Excerpted from Working Dogs of the World by Clifford L.B. Hubbard Sidgwick&Jackson Limited London 1947
The only true Greek Sheepdogs are those all-white dogs used by shepherds of the Balkan Mountains, Albania, Epirus, Macedonia, Southern Greece and the Parnassus Ranges. These are directly related to the rather small Maremmani of Italy, the medium Kuvasz of Hungary, and the giant Pyrenean Mountain Dogs of the Franco-Spanish borders. In general build the Greek Sheppdog is something between the Kuvasz and the Polish Sheepdogs, and pure white in color or white with possibly biscuit or lemon head or flank points.
The heavy black-and -tan, tricolor and black-and-white dogs found in Sparta are the crossbred guard dogs seldom used with sheep; a tribe descended from the Mollossus and much infused with Albanian Wolfhound blood, in appearance much like the so-called Mastiff painted by Reinagle in 1803. The white dogs have been bred true to type for centuries, and although they have no cynological bodies protecting their interests, nor any written pedigrees, they are never any other color than white...dogs born any other shade than white are promptly eliminated (as in the case of the Komondor), partly due to a strong belief that other colors are unlucky and partly because a white dog can be more easily seen in a country where it is a good thing to know just where the dogs are.
Travellers in Greece in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries aften referred to these dogs as ferociously predisposed and of huge bulk. During the past 120 years it is known that the breed has tended to become smaller on the fringes of civilization, but right back in the mountains they are still of formidable size and strength. Both the Greek Sheepdog proper and the Spartan dog are ferocious, and it is quite true that strangers never walk alone without being armed with stout cudgels; the shepherds themeselves have frequent recourse to use the wrong ends of their crooks, or to keep a pocketful of stones handy the better to control the brutes. However, they are deliberately trained to protect the flocks not only from wild animals but from men other than their masters. In a few cases their exuberance has to be curbed to some extent, and this is usually done by fastening a heavy log or length of iron to the dog's collar, though this is not done to any extent like it is in Rumania and Bulgaria. Another peculiarity about the Greek Sheepdog is that sometimes one may see such a dog with the tip of tis right ear cut completely off. This is done by some shepherds of the old school who religiously believe that such a device will "improve" the animal's hearing! The lift ear is never maltreated by the shepherd, but the cropping of the right organ is quite common.
A Spartan Sheepdog was once exhibited in a Dog Show at Islington, Longdon, but this was a long time age, and it was classified under the title of "Albanain Wolfhound". No true Greek Sheepdogs have been imported into Britain as far as the author is aware. They are not exhibited even in Greece, and there is no Kennel Club in Greece nor any protective body other than an anti-cruelty society which is little interested in the native breeds of dogs, for the small degree of cruelty that does occur is never associated with the shepherds but rather with the townsfolk. Only the very useful sorts of dogs can hope to exist in Greece at all, for no one there would dream of breeding dogs for pleasure only...even the fine old hunting dog, the Copoi, is almost extinct today.
DESCRIPTION. The head is fairly elongated though broad across the top of the skull, tapering to a fine but strong muzzle (the Spartan breed in contrast shows a bery broad head, with considerable "stop" and a rather short muzzle). The eyes are medium, round and dark in color; the ears are set high, small, triangular and bending forwards to a sharp point (a one-eared dog thus appears rather incongruous at first meeting), and are extremely mobile; the jaws are rather sharp in the taper but not snipy by any means, and have strong even teeth. The body is lithe and muscular, well ribbed up on the fairly deep chest, with good length of back and tucked-up loins, The legs are relatively short, straight and wll boned, with small compact feet; the tail is usually of natural length, set low and carried low, but raised in excitement.
The coat is short on the face and head, and the fronts of the legs, but medium on the rest of the body, smooth in texture, and slightly wavy with a tendency to feather on the backs of the legs and on the hindquarters. In color the Greek Sheepdog is pure white, or sometimes white with lemon, biscuit or fawn ears, or similarly colored patches on the flanks or set-on of the tail and, more rarely, white with fawn or biscuit flecks or ticks on the body. The height is about 26 inches.