Unlike many other well-established breeds that have genetic markers and recommended genetic testing to be completed, very little testing is done or encouraged for the Beauceron. A lot of topics of discussion over the years have surrounded our “harlequin” Beaucerons, their white marks, the tweed (oddly brownish spots), and their fading aspect. First and foremost, you must understand that when we use the term harlequin it is only because of its French origin and not because their color is due to the harlequin gene; harlequin Beaucerons are merle genetically speaking. The merle genetics in dogs are still being studied and researched by passionate leaders in the field, one of which is Mary Langevin. She is a well-known Catahoula breeder who quite literally wrote “the book” on merle, and is backed by the testing results she discovered in partnership with Tilia Labs in the Czech Republic.
Merle testing is one way that both owners and breeders can use genetic data to make better informed decisions and be able to educate others who come into our breed after us. Tilia Labs is the only analyst, currently, to identify and report on all seven alleles associated with merle. While it may seem that merle testing for black and rust dogs is not applicable, that is not the case. Most of us who have brushed the surface of merle genetics are aware there is M (Merle Dominant allele) and m (non-merle allele), but there are many more variations which can be more readily seen in other breed such as Australian Shepherds and Catahoulas. Beaucerons do NOT exclusively carry regular merle and non-merle; that is not how this works. Mc, Mh, Ma, Mc+, etc., are all variations of the merle alleles that can come with having merle in our breed.
Diana Densmore obtained permission from Mary Langevin to share (reprint) this article on understanding merle genetics that was originally written for the Australian Shepherd breed and to encourage all Beauceron owners, particularly those with “harlequins” but also black and rust dogs to be tested through Tilia Labs and to share those results with the breed community.
Just a quick check in to ensure that everyone who is on Facebook and is a club member is aware that there is a group for members only! It’s called American Beauceron Club – Members Only. To join, please use the following link:
I have been a Beauceron owner for 3 years, and a member of
the Beauceron community for over 5 years now. There’s a constant theme I see in
our community – desire for control. We want to control who breeds, who joins
our community, which dogs win in each venue, what tests are needed, what dogs
are rescued…the list goes on and on. In this article, I will discuss how being
a member of the American Beauceron Club can be a productive outlet in that
pursuit of control and a measured approach for not overstepping reasonable
limits to that control.
Robyn struggling to pick up Nyko
A bit snarky, don’t you think? I was hoping to catch your
attention with this excerpt. As we move to a newsletter that is easier to
generate from the website instead of expecting our volunteers to spend hours
and hours on end formatting a pdf (Debbie Baker – we feel your pain on this!),
we’re also able to track when people are actually clicking through the “Read
More” to finish reading the full article. The numbers, unfortunately, are
disappointing. A major benefit to joining the club is access to the newsletter
which is intended to be a repository of information about the club (minutes,
letters from our officers, treasurer updates, titles, etc.) as well as a source
of valuable information about the breed (articles carefully curated from the
membership). If people aren’t reading the newsletter, then why have they joined
the club?
That brings me back to the idea of control. Now I know Di
Brown is sitting off to the side sighing loudly at the structure of this
article, but I know she’ll bear with me as I struggle to make my point.
The club is the mechanism by which Beauceron community is
organized to influence the general public and liaise with the American Kennel
Club (which, while AKC is not the only kennel club in the US, it is the main
one that Beauceron owners utilize for titling). The club is who can recommend
changes to the breed standard, health testing, and breed education.
The club is our organized voice. The club is our mechanism
for control.
As of late, Facebook has been our (dis)organized voice. With
the rise of social media, the ability to organize and promote voices has become
much easier through ad hoc Facebook groups that reach beyond just a niche
community. I know there was a Yahoo! Groups presence before, but the
connectivity to the rest of “DogBook” and the general Facebook public does not
really have a parallel through that medium.
Now before anyone starts to get their hackles up, I’m not
going to bash Beauceron owners and their Facebook presences. In fact, I am
impressed with how our community has utilized social media. We are making our
voices heard. Our networks are so wide! There’s connectivity across continents
that is amazing. The ease at which people, like I did years ago, can learn
about the breed and begin to contribute positively is fantastic.
My argument, though, is that we stopped using our club in
favor of Facebook which has led us down the route of exerting control over
everything instead of focusing our efforts on the areas where we do have
systematic power to make changes.
Don’t get me wrong, we need both.
