Briards Past and Present: Conversations with Leading Breeders

By Ellen Myers

The author felt it worthwhile to create a record of some long established, and successful breeders, attempting to capture in their own words, their concerns and views when breeding. There are interviews from the breed country of origin, France, vibrant with hundreds of years of history, breed development, and continual pedigrees. Rich with experience and knowledge, France remains an undisputed resource, their experts respected worldwide. A few interviews are with people who are French in origin but moved to the USA and continued their involvement. The balance is with breeders from the authors home country, the USA. She acknowledges other countries with excellent breeders. She regrets she could not include all the existing talent. This book, the author hopes will be a means to leave messages to future breeders, to communicate through time and space, some valuable points. This book is meant to contribute to the large task of breeding this fine, complex old breed of working sheep dog.


No honest breeder will ever tell you that the pup you buy from him is a sure winner. Neither will he promise you an easy road to success. All he can ever give you is the chance to learn and the admonition that having perseverence, perspective and purpose, will give you a fifty-fifty chance.

USA breeder, Harold Marley, highly respected influential breeder of Marha Briards,
from 1964- died 1976

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Dec 26, 2012
• ISBN: 9781477280782

Ellen Myers

Ellen Myers has been a devoted Fancier and breeder of briards since 1987. She is a breeder of Merit with the American Kennel Club. She has published previous articles about the breed in major Show Dog publications. She has published e-book series on aspects helpful to dog owners in general. Her briards have achieved high titles in the USA, Canada, and several countries in Europe. Her breeding has also made contributions to kennel lines in Australia and New Zealand.

Book preview

SKU-000581367_TEXT.pdf

AuthorHouse™

1663 Liberty Drive

Bloomington, IN 47403

www.authorhouse.com

Phone: [phone]

Cover photo: Courtesy of Lisa Croft-Elliott

BIS, Am/Can CH Ungar of the Coastline, HT, TT, HOF, Rassemblement Select USA. AOM Eukanuba Invitational Classic, Westminster Kennel Club 2007 & 2008, & Atlantic States Regional. #1 briard male in Canada 2005. #2 Briard in Canada 2006, a #5 in Breed in USA, & #6 in All breed

Back cover photo: Courtesy of Paul Bernhard

© 2012 Ellen Myers. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system,

or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 12/20/2012

ISBN: 978-1-4772-9286-0 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4772-8078-2 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2012919598

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

missing image file

Contents

Preface

Old World

Marie-Hélène Laruelle

Lin Montenot

Monique and Bernard Weber

Valerie Denicou

Corinne and Jacques de Brouwer

Patrick Jacoulot

Emmanuel Yannakis

Jacky Passebosc

Odile Smith

Marie-Paule Gherardi

Gerard Baudet

New World

Mary Lou Tingley

Merry Jeanne Millner

Barbe Lynch

Jeanne Lorang

Janis Charbonneau

Meg Weitz

Titles and Terms

About the Author

Preface

The idea for this compilation of interviews with Briard experts was born five years ago in France. At the time, I was at the country home of two of the subjects of this book, my friends, Jacques and Corinne de Brouwer, when we got word that a revered breeder had died. Listening to the pair speak of the rich fund of knowledge that had left the world with this man, I felt it imperative to preserve the voices and hard-won insights of our most distinguished breeders.

And so I drew up a shortlist comprised of herding specialists and pre-eminent breeders and judges from both sides of the Atlantic who have contributed to making the Briard what it is today. As I embarked on the interview process, it became clear that there was no consensus on what constitutes an ideal specimen. Breeders held markedly different opinions on the importance of certain characteristics. Coat color and texture, to cite just one example, were real sticking points. For Bernard and Monique Weber, longtime French breeders and judges on the international circuit (Mr. Weber is the author of several fine books on the breed), a Briard with a poor coat is unacceptable, for reasons, which the husband and wife eloquently lay out in their interview. The American breeder Jeanne Lorang, by contrast, assigns lower priority to coat color on the grounds that ‘it doesn’t affect the dog’s quality of life or my life with the dog.’

The dwindling breeding pool in France was another big concern, as was the extent to which an aggressive or fearful dog’s character can be modified, an issue that most breeders have struggled to come to grips with at one time or another. Indeed, even the very notion of ‘aggression’ is a fluid concept, interpreted in different ways by different people. Ultimately, it is up to the reader to arrive at his own conclusions and decide where he stands on this and other critical issues, many of which are inherently open-ended and largely contingent on time, culture, and circumstance.

A word about work methods: Some of the conversations took place in person while others were done over the telephone. A few are the result of two or three interviews that were conducted over several years; these have been edited into a single conversation. I wish to express my deep thanks to the people who made time to speak to me, especially the ones whose interviews I wasn’t able to include on account of space limitations. All these professionals helped to sustain the dialogue, furthering it along in ways large and small.

This book is dedicated to future generations of Briard lovers in the hope that they may never say (as I did on that sad afternoon), ‘If only I could have spoken to that breeder!’

