Le Beauceron beau et bon. Essayons d'y réfléchir sereinement

Hallo everybody!

I am a Beauceron breeder for over 15 years. I took my first beauceron in France in 1999. I read that beauceron brave dog, police dog of France and so on. And I was really shocked when my beauceron female was in panic during firework...

When you live in a quiet place in a private house far from big cities not a problem if dog afraid of gun shots and other noises. But when you live in a very big city like Moscow there are so many different noises and it is absolutely necessary that dog not afraid of them!

The French character test is GOOD. Problem - how the judges interpret it. We passed French beauceron tests several times during the Beauceron special shows in Finland with different judges (Maletras, Kerfriden, Bonnefoy) and every time the demand was different...

What is the problem with bâton? Why the dog should show defence or aggression? Bâton should be judged like shepherd's stick for work and the dog first of all should NOT BE AFRAID of the bâton!

People prepare their beaucerons to be agressive to the person with bâton when the dog has problem with character. Most often it is fear of gun shot. You can easily understand when the dog is prepared to react to the gun shot. When the dog starts to bark immediately after gun shot and look around - it means that this dog has bad reaction to the gun shot and was prepared to associate gun shot with a following bâton attack ;) And the judge can put 9 or 10 to the dog which jumps and barks after the gun shot and starts to look for a man with bâton ... There are lot of examples when a dog at 1 year old shows evident fear of gun shot and same dog at 2 years old pass the test with exc result just because it was prepared to associate gun shot with bâton attack. But we only deceive ourselves with such methods((

The test could be much more true if judgement is the following:

1. Contact of dog with the stranger (changing collar and so on) - dog should be calm, balanced and without agression.

2. Reaction to the gun shot should be judged rather strictly. Dog which shows evident long fear of gun shot (over 1-2 minutes) can not get excellent.

3. Reaction to the bâton. Bâton is not a threat!!! The judge should not show an attack or agressive behavior. It is necessary to see if the dog is afraid of the stick or not. Dog can ignore it, look at it, play with it or bark. No need to show real protection! Then there will be no reason to learn dogs to react agressively to the bâton ;) Shepherd does not fight with its stick, but he use it when working with sheep and his dog should not be afraid of this stick.

Age... Yes, beauceron is not adult at 1 year BUT the character test must show the natural character of the young dog and not the reaction of the well trained adult dog...

We love our beaucerons and want to make them even better.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!