Piccolo Segugio dell'Appennino

The Piccolo Segugio dell'Appennino is a small hound that is relatively common along the appennine mountain range of Italy. It is a variety of the Piccolo Lepraiolo Italiano. This hound stands at most 48 centimetres to the withers and is found both with smooth and rough coats. It is mostly used for hunting hares, although it can occasionally hunt wild boar as well.

The Società Italiana Pro Segugio (Italian Association for Scenthounds) gathered 1450 specimens of this dogs in the year 2000 by scouring the Italian countryside and registered a total of 824 dogs as breed founders, thus guaranteeing ample genetic variability within the breed. The breed was eventually recognized by ENCI, the Italian kennel Club.

The standard is as follows

• Small hound, a specialist for hunting hare.
• Height at withers: males 42–46 cm. Females 40–44 cm
• Mesocephalic head, whose length is 4,5/10 of the dogs height at the withers. The skull is a little longer than the muzzle, with the top being slightly convex
• The trunk can be inscribed in a rectangle
• The croup is angled at most 25°.
• Rough or smooth coat which can be brown, black and tan or grey
• Triangular ears with a large base, the ears have a rounded point.

Of the utmost importance in the selection of this dog was its ability to hunt.

Others Segugio dell'Appennino's varieties

In the Lombardy and Piedmont regions, a variant of these dogs is known as "ciaplen" amongst local hunters and has almost mythical status due to its intelligence and ability on the hunt. The others official varieties are:

• Cravin Piemontese
• Montanino delle Alpi

Related pages

• Segugio Italiano a Pelo Forte
• Segugio Italiano a Pelo Raso
• Segugio Maremmano