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Work- and Show dogs

What makes a “Working dog” different from a “Show dog”?

The first reaction I got from people if I asked this question was: the appearance.

And indeed there are big differences. But it does not surprise me that people first name the appearance. Eventually it may the most important reason why we choose a Bouvier above all the other breeds, cause why don’t we choose a Shepherd?

After the first spontaneous answer we get to our question we naturally get a second answer instantly and that is: the character.

If we want to sum up the differences between these two types, then we can say that the difference comes out of these two aspects.

Because the appearance and character diverge, we actually have two species of dogs under one name.

We should ask ourselves seriously: Is this possible? And is this allowed?

If we should answer these questions honestly the answer should be NO.

But in fact it does happen partially.

If we want to find the “cause” of all this, we have to go back in time.

In the 1970’s a lot of dogs were used who were certified, or were descended from bloodlines were a lot of KNPV-certificates were obtained. A lot of problems came to the surface. A lot of these dogs were carriers of errors to the breeding standard, so they passed on a lot of errors.

We simply could not expect true beauty. Mr. Semler frequently used females from working dog bloodlines and bred them to Noup de la Thudinie, who came from an inbred Belgian bloodline.

Unfortunately I have found a lot of bloodlines, which are not bred in well.

Those lines are also build from old working dog bloodlines. These lines did not contain much or non-beauty at all like I have said before.

They are totally bred on character alone. The siblings of these lines showed a lot of major errors in my opinion, because beauty was seen as a matter of secondary importance.

In the working dog class the dogs rarely won the qualification Excellent, but most of the time they only won the qualification Very Good or only Good.

I think today it is not much different. Hardly any working dogs are presented on show, and if they are there they miss out on beauty.

You can hardly find any Bouvier in the working dog-class, who is able to win the CAC/CACIB on an international dog show. A lot of kennels are still trying to breed back on the old KNPV bloodlines in my opinion.

The errors according to the breeding standard, which Mr. Semler tried to breed out of his bloodlines, without losing the character, are in fact bred back into the lines today.

In short terms this means that they are trying to breed back about 35 years, with the difference that the dogs have more hair now. The few dogs that did manage to get an excellent qualification or even managed to get the CAC/CACIB on their name had another problem that the dogs did not inherit very well. In other words, those dogs did not bring any beauty. Donar is an excellent example of this in my opinion. There have been kennels that bred lines, where beauty and character were combined, and where the dogs had well inbred bloodlines. Kennel de Lampe Sud is an example of this if I just name one. Excellent dogs with good characters came from these bloodlines. On show they got excellent qualifications; they got working certificates and had excellent Hip-Dysplasia qualifications.

If you want to crossbreed a working bloodline with a show bloodline, then you should realize that you would drop back a qualification. From that we can conclude that if errors occur, it will take several generations to breed that error out of the lines again.

Even today there are a few kennels where we find dogs that are bred on both beauty and character. In those lines we find many International Champions. Those are dogs who win excellent qualifications on show and who stand out in their work.

And then “Show dogs”.

How many of the dogs that appear on show and who form the “top” in the bouvierworld of today, is still able to work? Or rather said, which of these dogs still have the “drive”  to work like they should have in my opinion? Actually we don’t know, because there are breeders who don’t participate in sporting activities with their dogs. Most of the time they say they don’t because they don’t have enough time. But is that really the case?

Or could it be that these Bouviers don’t have enough spirit to “work” continuously for a few hours?

From the kennels that produce show dogs, I can’t name one dog that has a working certificate, and that is a pity.

More and more the kennels started to breed for the “household owner”.

Years ago, when the Bouvier became a very popular breed, the household owners wanted a Bouvier with which they did not have to work for hours and hours, and which was easier to deal with. More the type of a typical housedog, if I may say so. Many people will say: that is the character of the Bouvier. No, is my answer. A Bouvier is honest, loyal, willing to work, and has a great temper. And the Bouvier that we know these days still have all these aspects, the only thing that we have to ask ourselves is: how much of this character is still preserved in the Bouvier of today? And does that character still live up to the breeding standard? That since the level of certain qualities and character that a Bouvier should have is never set. But then again, is that something we can express in words?

My personal opinion is that the show dogs could use a little more spirit.

Often they appear lazy and without temper, although I still can remember the days that it could give problems if certain dogs were in the show ring at the same time. But even the dogs that had a great temper, were also very kind to children, it seems that the Bouvier is turning into a dog that has given in on his abilities to work and his temper.

How far can this go on? I will leave the answer to the breeders and owners. Time will tell.

I want to close this object with the following advices:

To both kind of breeders I want to give the advice not to loose both sides of the Bouvier out of sight.

In other words: Try to make the Bouvier into 1 dog again.

Mr. Justin Chastel wrote these wise words in the past:

"To breed a Bouvier that has both Beauty and Character,

we need time, but it is worthwhile."

Lets give ourselves this time.

Bouvzidane 

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Last updated: feb-15-2006