Breed Priorities – The Briard

by Nikki Riggsbee

Briard breeder-judges and breed mentors were invited to participate in a survey to identify what characteristics are most important when evaluating individual dogs in their breed, and which might be less so. One of the Briard experts thought that a feature that is a disqualification in their standard should have been included in the list of faults that was part of the survey.

This question has come up before with other breeds. Disqualifications are never included in the lists because as DQs they are automatically the most serious faults. We would learn nothing about their relative importance since their importance is already known. So there is no point in asking the experts to prioritize the DQs among other faults.

Similarly, phrases on overall balance are also omitted from the lists of virtues since most people agree that balance is very important to every breed and would end up at the top of the list. Again, this is not helpful to include, since balance is usually most important, and we wouldn’t learn anything new.

More useful is learning from the experts what we don’t necessarily know about each breed. How relatively important for this breed are the head, the tail, or the movement? How relatively serious are incorrect expression, bad feet, sagging topline? Yes, you judge the whole dog, whether judging at a show or evaluating a litter. What must you have, and what can you forgive? It is what I want to learn when learning a new breed, and it was the genesis of this series begun in 2004.

Short URL: https://caninechronicle.com/?p=135190

Posted by Alex on Nov 25 2017. Filed under Current Articles, Featured. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. Both comments and pings are currently closed.