We need the community outreach that social media can
provide. We need the groups to be able to quickly and easily have important
discussions. We need to build our communities in a way that social media
platforms facilitate by the nature of their design. But, beyond that, we still
need to utilize our club to take all of these ideas and get them approved by
formal processes and get them embedded in AKC (and other kennel clubs we choose
to associate with).
To do that, we need to take all of those leadership and
organizational skills that we see displayed so beautifully through groups such
as Beaucerons in North American, Beaucerons Worldwide, Beaucerons in Obedience
& Rally, Beauceron Breed Standard Review, et al. We have the skills in our
community to manage people and ideas! And, guess what, they do it for free!!!
We should leverage that skillset in our board – moving from
a model that is constantly putting out flames to a model that sets goals for
each committee with deadlines and follows up on them. Within our committees, we
have chairs who should provide the board and the membership with regular
updates on the good work that they’re all doing. Within our membership, we
should have outreach programs to make sure that each voice is heard and every
idea is accounted for.
If we harness that energy, we can harness the ability to
make changes to critical concerns from the club in a timely manner (Are elbows
required? Are they not required?). We can discuss every rule in our Code of
Ethics with the level of criticality we discuss the rules for a Facebook group.
We can address membership complaints with the same gusto we do when someone
slides into our PMs to say there’s a potential person trying to sell puppies
through one of our groups.
We just have to get organized and recognize the difference
between social media and a non-profit club. That gives us our community and it
gives us our focused control.
I commend all of our volunteers – none of these jobs are
easy, within the club or outside of it. I just want us to all take a step back
and look at our club. What can we do to use the club to better the breed in the
ways that we all so desperately want to?
As with so many other things this year, the 2020 AKC Rally National Championship which was to be held in June this year had to be postponed until December. Although they will not be competing this month, we should congratulate those Beaucerons and their dedicated, hard-working handlers who were invited to compete:
Grizzbee de la Pilgrimage CD, RN, SWN, CGC (Sue and Douglas Lewis)
The Beauceron Herding Clinic is still scheduled for August 8 and 9, 2020 at Bitterbrush Kennel and Livestock in Nevada. Details can be found here as well as registration and payment through the website. Ms. Edwards is offering dry RV/trailer camping on site. People who are wanting to meet their breed, and their awesome owners, are welcome to attend for free to observe and visit. The cost is per dog, and Ms. Edwards recommends dogs be at least a year old, but the clinic is suited for all levels of training. If you have any question contact Event Chair Syndi Keats (Sanda Kat on Facebook) through message on Facebook or tag her in a post in one of the Beauceron groups.
As shows tentatively begin to take place again, the AKC (and most other trialing organizations) have issued guidance for safe participation and attendance. The AKC has a dedicated page on their website that includes best practices by sport, up to date cancellations, and other pertinent information.
They are also offering free breed webinars, which are open to judges and the general public, every day from 1:00-2:30 pm EST. If you are curious about conformation, a Conformation for Beginners class is also being offered free of charge.
The AKC is holding a Virtual Top Dog Challenge. You have to enter and submit a brief video through the associated portal on AKC’s website. Entries are open June 5th through 12th and winners will be announced June 17th-19th and cost $25. Videos must include a stack from the front, rear, and side, oral exam, gaiting, and free stack. A portion of the entry fee goes to Take the Lead.
As many of you already know, AKC also moved to allow Trick Dog and Rally Novice titles to be completed online. Competitors will need to set up one of five courses, video their run, and submit the video through YouTube (along with entry form and fees). The AKC will assign a Rally judge to score and qualifying scores are added to your dog’s record. As of now, this pilot program will end on December 31, 2020.
Just this week the Agility Course Test (ACT) program is also a virtual competition. It operates similarly to the Rally program with predesigned courses that must be completed within a time limit. These courses do require access to agility equipment but with two qualifying runs you can earn the ACT title.
I have been involved in the breed for a little over three years now. I joined the American Beauceron Club (ABC) before bringing a Beauceron into my home. You might be asking why I joined before even owning a Beauceron. I wanted to get my foot in the door and show the community that I was serious about adding one of these amazing dogs into my life. Although I owned purebred dogs, I had never been part of a breed club and wondered what it would be like to join.
Being part of a breed community is so much more than just joining a club of like-minded people. It’s getting involved on a deeper, more meaningful level. A breed-specific club is not just a camaraderie based on ownership of a specific breed, but a “celebration of the breed” by enthusiasts, as Beauceron owner and breeder Craig McCracken said (The Beauceron Bulletin, Volume VI, Issue 2 [2004]).
