Barbet:French National Treasure

Standard changes over the last century


 

Across the top the dates of the standards.
Along the side the part of the body (as usual)












In a nutshell, the text says:

In a litter of PWD there can be 2 types of coat. Wavy and Curly. The crossover with a PWD: HALIX gave wavy coats. To eradicate them, meaning the "wavy" coats will diminish the Barbet population. This crossover can also bring other problems. Bones too light, smaller dogs, and especially a change of character as the PWD is not as close to his masters. That is now the case: many dogs have a very light carcass with narrow chests, tails on the back, inherited from the Prtuguese water dog (PWD)

** With so few Barbets, going from 45-50 (female)to 53-58 cms in 14 years (1989-1999)is absurd.
That means a growth of 17,7777% for the females and 16 for the males in 14 years.= more than one centimeter per year!!!!!!
One would have wanted to eradicate the breed, one would not have proceeded any differently...

In the magazine ATOUT CHIEN of 3/03, there is a very interesting article on the Berger de Beauce. Interesting on the one hand, because it is a French dog for which the standard was defined by the French in France and because the breed was managed intelligently.
According to the article the standard was changed 5 times in 100 years, fixed in 1965 and applicable since 1972, " to give time to breeders to adapt to the new standard."!!!!!!!
65 to 70 males
61 to 68 females. Births per year...3500
In 2001: 3835 births. 962 were confirmed and 15 were refused confirmation.

For the Barbet it was effective overnight. The breed is now, unfortunately managed individually in most of the different countries where it now exists. We now have dogs that when put side by side have nothing in common.
With absolutely no past references, people are recreating what they think the dog "should" look like....although those references did and do exist. The Barbet has a past and that past is coming out, slowly but surely.
It is or isn't appreciated, but, it is coming out.

The Barbet belongs to the French canine patrimony and no one individual can claim him...and many, to this day, are working against him.





an increase in height of 5cms then 3 for the females; 2 x 4 for the males, and a change in coat.
This with a small population since in 1999 there were 17 LOF Barbets(for 3799 for the Berger de Beauce). No tolerance for the height of the Barbet. For the B de B 5 for the male and 7 for the female.
There is definitely food for thought about the canine knowledge of the person(s)who worked on the successive standard changes of the Barbet...
This of course was written way before the last standard modification that, if you remember, because I told you here, after asking questions for 6 months+ and not getting any answers, I got an answer about who did the last modification of the standard. Mr Triquet.

And of course, no one said anything, except: "if it has been changed, we must go along with it."


AND As Mr Hermans says below,
"I do not want to have polemics with anybody
just some real facts
I wrote an article about barbet in 1978 and that was the start of barbet in France
I found the CLUB DU BARBET in 1980 and I have been president of the club from 1980 to 2001 and vice president from 2001 to 2004. My wife is still member of the commitee today and curiosly for some people I do not exist about Barbet( Mrs Kowalski is no longer on the committee, as of 5/07)
I wrote the standard in 1985 and I wrote it again in 1999
"Mrs Fichter discovered the barbet after 2000 that means more than 20 years after I start to work for the barbet but she put herself like she was the connoisseur about barbet"...
When I found the club in 1980 all these breeders than you know were not there and they of course do not really knows what I did for barbet
don't forget, a barbet must be like a large and strong poodle, not like a spaniel or a griffon. A barbet must be curly
Don't forget than in France we used to call barbet or poodle the same breed for more than one century
In Italy they still call the poodle Barbone. Barbone is barbet in italian. Italians still call barbet the poodle like we did in France from 1800 to 1900
I saw pictures of dogs sold in Sweden by Mrs Georgii and they are very bad dogs not real barbets. It is a shame to sell so bad dogs in foreign countries and of course I can not be O K with these people and that is why they do not like me
I am judge since 1980 and I am the specialist of the breed"


This is typical of what was written in the club bulletin for 20 years.That is the reason why many people left the club and the Barbet.


The 6 page chart was written by Maryse Desmarets, a breeder in Belgium, a few years ago.