Hello Katie.
I meant to send this answer yesterday, but just managed to
send it to the wrong list. But here goes:
You ask what is a french style pyr ? Obviously the breed
should be alike all over the world, and there should be only one type - the
pyrenean type - but for a long period the breed was allowed to develop
differently from one country to an other according to what was considered most
important. Generally speaking the American pyrs were rather small square dog
with lots of coat, somewhat square heads and lovely movement, the English dogs
were very large somewhat heavy dogs often with coarse heads with loose lips and
eyes. In France a good head (as according to the standard) was very important,
the dogs were also often tall but not as heavy as the english and as a rule not
a wellmoving as the American. This is very generally
speaking.
Nowadays with a lot more contact from one country to an other
this is gradually evening out, allthough there is still differences, but at the
time I was speaking of - in 1980 - in Denmark most of the dogs was of English
origin and did not have the "french type" of head.
When I say "French type" I am talking about a head
that is triangle shaped with smooth lines and no hard angles, preferable also
with tight lips and eyes. This was not usual in Denmark at that time. There was
a lot of problem in the breed at the time, bad tempers and most dogs not very
soundly constructed, things that must have seemed more important
than correct heads. And I think most of the people involved in the breed at the
time, judges and breeders alike, did not know that heads were supposed to be
different, because they were not really used to see different heads. So the male
I liked so much at the show really did stood out - allthough very much the same
breeding than most of the pyrs at that time, he was different.
Lene