Thai Bangkaew Dog - TOP 10 Interesting Facts

1) Origin
The Thai Bangkaew dog can trace its history to a Bangkaew village in central region of Thailand, to be more specific to Bang Rakam district. The breed can trace its ancestry to a Buddhist abbot’s local black & white female dog and today already extinct wild dog. The offsprings of these two dogs were the first Thai Bangkaew dogs. The selective breeding started in 1957 and it continues to this day.
2) Loyalty
One of the personality traits Thai Bangkaew is known for is its loyalty to its owner and family. They are absolutely devoted, faithful and also very protective over their love ones. It is also quite territorial breed who typicaly do not like strangers on its property, but when they are around its people, its family, they are absolutely friendly, playful and quite gentle with them. These dogs are known to get along with kids and they are affectionate to the whole family
3) Utilization
Most often, the Thai Bangkaew is living next to its people as companion dog, but thanks to their high alertness and natural protective instict, they can find a purpose in being a reliable watchdog. It is almost quaranteed that if your Thai Bangkaew dog will see, hear or smell a stranger approaching your home, they will notice you by loud barking on this, in their eyes, incoming danger. These dogs also have good hunting instincts and higher prey drive, so they can be trained to be good hunting dogs, but as i said, majority of them are companion dogs.
4) Exercise
These dogs will do best in an active family, because this is a high energy level dog breed who wants to have some kind of a job in their life. It can be regular fun training sessions, vigorous playtime, some dog sport like frisbee or agility or, of course, they will enjoy daily longer walks or jogs in nature. It is essential to regularly and properly exercise your Thai Bangkaew dog on daily basis, so they are not bored, because with boredom, they can develop some unwanted behaviour, such as excessive barking or destruction.
5) Training
Another important thing to mention is, that even though this is definitely a very intelligent breed, they are not pushovers to train. It is because, just like any other natural, lets say wild breed, they are independent and can be stubborn. Because of that, the training is not so easy as with lets say Labrador Retriever, but it definitely does not mean, that the dog is stupid, quite the opposite. The Thai Bangkaew is excellent problem solver, but when it comes to classic obedience training, they need an experienced, patient and most importantly consistent trainer who will train them regularly. It is a very confident breed who needs to be trained and socialized from the puppyhood. This is not a good choice for novices or unexperienced dog owners. On the other hand, with the right leadership, these dogs are capable of learning almost anything and they were succesfully used by Thai police or custom services
6) Size
This is a well built, athletic dog breed with average height between 41-55 cm, which is 16-22 inch and weight is usually somewhere around 35-60 lbs, which is 16-28 kg. Females are naturally little bit smaller than males.
7) Spitz appearance
You can tell on the first sight, that this dog belongs into the Spitz group and it has typical Spitz characteristics, which are mainly dense coat, plumed and curled tail, alert expression and triangular erect ears.
8) Coat
The Thai Bangkaew is a doublecoated dog and its coat consist of shorter undercoat and longer outer coat. The coat is quite thick and dense all over the body, but it is thicker around the chest, neck and back and it is forming a little lion like ruff, which is more noticeable on males. You can find this breed in several color combinations, most commonly in white with shades of brown, black, red or gray.
9) Maintenance
As you can probably expect, these dogs do shed some deal of fur all year long. Regular brushing several times a week will minimize the shedding and it will also keep the coat tangle free and in best possible condition. This breed is known to not have much of the typical doggy odor and overall, it is considered as a very clean breed. Just like with any other dog breed, you should regularly check their eyes, ears, nails and teeth and clean them or clip them if needed.
10) Health
Great fact is, that this is usually very healthy dog breed, which is not suffering much from any health issues. Of course, just like any other breed, they may suffer from some. Those may include some eye problems, allergies, otitis externa or some joint problems, but none of those are extremely common with this breed. The average lifespan is somewhere around 12 years.