Our passion for Service Dog training started nearly two decades ago with experience working with three different service dog organizations in various roles. We regularly get asked if Greater Swiss Mountain Dogs or Lowchen make good service dog prospects. While we strive to breed and raise dogs with disposition and foundation ideal for service work, training dogs is not without challenges. Here’s some details on both breeds.
Here’s some resources that we recommend depending on your needs:
Snowy Pines Board and Train Service Dog Training: Ask for monthly board and train. They are located about 90 mins from Little Rock, Arkansas.
The Dog Alliance: For handlers looking for training with an Assistance Dog International accredited organization, this is a good option for local to Texas or remote students.
Do Greater Swiss make good service dogs? In general, Greater Swiss Mountain Dogs are NOT an ideal breed for service work. Though, their larger size and history of pulling carts lends themselves to being physically built for mobility work. They are a sentinel breed that can make them difficult to use for public access. They can alarm to things that they find “out of order,” and it is more common for them to escalate emotions rather than de-escalate emotions making psych work more challenging. Some also have more “stranger danger” than others. This is good as they may ignore strangers in public, or it might not be good if the handler is unconscious and the dog deems all strangers as foe. *At most, Greater Swiss may bark at strangers. More than that is unacceptable temperament.
Are Lowchen good for service work? *Lowchens can make wonderful service dogs, particularly medical alert, because they are extremely attuned to their humans, great problem solvers, and quite biddable. Their small size, robust health, and non-shedding qualities make them an ideal candidate for many non-mobility tasks. Read this article for more in depth information about the breed’s temperament.
