My new collar!

Here I am, wearing my new, traditional Swiss dog collar. Here is the history of my beautiful new collar:

The people in Appenzell have been cowherds for centuries. They pasture their livestock in lower meadows in the winter, and in high mountain pastures in the summer, and they celebrate the cattle drives from one place to another with two colorful festivals. The Alpauffahrt -- which translates as "procession up the mountain" -- occurs in spring, when the cows are herded to upper pastures. The second festival is the Alpabfahrt, which means to "come down from the mountains." That takes place, typically, in mid-September, when the cows return from the mountains.

Every Alpauffahrt and Alpabfahrt has a festive parade in which the people wear their traditional clothes, called tracht. Farmers wear bright yellow pants with tall socks and bright red vests, and women wear amazingly detailed dresses. Cows are adorned in ornate straps with colorful treicheln or glocken [alpine cowbells] for their journey up to the mountain pasture, or down to the valley meadow. Horses and goats are also dressed up, and dogs wear their nicest ornamental collars. The traditional Swiss collars for the dogs were designed for these processions back in the 1750s by a family business.

The Faessler family has been working with leather since the 1400s. Before the collars, they were already making saddles and bridles, leather straps for cowbells; Swiss farmers still have cowbells that each have different sounds, so that each farmer knows whose cow it is. The Faesslers made leather straps for cowbells, and the Faesslers were the first family to decorate cows, goats, horses and dogs for the Alpauffahrt and Alpabfahrt processions. The Faesslers have now been making the dog collars for seven generations.

The plates around the collar depict an Appenzeller cattle drive proceeding up a mountain. The first plate shows a herdsman -- a sennen -- leading the procession. He's with a dog wearing the collar. This is followed by a series of plates with cows - the herd. The last plate on the collar is another sennen with a dog, who is trailing the herd.

Pretty cool, eh? I will be the talk of the town when I am cruising down South Granville!

Mischa