Rough, but always elegant

At first glance, the Picardian Shepherd may not seem like a breed dog to the ephemeral viewer. With his tousled Outlook and his mischievous look in his sparkling eyes in the rough face, he is more reminiscent of a very rustic but quite successful hybrid. Its outer shape has what you might call a mixture of a bit of bohemian, a bit of clochard and a bit of landlord. At Picard, unlike all other French shepherd breeds, everything is truly natural and free of any exaggeration. Its extravagance consists in its simplicity, in the complete absence of fashionable décor and styling, in the casual simplicity and casualness of its appearance.

Behind this demonstrative lack of jewelry, however, elegance and evenness hide in rare perfection - for those who take a closer look. Its angular stature embodies the original type of the working shepherd dog: powerful, substantial, but nevertheless light and graceful in movement. He was called a "sham-weight" or the drought, "with steel-hard muscles," "built for work." And a picard that is not overfed, sufficiently moved and well-trained is indeed a longing, bony dog - "shaggy and uplifted" like the people in the plains of Flanders and Picardy, as Cotté wrote.

With the Picard in working condition, the intestinal leg humps and the ribs should always be clearly palpable. A longing and "dry" physique without superfluous fat pads is desired.

Already puppies at the age of two months do not have that roundish-sweet, pummelling appearance like the young dogs of many other breeds, but rather appear dry, smooth and lanky. Her slightly out of the frame of the usual falling sight is underlined by the huge, wide-set ears, which stand out especially in the eye with the even shorter hairy young dog.

With the adult dog, these long ears, together with the bushy eyebrows, make up the unusual overall appearance of this special breed. The dense brows are desirable, they are supposed to protect the eyes from wind and water.

A Berger de Picardie, who stands in a proud and at the same time casual attitude, has something of the nonchalant beauty and grace of a landed man. But all its rustic elegance really unfolds in the movement. Trab is the preferred mode of the Picard. This allows him to move around for hours without tiring.

In fact, the Picard has a characteristic, expansive and springy trot, which his admirers call both powerful and effortlessly easy "floating" reminiscent of a dancer.

The rough half-long hair fur of the Picard is neither very hard nor silky soft in the structure. It should feel "harsh and dry" and crunch between the fingers. Moustache, eyebrows and chest  are softer hairy.

The Picard has an open, no adjoining fur, i.e. the cover hair does not form a smooth, closed layer over the corrugated lower part, which contributes decisively to the somewhat messy and vagabond appearance of the breed.

In Despite this open structure, however, the fur offers a great protection against weather conditions and wetting. The undercoat is water-repellent, so that the dog quickly becomes dry again after a small bath or a rain walk. The harsh cover hair is also dirt-repellent.

Overall, the coat of the Picard does not require any special and elaborate care. The coat color of the Berger Picard is very diverse.