{"id":17037,"date":"2014-10-04T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2014-10-03T21:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tvaryny.com\/?p=17037"},"modified":"2026-08-29T18:46:27","modified_gmt":"2026-08-29T15:46:27","slug":"briard","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tvaryny.com\/en\/breed-briard","title":{"rendered":"Briard"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The Briard<\/strong>, or Berger de Brie<\/strong>, is described by FCI standard No. 113 with telling plainness: \u00abchien de berger et de garde\u00bb, a herding and guarding dog, group 1, section 1, with a working trial<\/strong>. Everything else \u2014 the flowing wavy coat, the beard, the eyebrows, the fall of hair over the eyes \u2014 is built on top of a farm dog’s frame. The breed has two features almost no other shares: an anatomical requirement whose absence bars a dog from breeding, and a role in medical history that put its name into ophthalmologists’ reference lists. We work through both \u2014 and everything else \u2014 here on Tvaryny<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Briard: A Quick Breed Overview<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"Briard<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
Characteristic<\/strong><\/td>Value<\/strong><\/td><\/tr>
Origin<\/td>France<\/td><\/tr>
FCI classification<\/td>Standard No. 113, group 1 (sheepdogs and cattledogs except Swiss cattledogs), section 1 (sheepdogs), with working trial<\/td><\/tr>
Standard in force<\/td>Published 04.11.2008; FCI edition of 23.01.2009<\/td><\/tr>
Utilisation per the standard<\/td>Herding and guarding dog<\/td><\/tr>
Height at withers (FCI No. 113)<\/td>Males 62\u201368 cm; females 56\u201364 cm. Outside these limits, with a tolerance of +2 cm and \u22121 cm: a disqualifying fault<\/td><\/tr>
Weight<\/td>FCI standard No. 113 regulates height, not mass: it carries no weight figures at all<\/td><\/tr>
Coat (FCI No. 113)<\/td>Supple, long, dry (\u00abgoat hair\u00bb type), with a light undercoat; under 7 cm, soft or woolly is a serious fault<\/td><\/tr>
Colours (FCI No. 113)<\/td>Black, fawn, fawn with dark overlay (slight to moderate), often masked, grey, blue<\/td><\/tr>
Hindquarters<\/td>Double dewclaw compulsory; a single dewclaw or their total absence is a disqualification<\/td><\/tr>
Temperament per the standard<\/td>Balanced, \u00abneither aggressive nor fearful\u00bb; character \u00abwise and bold\u00bb<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

What follows is everything the table condenses: where the breed came from, why it needs a sixth toe, what breeding clubs actually check in different countries, and how the Briard ended up in the history of medicine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

History of the Briard Breed: From an Agricultural Treatise to the Ambulance Dogs<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The Briard’s history has a convenient starting point, and it is written into the FCI standard itself. For a long time these dogs were known under the collective name \u00abFrench plains sheepdogs\u00bb, and the name \u00abchien de Brie\u00bb \u2014 the dog from Brie \u2014 first appears in 1809<\/strong>, in the Cours complet d’agriculture<\/em> of the abb\u00e9 Rozier. In other words, the breed entered the written record not through dog fancy but through an agronomic reference work \u2014 as farm equipment, listed alongside descriptions of sheep breeds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Brie is an arable region east of Paris, and the dog’s job there was exactly the one the standard still records: to drive and guard the flock<\/strong>. The French plain is not the mountains: there are no natural barriers, sheep graze on unfenced fields along the crops, and what is asked of the dog is not to push the flock forward but to hold it within bounds, acting as a living hedge. Hence the characteristic gait \u2014 an extended trot with good drive from behind, which the standard demands in as many words: the dog must move and work \u00abwith a minimum of effort and fatigue\u00bb.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The public biography starts later. Briards were shown at the Paris agricultural exhibition in 1863, where they were regularly confused with the other French plains sheepdog, the Beauceron<\/a>: the same country, the same work, the difference lying chiefly in the coat. A first breed standard was drawn up in 1897, and the specialist club \u2014 Club des Amis du Briard \u2014 appeared in 1909; these are two separate events, and summaries often merge them into one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The American chapter is rather well documented. In October 1789, at Le Havre, Thomas Jefferson, then on his way home from France, bought a pregnant bitch named Berg\u00e8re; she whelped two puppies during the Atlantic crossing, and the dogs were at Monticello by the beginning of 1790. The Marquis de Lafayette later sent Jefferson another pair. The American breed club identifies these \u00abchiens bergers de Brie\u00bb as Briards. The link with Napoleon is of a different order: it rests on breed tradition and the cynological literature, not on an archival record comparable to Jefferson’s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And finally, the war. Here there is no need to lean on club lore: the brief historical summary in FCI standard No. 113 itself states that the breed was used by the French army in both world wars \u2014 among other things as a sentry (sentinelle) and as an ambulance dog (chien ambulancier) searching for the wounded on the battlefield.<\/strong> It is a rare case of a breed’s military past being recorded not in a popular book but in its own current official document. The ambulance dog worked methodically rather than heroically: quartering the ground, locating a man lying down, and returning to its handler either carrying an object from the casualty or indicating the direction \u2014 precisely the pasture task, except that the object of the search was no longer a straying lamb. Both wars cut through the population, and the breed was rebuilt by breeders in peacetime.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The mediaeval tale of Aubry de Montdidier, whose dog is said to have exposed his master’s murderer, has no documentary basis \u2014 it is a durable legend, retold from book to book, and one in which the name \u00abAubry\u00bb is sometimes offered as the origin of the word \u00abBrie\u00bb itself. It is worth keeping in exactly that status: a legend.