History Of The Breed

The origin of this delightful breed is quite obscure although Lowchen can be seen in European tapestries from France, woodcuts from Germany and paintings from Belgium that date back to the middle ages. Due to this visual history, it is acknowledged that Lowchen are of European descent and the ‘country of origin’ is listed as France

The Lowchen has traditionally been included in the Bichon family of dogs; ‘Bichon’ translates from French as "Lap dog with long silky hair". By this definition, the Lowchen was grouped with other small breeds such as the Bichon Frise, Bichon Maltese, Bichon Havanese and Bichon Bolognese. The Lowchen has always been considered a rare breed, but during the 20^th Century it almost became extinct. . In 1969, the Guinness Book of Records listed the Lowchen as the rarest breed of dog in the world with only 40 in existence.

In 1945, during the Second World War, Madame Bennert of Brussels (Belgium) realized that there were no longer any active Lowchen breeders. In an effort to save the breed, she searched the Belgium registry to find people who had been involved with Lowchen in the early part of the century. As you can imagine this was no mean feat at this time, many records would have been lost or destroyed and many people would have been displaced or would have died during the war. naturally, most dogs in Europe at this time were also lost.

Over the next three years, she managed to locate three Lowchen - two females and a male that met her standards. In 1957, she was able to locate a third female Lowchen to add to her small dog kennel. Over the next twenty years, she devoted herself to the task of rebuilding the breed from this foundation of four Lowchen. Her friend, Dr. Hans Rickert of Germany, carried on her work, carefully breeding and promoting the Lowchen after her death.  As you can see from this, although the Lowchen is considered an ‘OLD’ breed, the modern Lowchen has only been developed in relatively recent years.

All of the modern day Lowchen can trace their roots back to the dogs bred by Dr. Rickert. His ‘Von den Drei’ Lowchen were exported to many other European countries and to England where new kennels were founded. A few dedicated English breeders became an integral part of the history of the breed through the exporting of their quality stock to kennels worldwide. This happened within five years of first importing the Lowchen to the UK

In Australia, the first Lowchen were imported by Mrs Rosemarye D’Agostin, now Pia Kirke. Others have followed with several imports being brought into the country to further develop this breed here. Australians are proud to say that we have exported Lowchen back to the UK with success producing UK Champions and Best In Group winners. This along with exports to other countries also gaining their respective titles, proves our Lowchen are world class and therefore should be taken seriously not only for breeding purposes, but also from a judging aspect 

Robyn Bennett

Kilgarrin Lowchen