The Beauceron is the largest French herding breed and is closely related to the Briard. Recognized by AKC in 2007, it currently ranks 141st (as of 2017 statistics) among AKC’s 190 breeds. The Beauceron is a very smart, willing, and versatile breed and has been used for military and police work as well as protection and herding. With a strong personality, the breed is better suited to experienced dog owners.
A few weeks ago, a group of friends of mine were sitting in my living room ragging on me about the amount of time (and money) I devote to training, hunting, showing, trialing and just plain caring for and loving my dog. One of them, clearly a non-dog person, pointed to Bo’s toy box and said, “How much do you think you’ve spent just on toys for him? Multiply that by all the dogs in this country and you have an idea of how much people spend on just one aspect of dog ownership. You could arm a fair-sized nation on American dog toy expenditures alone. How many dog owners do you think there are worldwide? For that matter, how many kinds of dogs are there in the world?”
Especially in 2020, when COVID-19 has many people exceptionally worried about what their future might hold, a puppy is the ultimate vote for optimism. Is it one you made this spring? How are you doing with socialization during social distancing and limited gatherings? Most people have extra time for training and socialization, just at a time when both are proving to be difficult.
Every dog registry in the world has one thing in common: they enter, store, and retrieve data. In fact, they are IT and customer service companies at their core. Their biggest assets are the names of dogs, lots of names of dogs. Their inventory is words and numbers. Some of those words and numbers could be of great use to breeders while simultaneously creating revenue for AKC – if used far more creatively than it is today.
Many of the breed standards as well as other dog literature has inadvertently made the assumption that dogs are so alike that what is good or correct for one is necessarily so for another.
After many years of posing with my dogs de jour–a zillion times a day–I can probably consider myself somewhat of an expert on the photographer-exhibitor-judge connection at our AKC dog shows.
One thing I can say for this dog, he has good taste, wandering onto the grounds of the presidential palace where the guards immediately befriended him. That didn’t last long. He soon caught the attention of Brazil’s president, who is none too popular these days.
The good news is that we, as a fancy, are strong and determined and, as a result, we are back! Folks have put ‘Entry Wednesday’ back on their calendars.
The growing list of canceled shows is distressing to anyone who loves the sport of purebred dogs. Every day seems to bring a bit more bad news. However, we are not here to talk about cancellations specifically. We are here to celebrate the valiant efforts of those trying their damnedest to make sure the show goes on!
by Herman L. Felton, From the archives of The Canine Chronicle, March, 1994 Rumor is something that goes in one ear and comes out through the mouth. A gossip is one who makes up in suspicion what he or she lacks in knowledge: who is a fact mangler and misinterpreter; who likes to shake things […]
