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Rex King-Tor Croatia |
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ABOUT TORNJAKS
The first written tracks about the existence of Tornjaks turned out to be old manuscripts of the Croatian Catholic Church and the date back to the 9th century. There, the Tornjak is called "canis montanus". Same or similar given to the Tornjak were found in the writings of Peter Horvat bishop of Đjakovo, which date back to the years 1067 and 1374, those descriptions were also found in the writings of Peter Lukic canon of the Djakovo diocese, which were written in 1752.
The old writing of the Croatian Catholic Church describe the Tornjaks:
"The mountain-dog is spread in all mountain-areas of Croatia.
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His task is to protect and defend his owner as well as its premises, especially his livestock and his yard. He defends against attacks of enemies, especially bears and wolves. He is 4-5 sterns (60-75cm) high, his fur can have different colours: black, white, grey, yellow, brown and red. He can also have a colourful fur: there are combinations, where he has a primarily white fur with shades of the colours mentioned above, but there are also dogs with three-coloured furs. The fur-hair is straight; the length of the same is to be described as between long and short hair. He has hanging ears and a tail with dense long fur."
He received the attribute mountain-dog from old writings in Latin where he is called "Canus montanus" what is translated as "mountain-dog". The term Tornjak evolves from the Croatian word "tor", which means an enclosed area where sheep live in.
Tornjaks belong to the rare breeds. Although the tornjak is a very old breed (older than 1000 years) with the vanishing of nomadic sheep-breeding also the tornjak vanished gradually. They even almost vanished totally. In the early 70's, a group of cinologs began to collect the remained dogs which best corresponded to the old writings about their race. In 1979, they established in Zagreb(Croatia) the "Commission for standardization of the tornjak and the introduction of the controlled breeding ".
Character-qualities, which describe the tornjaks, are: stability, endurance, adaptability, protection-instinct, loyalty, trustworthiness and unpretentiousness. Tornjaks are emotional and intelligent dogs, they have a quiet and calm nature, they don't require much and they are modest in general. Without any particular or lengthy training, tornjaks know what they are expected to do - protecting the herd or territory they are entrusted with.
A young tornjak will enjoy playing with children because of his/its natural curiosity, he/it will enjoy common reconnaissances, while full-grown tornjaks are always behaved indefinitely patient, mild and guarding towards children. Nevertheless, children should never be left alone with a dog or puppy without adult supervision.
A young tornjak is kind to all people and he's showing active interest in them, an adult tornjak however is distrustful towards strangers.
His full height already attains a tornjak after 12-15 months, but his weight is developing to his third year of life (especially mails).
A tornjak doesn't need very much outflow in contrast to other breeds like for example hunting dogs. Within the house tornjaks either sleep or observe the activities of their co-inhabitants. They'll get active only if you take them out the house.
Many of the world-wide popular dog breeds have lost their primary character-qualities, because of inadequate attentiveness, since many breeders watched just to keep the outer appearance of the dogs and they didn't pay attention to the original character and temper of the animals. Therefore it is up to us breeders that we are not just keeping an eye on the appearance and preventing of mistakes and lacks, but also we have to insist that the Tornjak retains its original character and temper.
While we expect the international acknowledgment of the Croatian mountain-dog tornjak as the sixth Croatian dog breed we have much work and common cooperation awaiting us, since this will be the only way to build a good foundation for the breeding and the right appearance of tornjaks on a global basis.
Drago Budimir
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