The Beauceron Community: America vs Europe
One Breed, Many Tables
There is a particular memory from France that I find myself returning to whenever I think about the Beauceron community.
I was sitting at a table with my German friends during one of the Nationale d'Elevages. There was good food, plenty to drink, music playing, people laughing and singing, and conversations happening all around us. Sitting at that table were people from different kennels, different countries, and different disciplines.
Some of these people competed against one another. Some had completely different ideas about what they wanted to produce. Some would never use one another’s dogs. Some didn’t participate in the same sports at all.
And yet, there they were. Together.
Nobody seemed particularly concerned with who owned which dog, whose kennel had won what, or whether the person sitting beside them had the same breeding philosophy. They were simply people who loved Beaucerons.
I had experienced versions of this before, but that particular evening was when something really clicked for me.
The community was bigger than the kennel.
A Beauceron Community Without Borders
One of the most remarkable things about traveling through the European Beauceron community was how quickly I was welcomed into it.
I traveled through France, Hungary and Germany, and at many of the larger events I encountered fanciers from countries all over Europe. People I’d only known through Facebook suddenly became people I was sitting beside at dinner. Friends introduced me to their friends, neighbors, trainers, fellow breeders and other fanciers.
Sometimes I was invited into someone’s home. Sometimes I was invited to stay there.
There were language barriers, of course. They mattered sometimes—perhaps 40% of the time—but understanding French helped considerably, and many people knew at least some English. More importantly, the Beauceron seemed to provide a language of its own.
You could meet someone from another country and immediately have something to talk about.
Their dog. Your dog. A pedigree. A litter from twenty years ago. A famous dog you both knew. A working accomplishment. A show result. A photograph someone had been carrying around for years.
It was remarkably easy to find common ground.
And I think that is one of the things that struck me most: the borders mattered far less than the breed.
Competition Without Becoming Enemies
This doesn’t mean everyone agreed. They absolutely didn’t.
I witnessed genuine disagreements about dogs, breeding, structure, temperament, working ability, sports and breeding philosophy. People had strong opinions, and sometimes those opinions were fundamentally incompatible.
But disagreement did not necessarily become personal.
If someone didn’t like what another breeder was producing, they generally made a very simple decision: they didn’t breed to that person. They didn’t buy a dog from them. They went in a different direction.
That was often the end of it.
There wasn’t necessarily a need to convince everyone else that the other person was terrible. There wasn’t a need to make the disagreement into a public referendum on someone’s character. There wasn’t a need to turn a difference in breeding philosophy into a declaration that someone was ruining the breed.
There was simply: “That’s not what I want to produce.”
And then they went on producing what they believed in.
That distinction seems small until you’ve experienced the alternative.
In my experience within American Beauceron circles, disagreements can sometimes become much more personal. Friendships dissolve. People take sides. Social media becomes the courtroom and suddenly a disagreement about dogs becomes a disagreement about someone’s character, reputation or ability to breed the “ideal” Beauceron.
Once that happens, it becomes very difficult to return to simply being members of the same breed community.
That isn’t to say this never happens in Europe, or that every American fancier behaves this way. It is simply one of the differences I have noticed through my own experiences.
The Difference Between Competition and Community
I think part of what I have witnessed comes down to competition.
American culture is deeply competitive and deeply capitalistic. We are taught to build something, distinguish ourselves, become the best, and establish our place in the market.
That mentality doesn’t disappear when we become dog breeders.
In the American Beauceron world, I have sometimes felt a tremendous emphasis on being the breeder.
The breeder for the show ring. The breeder for protection sports. The breeder for herding. The breeder for agility. The breeder for service work. The breeder producing a particular type. The breeder everyone recommends.
There can be a feeling that if someone else becomes known for what you do, they have somehow taken something away from you.
I don’t remember experiencing that same sense of needing to own a particular corner of the Beauceron world in Europe.
There were certainly successful breeders. There were certainly kennels with reputations and particular strengths. There were certainly people whose dogs were highly sought after. But I repeatedly saw room for more than one person to be successful.
Someone could recommend another breeder without feeling as though they were sending away a potential puppy buyer. Someone could celebrate another kennel’s accomplishment without diminishing their own. Someone could admire a dog from another breeding program without needing to explain why their own dog was still better.
And perhaps most importantly, people could compete with one another without believing they had to eliminate one another.
Knowledge Was Something to Share
Another thing I noticed was how readily people shared knowledge.
Not necessarily proprietary secrets or every detail of their breeding programs, but their experiences.
Someone might pull out an old book. Someone else might produce photographs. Pedigrees would come out. People would talk about dogs from generations ago as though they had known them personally.
They would discuss their own dogs and what those dogs had produced. They would explain why they made a particular breeding decision. They would talk about what worked and what didn’t. And there was a sense that knowing more about the breed was valuable regardless of who ultimately benefited from that knowledge.
That doesn’t mean everyone was recommending every breeder to every puppy buyer.
