Berger de Picardie

The Berger Picard is a French breed of herding dog. Berger is the French word for shepherd and Picardy is the region of France where its origins are to be sought. Owners and breeders simply call them Picards. The breed was almost extinct after the First World War and even after the Second World War the Picard remains a rare breed. The Picard is very human-oriented, loyal, and can become a good family member if he is properly socialized early in life.

In fact, the Picard encounters the stranger as careful and somewhat dismissively as the inhabitants of the Flanders plains are. And just as you can easily derive the heaviness of the work from the weather-tanned, furrowed face of the fisherman or the farmer, so one needs only little imagination at the sight of this rough four-legged friend to imagine how he brings the deviants back to his flock with stubborn patience.

"Rustikal" - this term fits in every respect and without restriction (besides the Beauceron and Briard) on the third in the  league of the large-framed French shepherd dogs. 

Rustic in appearance and essence. Like the Beauceron, the Picard often had to be used as a "Bouvier", as a "cow dog". He shows larger animals quite rudely and unequivocally the right way the direction or considers suspiciously foreign visitors as strangers of a lonely farm. At work, he is ""le chien natur, simple, dont on r ve pour toute belade champétre" (G. Sasias), the uncomplicated, natural comrade dog you dream of for his walk through the field and the hallway.

Since the Picard is rarely found in countries outside France, it should be presented in more detail on the following pages.  The explanations on these pages come mainly from the pen of Valeria Slembrouck, who has put together in a detailed portrait everything worth knowing about this breed dog. Valeria Slembrouck is a biologist who has been working as a freelance journalist for dog magazines for many years and has published numerous books and other publications on various dog breeds.