Beauceron (Shepherd of Beauce), although almost unknown outside France, has a long story. The most recent antecedent recorded, dates of a the Renaissance manuscript of 1578. This big dog with short hair, with cut and erect ears, and a long tail, was originally breed to gather large herds of sheep in France.
The Beauceron counts among the oldest French breed and has certainly a common origin with the various sheppard breed .
The Beauceron is of lupoid type and the naturalists of the XVIIIe century: Buffon, Linné, Civuer, just as the zootechnicians of XlXe century: Cornevin, Pierre Mégnin, Paul Dechambre etc. estimated that it comes down from an extremely old stock that the paleontologists disignated under the name of Chien of Tourbières (Canis familiaris palustris) whose vestiges were, in particular, discovered in the lake stations of the French Jura. It would be false to believe that this Chien of Tourbières resembled physically the current Beauceron or of all other sheppard dog representatives.
In 1809, the abbot Rosier speaks about two breed of sheppard dogs, one is the mâtin and the other a dog of the plain.
In 1863, with the first dog show organized in Paris by the Imperial Company of Acclimation for the World Fair occation, which 13 dogs appeared with erect ears, with black and tan coloured fur, which were well of the lupoïd type. Without any doubt, it was the first official appearance of what was to become the Beauceron.