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What a Briard Looks Like: Exactly What FCI Standard No. 113 Requires<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"Briard<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The general appearance is set out in four words: a dog that is rustic, supple, muscular and well proportioned<\/strong>, lively and alert. The format is slightly long: body length from point of shoulder to point of buttock is a little greater than height at the withers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The head is measured<\/strong>, not judged by eye. The standard gives three proportions at once: head length equals 2\/5 of the height at the withers<\/strong>; skull width is slightly less than half the length of the head; skull and muzzle are equal in length. In profile the lines of skull and bridge of nose are parallel; the stop is marked and lies exactly halfway between the occiput and the tip of the nose. The nose is large, with open nostrils, and always black \u2014 except in blue dogs, where it is blue or bluish<\/strong>. The head carries hair forming a beard, moustache and eyebrows lightly veiling the eyes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The eyes<\/strong> are oval, set horizontally, well open, rather large and dark; in blue dogs slightly lighter eyes are admitted. An eye that is too light (yellow) or wall eyes are on the list of faults entailing exclusion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The ears<\/strong> are set high and not held flat to the head; left natural, they are on the short side \u2014 the cartilage should be equal to or slightly less than half the length of the head. They are always flat and covered with long hair. The standard still describes the cropped variant, \u00abin countries where the practice is not prohibited\u00bb, but cropping is banned in most European jurisdictions and the natural ear has long been the norm in the ring. Note separately that an ear standing naturally erect is a disqualifying fault: this is not a breed in which the ear is meant to stand of its own accord.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The body:<\/strong> back straight, loin short and firm, croup slightly sloping and gently rounded. The chest is broad and long, let down to the elbows<\/strong>, ribs well sprung. This wording is not decoration: it is precisely a deep chest that places the breed in the risk population for gastric torsion, discussed below.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The tail<\/strong> is undocked, set low, reaching at least to the point of the hock, carried without deviation, and forming a slight hook in the shape of a J at the tip. In action it may rise no higher than the line of the back. A tail carried over the back like a hunting horn, or held vertically, excludes the dog.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The coat<\/strong> is described compactly and very precisely: supple, long, dry, \u00abgoat hair\u00bb in type (genre poil de ch\u00e8vre)<\/strong>, with a light undercoat. A coat under 7 cm<\/strong>, or a soft or woolly one, is a serious fault \u2014 the breed regulates not only length but texture. Dry, springy hair does not felt at the speed a soft coat does; a dog with an \u00abincorrect\u00bb, woolly coat is also, in very practical terms, a dog that is harder to keep.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Colour<\/strong> is the point on which summaries go wrong most often. The standard does not permit \u00abany solid colour except white\u00bb: it lists the admissible colours as a closed set \u2014 black, fawn, fawn with a dark overlay (slight to moderate, often masked), grey and blue<\/strong>. A warm fawn may lighten tone on tone on the extremities and lower parts; black, grey and blue likewise admit lighter tone-on-tone areas; any colour may grizzle to a greater or lesser degree. Excluded from breeding are white, brown and mahogany colours, a coat of two clearly distinct colours, a white blaze, white hairs at the tips of the limbs, and the fawn mantled and dark-overlaid mantled coats. An overall coat tone that is too light is a serious fault.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And one line that everyone choosing a puppy should read: the standard closes with the note that only functionally and clinically healthy dogs, capable of performing the work for which the breed was selected, and typical in conformation, may be used for breeding<\/strong>. That is not a courtesy formula \u2014 it is the rule every national club leans on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Double Dewclaw: Anatomy Written into the Rules<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Breed standards normally require proportions, angulations, colour and type. The Briard is one of the rare cases where the standard requires the presence of a specific anatomical structure<\/strong>, and where its absence is punished not by a lower grade but by exclusion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The wording of FCI No. 113 under hindquarters runs: \u00abDewclaws: by tradition, shepherds insisted on keeping the double dewclaw. The dewclaws form well separated “thumbs” with nails, fairly close to the foot.\u00bb And among the faults entailing exclusion<\/strong> there is an unambiguous line: \u00absingle dewclaw or total absence of dewclaws on the hind limbs\u00bb<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Note how the standard explains the requirement to itself. It does not invoke biomechanics: it writes \u00abpar tradition\u00bb<\/strong> \u2014 by tradition, because the shepherds held on to the feature. The widespread explanation that the double dewclaw helped the dog grip the ground on slopes circulates in the breed literature and in older French editions of the standard; the FCI text in force names breeding tradition as the reason. That is more honest and, on reflection, more interesting: here is a feature deliberately preserved by a community of breeders as a mark of identity \u2014 and locked in so firmly that a dog without it drops out of the breeding pool.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What does that mean in practice?<\/p>\n\n\n\n