In fact, one of the things I heard repeatedly was much more sensible than simply telling someone who the “best” breeder was.
Figure out what you want to do with your dog. Look at the dogs. Find the breeder whose dogs and goals fit what you want. Then enjoy your dog.
That philosophy stayed with me.
Because ultimately, the goal isn’t supposed to be collecting the most prestigious puppy from the most popular kennel. The goal is supposed to be living with a Beauceron that is right for you.
There Was Still Competition
Perhaps the most important thing I learned is that community doesn’t require everyone to like everyone else.
The people around those tables weren’t necessarily friends with every person there. They weren’t all going to breed together. They weren’t all going to buy from each other. They didn’t all agree about what the Beauceron should be. But they shared something fundamental.
They loved the same breed. And that was enough to sit down together.
A show could end, and instead of everyone simply packing up and disappearing, there would be food. Drinks. Long conversations. Music. Singing. Laughter.
People who had spent the day competing against one another were suddenly sitting shoulder-to-shoulder.
The competition hadn’t disappeared. It had simply been put in its proper place.
The Art of Saying Nothing Cruel
One of the more subtle cultural differences I noticed was how people talked about breeders and dogs they didn’t particularly like.
They generally didn’t talk badly about them. Even privately.
If someone trusted you enough to give you their honest opinion, you might hear something that was objectively negative. But even then, it was often delivered carefully.
Instead of destroying someone’s reputation, the criticism might sound more like: “That probably isn’t the direction I would choose.” Or “I don’t think those dogs would be the right fit for what you’re looking for.” Or perhaps they would simply recommend that you look elsewhere.
There was a remarkable difference between having an opinion and making that opinion everyone else’s problem. That doesn’t mean people were dishonest. They simply seemed to understand that you could dislike someone’s breeding decisions without needing to dislike the person.
And I found that refreshing.
What Happened Around the Table
Maybe that’s why I remember the tables so clearly.
The tables were bigger than the kennels or the competition.
A French breeder could sit beside a German breeder. Someone from the Netherlands could be talking with someone from another country they’d only just met. A show person could sit beside a working dog person. Someone deeply invested in one discipline could laugh with someone who participated in another. And for an evening, none of those distinctions mattered very much.
We were simply Beauceron people.
I think there is something powerful about that because dog breeding can become incredibly isolating.
We spend years thinking about pedigrees, health testing, temperament, structure, working ability, puppies, homes, titles and the future of our programs. We pour enormous amounts of ourselves into our dogs.
It can become very easy to believe that our particular program is the center of the world.
Then you sit at a table in France surrounded by people from half a dozen countries, and suddenly you remember:
The breed is much bigger than any of us.
What I Brought Home
I brought a lot home from Europe.
Not just ideas about dogs. Not just pedigrees, photographs or memories. Something inside me changed from being welcomed so completely into these communities.
There was something healing about being able to sit at a table where I didn’t have to prove which kennel I belonged to, what I knew, what I produced, or whose side I was on. I could simply love Beaucerons. And I realized that was the kind of community I wanted to help create.
I’ve always been willing to recommend other breeders when I believed they were a good fit for someone. But I became much more intentional about it over the years. I don’t need to tell someone why I wouldn’t choose another breeder in order to explain why I think someone else might be a good fit.
I celebrate other people’s successes. If someone shares an accomplishment with me, I’m happy for them. If someone asks me a question and I have knowledge that might help them, I’ll share it. And I try very hard to separate disagreement about dogs from the judgment of people.
There are obvious exceptions. Proven animal abuse is different. Cruelty is different. Those are matters of animal welfare, not merely differences in breeding philosophy.
But if someone breeds differently than I do? That’s okay. If they prioritize something differently? That’s okay. If their ideal Beauceron isn’t my ideal Beauceron? That’s okay too.
We don’t have to produce the same dog to love the same breed.
Bigger Than the Kennel
I don’t think Europe has somehow solved the problem of human nature.
European Beauceron communities have disagreements. There are personalities, politics, competition and differences of opinion. They are not a perfect utopia.
I also don’t think American Beauceron fanciers are incapable of creating this kind of community.
I suspect the differences I have experienced come from many places: culture, geography, the relative ease of crossing borders in Europe, generations of relationships between breeders, and perhaps the different pressures created by American competition and capitalism.
But after sitting at enough tables, in enough countries, with enough people who love these dogs, I’ve come to believe that community is ultimately a choice.
We can choose to believe there is room for another breeder to succeed. We can choose to recommend someone whose dogs aren’t our own. We can choose to celebrate a beautiful dog without needing to explain why ours is better.
We can disagree about breeding without declaring war on one another.
We can compete in the ring, on the field, in the pasture or on the trial grounds—and then sit down together afterward.
We can remember that none of us owns the Beauceron. We are caretakers of a breed that existed long before our kennels and, if we do our jobs well, will continue long after them.
That French table taught me something I don’t think I’ll ever forget:
The kennel is ours.
The Beauceron belongs to all of us.
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