. The places that want the most attention are behind the ears, through the ruff, under the front legs and down the trousers.
Twice a year the undercoat turns over with the seasons. For a fortnight the rake comes out daily, you fill a bag with soft undercoat, and then the coat comes back in fresh and the routine returns to normal.
Baths are occasional rather than scheduled, and the drying matters more than the washing — a coat this dense wants a proper dry right down to the skin. Nails a little and often on a heavy dog, ears wiped as part of the same session, teeth brushed the way you would for any other breed. Leave the coat full rather than clipping it short: a double coat works in both directions, and the outer layer keeps sun off the skin as effectively as it kept the cold out. A groomer who knows double coats is worth finding, and most owners settle into a standing appointment every couple of months.
What a day together looks like
Mornings suit a Berner. A steady walk in the cool part of the day is the main event, and this is a walking breed rather than a running one — the pleasure is in the pace and the company. In a Florida or Tennessee summer, the early and late hours are the pleasant ones for both of you, with shade, water and a cool tile floor in between.
The middle of the day is for lying down, and Berners are excellent at it. They will find the coldest tile in the house, spread out across as much of it as they can cover, and stay there until a bag rustles somewhere.
The draft work is still in there, and plenty of owners have fun with it. Carting and drafting are recognized activities for the breed, and a Bernese pulling a small cart at a fair looks like a dog doing the thing it was designed for. Short of that, a pack on a hike, a game with rules in it, or a food puzzle while dinner is made all land well. This is a breed that likes having a job, even an invented one.
Evenings are social. A Berner wants to be underfoot while dinner is being made and in the room with everybody afterwards, ideally with its chin on somebody’s foot.
Come and meet the Bernese Mountain Dog puppies
A photograph gets the markings and misses the scale. A Bernese puppy is heavier in the arms than it looks, with a broader head and bigger feet than the picture suggests, and the coat is softer than anybody expects. Standing next to one, what you notice is how calmly it takes the whole business in.
Our Bernese Mountain Dog puppies come from our network of licensed breeders, and our team can tell you how a particular puppy has been getting on. We have a store in Orlando and one in Nashville, and you are welcome to sit on the floor with a puppy for as long as you like before deciding anything. Find directions and hours, and ask about financing while you are here. Every puppy here goes home with its vet records, its vaccination history and a health warranty, and our team will walk you through what those cover.