IN THE MIDDLE,
RUNS A RIVER by Olivier Matz
Translated by Marie-Jose Thuot
Edited by T. Walker
© 2009
I am sitting down to write about some
matters that seem essential to me.
I am trying to put myself in the place of
someone who has not been member of RACP for very long. He (or she) can
feel confused by what he reads and/or hears, words that sometime are in
total contradiction with the breed standard. I will write what I feel
about some obvious things and about other concerns.
The cadenettes (corded coat) are either
hated or loved. I admit I do not understand this position. If they
happen, it is because of the good texture of the coat. It is in fact a
woolly coat, closely knit at its base, with hair that is extremely dry,
flat and heavy. If such is the case, I challenge anyone to brush his
dog on a regular basis to avoid cadenettes from forming. They will form
naturally anyway and the results of brushing them out will be a dog
with a thin coat as brushing will have pulled out the top coat and the
under coat.
Next, you have textures that are softer,
lighter, which can form some sort of cadenettes (when you pull on it,
the hair comes out without effort). This will give a cottony aspect
with, instead of cadenettes or matelotes (ref. new breed standard),
strands of hair with little or no under coat.
Even if the dog were not kept in cadenettes,
the coat would not be dense and thick and would not repel water. A true
coat with cadenettes is automatically thick and dense. I will not talk,
of course, of Labrits sold in pet shop and to tourists, dogs that have
a coat that closely looks like that of a Bobtail (cottony, curly, very
light) that mats easily. In those cases, the problem is bad texture of
the coat
.
It is equally wrong, in my opinion, to have
a coat that is only made of goat hair without wool-like hair (there
must be a balance between goat hair and wool, see the breed standard).
A woollier coat should be present from the middle line of the back to
the tail. This kind of coat – goat hair and wool – exists, but does not
necessarily form cadenettes (the texture is woolly and mixed with goat
hair).
One should be able to appreciate a dog with
cadenettes as well as a dog without any, but which has both textures
(goat hair and wool). It is all a result of genetics, which can be
flabbergasting in our little shepherd…
Do not tell me a dog with cadenettes cannot
work, only those who never worked with a dog can say such things. A Pyr
Shep will tear some of its hair in the bushes, what ever his coat
quality is, and that will not prevent him from running and working.
In earlier times, the dogs were covered with
patches of matted hair because the owners did not spend time to
separate them in strands at the base, like we are doing nowadays, but
those dogs were working… Like many others, I saw them at work and this
was not preventing them from working well. They also say that when
judging a dog at a conformation show, cadenettes can hide many things.
It is the judge’s task to observe and check, as he would do when an
exhibitor positions his dog a certain way to hide a fault.
My other concern is with the face rase
(smooth face). His name tells what he is: a dog without hair on his
head. A bit of hair can be tolerated on the shell of the ears (ref.
Mansencal : smooth face and others), but he must have hair on the
chest, the shoulders, feathering on the front legs and pants, but those
should not be heavy with hair. Actually, these days we do not often see
very good specimens in this variety, except for the late Oh Ié
le blues bleu de Loubajac, an exceptional face rase.
We are seeing more and more dogs with short
coat all over their body. This is not a face rase. It seems to me that
there is no place for such leeway. Historically, the smooth face was
born “like that” {The author means that they were not breeding for a
face rase, it was just “happening” in the litter.}, and there was long
hair on most part of his body. That is part of the variability of the
Pyr Shep (heterogeneity) and trying to control it all, at all cost, can
be the worse thing that can happen to the breed. Nature is sending us a
message when we see a rough hair with a short back or smooth face that
is a bit long in the back.
I will not talk again of the movement (daisy
cutter) when one know that, beyond that discussion that I find useless,
the dogs that win are always winner, who ever the judge is. {Note: He
is saying that a dog with great movement will win in conformation…the
“daisy cutter” is a movement ascribed to horses and is akin to the
translation from the standard which reads “shave the earth.”}
Finally, one last point--the size of the
berger. I agree that we should not miniaturize the breed but, one must
be careful not to ostracize the dogs that are considered “small” (I am
not talking of course of those that can barely reach 38 cm, but of
those that fit the standard and have correct bone size (structure)
adapted for work. A dog must “fill the eye” and bone size (structure)
has a lot to do with harmony, if this harmony is true to a working dog
and the type presented.
Let us not forget the variability of the
breed, he was different from one valley to the next.
Olivier MATZ, 2003
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This second picture is at 6
months old. You can see the outline of her rump appearing higher than her shoulders. This is expected as the loin and rump have a thicker under- coat. |
A closeup shows the finer cords
developing on her thighs while thicker mats are developing around her midsection. These thick mats need to be pulled apart by hand, but not combed out. |
and finished showing. ![]() Now at two years old you can see the slight thickening of her coat on her rear producing more of a rise over her loins. |
Now she is two years old and the thicker under- coat is starting to mat on her rump. Above shows a solid mass, or mat, which needs to be split into approximately 3 cords. I have found that these mats of undercoat that develop around the midsection form what I can only describe as a "flat slab" of matted hair. Out of these "slabs" protrude clumps of the longer outer coat and these give you an idea of where the mat needs to be divided. Just grab the desired clump or section that you want to form into a cord and pull it apart from the rest of the mat |
![]() for form on their own down her hind legs. |
![]() These small cords will continue to grow longer as they collect the hair that is shed out every year. Splitting the mat at the base about every six months or after every normal shed will keep the cords free of one another. ![]() Here is the same dog 4 two years later. The cords are well established and after a period of hair growth you can see that there is 2" of growth forming a solid mat, or what the FCI standard calls matelotes (overlaping tiles of matted hair). You can either leave this or, at your leisure, pull the cords apart once more to form longer cords. If you imagine your hand as the dog's coat you can imagine that your fingers are the "cords/cadenettes" and your palm is the "matelote". If you pull your fingers apart then you splite the matelote into long strands. After many, manyyears the cords will be a foot long, or you can trim them so they are not dragging on the ground. ![]() |
![]() thick coat developing behind the shoulders on his rear. |
![]() At two years of age the cords or more distinguishable. This is certainly an awkward stage as he looks to be supporting mats, but as the cords lengthen they become more noticeable and appealing. |
Below, at three years of age the cords are obvious and no longer need any maintenance as they are established. Before or after a bath it is a good idea to quickly go through the cords and pull them apart from one another. The coat dries very quickly after a bath, about half a day. ![]() ![]() wearing a hoola skirt! |
![]() The cadenettes also form on the front legs and chest. |