Ellen J. Myers

June 2012

"Purpose is your reason for being in Briards, for owning or breeding Briards…I think our purpose should all be fundamentally the same. Aims, ideas, goals, desires may vary, but PURPOSE should be basically united. …TO HAVE FUN! I hope you agree with me. You may call it pleasure or enjoyment or satisfaction….

Is your purpose to win in the show ring? All of us want to win-but if that is your purpose, then get out of Briards, for you are heading down a dead-end street, on a road that has no tuning. Is your purpose to make money? To sell puppies? Can these even be described as PURPOSE? Again, if they comprise your purpose, you are wrong! Why? Because making money is a full-time job and no Briard Fanciers are in it full-time…Rare indeed are the instances where one can turn a hobby into financial profit - and when this happens, the hobby ceases to be a hobby and assumes the nature of a business. It becomes less of a pleasure. And so I say, we need a foundation upon which to build - and that Purpose should be pleasure.

— Harold Marley,

Harold Marley, with forty years of dog experience, helped shape the BCA and define the qualities of the briard in the USA. Mr. Marley died in 1976.

36herding sheep.jpg

Courtesy of Carol Wolfram

Old World

Marie-Hélène Laruelle

Lin Montenot

Bernard Weber

Valerie Denicou

Corinne and Jacques De Brouwer

Patrick Jacoulot

Emmanuelle Yannakis

Jacky Passebosc

2 - Rhea.tiff

Multiple BIS, BISS, AM & CAN Champion, Rhea II Du Moulin d’eau, TT, Hall of Fame, AOM, #6 Briard in USA, 2003, BOB & Group 2 Show of Shows, Canada, AOM Westminster Kennel Club, 2004, BISS Canadian National Specialty, 2004, BIS Canada & USA, 2004 & 2005, Rassemblement Select 2003 & 2007, Canada, #1 Briard 2004 & 2005, Canada, # 4 Herding dog 2004, Canada.

Courtesy of Ms. Ellen Myers.

002A - Cerpico.jpg

French CH Finnish CH and Luxumburg CH Cerpico du Moulin d’eau,Selectionée, FR,1990, Elite A.

Courtesy of Mr. and Mme. Laurelle.

002B - Sage.jpg

INT CH BIS Sage du Moulin d’Eau, CH of PL,Lithuania, Russia, Jr. CH PL, Lithuania Winner, 03, Baltic Winner, 02. Best Stud dog of Club show PL 07, PT, IPO, Group Placements.

Courtesy of Ms. Dorta Jakubowska.

Kennel: du Moulin d’eau (This kennel no longer exists.)

Marie-Hélène Laruelle

Until she retired from breeding in 2005, Marie-Hélène Laruelle ran Moulin D’eau, one of the top Briard kennels in France. This interview was translated from the French.

How did you get into breeding?

By accident, my husband Jacques and I bought our first dog, a German shepherd, as newlyweds about forty-five years ago. Unfortunately, just six months after we got him, we had to put him down. We were eager to get another, so my husband went to see a breeder he knew, a gentleman named Jacky Moliner, whose d’el Pastre kennel was one of the best in Europe. Having been advised by Mr. Molinier to purchase a show dog, we chose a male epagneul breton, or Brittany. Eventually we bought this dog a mate, and we kept a female bitch out of the first litter. Then we bought another Brittany and a couple of fox terriers and they had litters, too, and our kennel was born. I passed a test to receive my canine tattooist license (in France, all pedigree dogs have an identification tattoo on one ear) and I became a pretty good groomer — a skill for which I won many awards, including the Prix du Président de la République, which was a great honor. About ten years after that first epagneul Breton, Mr. Molinier made us a present of a male Briard from Italy named Caroli. We allowed a gentleman who owned an absolutely superb tawny to use him in a breeding and instead of paying a stud fee, he gave us a bitch from that litter. In effect, I started my line with foundation stock from d’el Pastre. Every time my dogs had puppies, I’d keep a male to breed to a female who wasn’t closely related. I was very pleased when we reached the point where we didn’t have to use other people’s dogs. Even then, I never trusted other breeders.

How did you learn your trade?

From Mr. Jacky Molinier. My husband had worked for him as a young man and so he was very generous with his advice. He taught me about the correct placement of the double dew claws – you want make sure they’re flush to the ground— and how to inspect the dog’s eyes and teeth and muzzle. He only had to explain something once and I’d get it. My day job was in a veterinarian’s office. The vet was very kind and he tutored me in the correct way to crop the dog’s ears. The rest I learned on the job. But I’d grown up on a farm, in the l’Aisne region, in the north, so caring for animals came naturally to me. My family kept chickens and pigs and cows, and we had five dogs that rode herd over the lot.

You distinguished yourself as a breeder very early in your career, before you had much experience in the métier. What was the secret of your success?

From the start, I understood that to produce a