Odile Smith
1. I was born in France, but I’m American for many years. We currently live near Boston. Briards have been part of my life since 1995. I breed under the Fairytale kennel name, since 2005.
2. Overall, the Briard breed is in decent shape as far as health goes, not afflicted by any breed-specific disease. Temperaments in general are also good, but a Briard remains a Briard: aloof, confident, protector, and herder! On the Conformation end, I believe that breeders (and judges) need to watch for straight fronts, leading to an unbalance between the front and rear angles. Our breed is powerful and should have substance and depth of body. Our breed’s silhouette is based on rectangles. It is not curvy, and croups should not be slopey. Being a coated breed, our Breed Standard calls for a specific coat texture, and that point should not be ignored as it is part of the historic characteristics of the breed. Few Briards today meet the Standard on that aspect.
3. Unfortunately, our sport has lost many experienced judges over the recent years who came from a breeding or professional handling background, and I do believe this influences the inconsistency of the current judging. Similarly, basics of husbandry, dog anatomy, and dog management tend to be forgotten by newly self-appointed “breeders” or “handlers.” Overall, it takes having foundational knowledge to become good in this field of breeding/judging. Spending time with experienced mentors or teachers is needed to build those fundamentals.
4. Briards love to work with their owners. They are versatile and can take on anything they are exposed to and, in fact, do need to have activities and deep relationships with their owners. As such, I believe performance events—but more generally any type of activity—are part of the well-being of the Briards. Personally, I enjoy Rally, entry level Obedience, and verifying the herding instinct of my dogs. I love training. I do not have enough time to engage in herding competitions which require much more time commitment (even just to get to a farm for training!), but I compete in Rally and basic Obedience. These activities do build a strong relationship and trust between myself and my dogs as well as help with developing them as balanced, confident, and well-adjusted individuals.
5. Difficult question: Social media is extremely powerful and can be extremely beneficial as a facilitating tool, yet it has very limited control around it. As such, it tends to promote misinformation. Therefore, overall, I tend to believe there is harm done in social media despite some benefits to the sport and the breeds, mostly through the speed of information and the broad range of reach.
6. Everybody is an expert nowadays! Making sure that the truly knowledgeable individuals are heard and part of the conversations is more complex and even more important nowadays, if we intend to preserve our breeds.
7. Our sport seems to be more populist, which is a good thing. There are many good activities to promote purebred dogs. There are also many more tools and forums (in particular, online webinars) to learn about almost anything related to our sport. We are also much more open and aware about what is happening in all countries around the world as opposed to the close-by environment only.