2019 Westminster Meet the Breed (back row l-r): Courtney Goddard, Bubba Staroski, Eric Hensley, Jen Westrate, Elaine Giannelli, Karla Davis, Kara Staroski; (front row l-r) Sara Reid and Justin Bradley.
There are numerous
benefits to joining the ABC, or any breed club:
You are accepting and understanding the
breed standard toward which all Beaucerons should be bred, exhibited, and
judged;
You are encouraging ethical breeding of
purebred Beaucerons who exemplify that standard and bring the natural qualities
and abilities of the breed to the forefront;
You are an active participant in
protecting and advancing the breed’s best interests;
You are encouraging and participating in
the events and promoting the abilities of the Beauceron through participation
and sportsmanlike conduct;
You are supporting the ABC’s Code of
Ethics (COE);
You are contributing to OFA, CERF, genetic
research, breed rescue, and the health of the breed;
And, perhaps most importantly, you have a
voice, and, if you choose, an active role in protecting and promoting the Beauceron
breed.
I wanted to be able to participate and contribute by going to ABC events, joining committees, etc. In my short time in the ABC, I have been to numerous events to represent the breed and club, such as Westminster’s Meet the Breeds, assisted with the rescue raffle at the 2018 National Specialty, and I helped run an ABC sponsored herding trial. Wanting to get even more involved, I volunteered to chair the Ways and Means committee. In doing so, I gained hands-on experience with the 2019 and 2020 National Specialty events by creating welcome bags and finding souvenirs. As the chair, I also oversaw the creation and production of the 2020 ABC calendar. While that was a very involved and tedious project, I learned SO much! I got to know a lot of dogs and learn about their breeders, pedigrees, owners, and the great things they accomplished. I took my club involvement a step further and ran for the Region 1 Director to the ABC Board of Directors (BOD). Since joining the ABC, I have had more opportunities to work one-on-one with other club members and have gained a lot of new friendships. You open your world to new people and gain new friendships with whom you truly learn to appreciate the Beauceron breed.
2020 ABC Herding Trial Banner
By joining the ABC, you also gain the ability to advocate for the breed. Claire Roybal (Poissonniez) wrote:
The ABC is the voice and representation of our breed in this country. In arranging Meet the Breed events and Judges Education seminars, this club determines how our breed is known and perceived in the United States. As ABC members, we are the guardians of our breed’s reputation in a nation where some breeds have struggled with wrong perceptions. In our club, we have the ability to agree upon a code of ethics for owners and breeders. How shall we protect the health, temperament, and type of our breed? It’s easy to talk about these things in online forums, but in the club we have the power to take these lofty ideas and make them so.
A breed club does so much more for the breed than non-members may realize. We have the ability to educate not only people interested in the breed or new owners, but judges too. From long-time Beauceron owner and ABC member, Elaine Giannelli, ’The club is responsible for writing and making any changes to the breed standard by which all AKC judges judge the breed. The ABC is responsible for the training of AKC judges through the club’s judge’s education program. They put on seminars and present the breed at judges’ institutes.
Brenda Trojanowski at the 2018 National Specialty surrounded by rescue raffle items.
Additionally, ABC members get some tangible benefits too! The ability to submits photos for the annual club calendar, discounts on entries in the National Specialty and other supported events and gear, the bi-monthly club publication The Beauceron Bulletin (including all archived copies on the website), access to the club’s website and all content. ABC members are also eligible to receive the club’s Register of Merit and Versatility awards.
2020 ABC Member Calendar.
Keeping all of this in mind, why wouldn’t you join the parent club for the Beauceron? We have the power to continue to encourage the responsible breeding of purebred dogs and preserve, and better, the Beauceron breed. When considering joining don’t ask yourself, “What can the club do for me?” ask, “What can I do for the club.” Although intangible, for the most part, being a member of the ABC provides so many benefits. It connects you with others who care about preserving the authentic Beauceron as well as bettering the breed through better health testing or genetic research. It allows you to contribute in minor such as participating in elections or voting on revisions to the COE, or in more significant ways such as volunteering your time, skills, knowledge, or expertise to assist the club. You should want to join because you want to do your part in bettering the breed. What begins as self-education about the Beauceron will evolve into public education. You start as a newcomer, and over time, you become the elder who helps guide and mentors the next generation. It is through the power of the breed club’s collective membership that we ensure the preservation of our beloved Beauceron.
