Small in Size, Large in Scope The Petit Basset Griffon Vendéen Club of America

Like any national breed (parent) club, the PBGV Club of America has many functions and plays many roles beyond the basic function of being responsible for the Breed Standard. PBGVCA organizes competitive and educational events for its members and others interested in the breed, including conformation events, hunt tests, agility, obedience and rally trials, and provides written educational materials as well as presenting expert speakers on various topics.

The PBGV is not a common breed. It has been recognized by the American Kennel Club only since 1991, and its parent club is not large, having fewer than 400 members. However, the PBGV Club is active, with members in 42 states and 6 other countries.

Some parent clubs, especially those with very popular and long-recognized breeds, have difficult membership requirements. Not so for PBGVCA, in which the majority of members are “pet people” who do not breed dogs or show them. The club encourages participation and enjoyment of the dogs in many ways. It offers various activities for members, along with a comprehensive website and a beautifully produced quarterly magazine, Saber Tails, which covers all aspects of owning and enjoying PBGVs. Saber Tails and Meet the Breeds events highlight the club’s commitment to educating members and the public about PBGVs.

The club hosts a combined national and regional specialty show each spring, where many activities are organized. The shows rotate among three regions, giving people in different areas of the country a chance to attend and participate. Of course, traditional conformation shows are included, recognizing healthy dogs that best meet the breed standard, which is important in improving the breed and maintaining its health and vitality. Companion events also showcase that PBGVs can be trained to perform well in competitive events. When suitable facilities are available near the national specialty sites, the club loves to host agility trials and hunt tests, which allow other aspects of the dogs to shine. While PBGVs may not be the archetypal agility breed, they enjoy training and competing. Hunt tests have become a popular way for PBGVs to showcase their scent-trailing skills and cooperation during hunts. Besides the national specialty, about a dozen hunt tests are held annually across the Midwest and East, allowing PBGVs to demonstrate their talents.

Another important activity of the PBGVCA is breed rescue. The club’s rescue committee has a network of members and friends nationwide who check reports of any PBGV in a shelter or needing a new home. Sometimes, due to illness or changes in family circumstances, an owner can no longer keep their dog. If the breeder cannot take the dog back, the PBGVCA rescue committee steps in, addressing any veterinary or socialization needs and finding an appropriate new home. Dogs going through breed rescue will be spayed or neutered, vaccinated, and matched with the individual needs of each dog. This process can be costly.

Fortunately, the PBGV Club of America is closely allied with the PBGV Health and Rescue Foundation. As a tax-exempt 501(c)(3) organization, the Foundation raises money to support the rescue committee’s activities, as well as health matters. Thus far, the Foundation has always had resources to cover rescue expenses, including veterinary and other costs. Although the club and Foundation are separate organizations, they work together to better the breed. With the Foundation’s financial backing, the rescue committee can focus on what’s needed for the dogs without worrying about resources. Additionally, the Foundation underwrites a health speaker, often a prominent veterinary researcher, at each national specialty.

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Coren examines the five senses we have in common with canines and other mammals—smell, touch, sight, taste, and hearing—so we can get into the mind of the dog and understand how his thinking differs from ours. He concedes dogs use all five components to decipher their world, but of his five senses, his sense of smell is the most compelling.

The use of all five senses is necessary for survival in the wild, beginning with taste and one-celled animals and ending with mammals, including humans who rely primarily on sight to understand the world.

Though canines have a good sense of sight compared to other animals, their visual system is inferior to that of humans. Humans see brighter colors, more shades, and better detail than dogs. However, dogs surpass humans in their sense of smell. With large noses, and noses with both special nerve endings and special chambers to store scent in order to further analyze that scent, the dog is equipped to do many services for man. This depth of scent perception may explain why some dogs seem stubborn, and some are disinterested in their surroundings or in pleasing us.

Praise/food treats for dogs has become the preferred method of training and has all but replaced old, harsh training methods. As psychologists learn what motivates canines, we have come to understand more of his world seen through his sense of scents.

What is it about the dog’s nose and nasal passages that enable him to excel in tracking, trailing, search and rescue, and drug location? And what is it that keeps him from keeping his head up in conformation, looking at every morsel found on the floor and acting stubborn in the ring?

The answer is in the nature of his nose. According to Coren’s research, every species has a dominant sensory system. For the one-celled animals such as coral, it is taste. Others, such as starfish and jellyfish, respond to touch best. Nocturnal animals respond to sound. Humans, birds, and monkeys respond to sight, but dogs and many other mammals respond to smell. The nose dominates the face, the brain, and thus, influences greatly the dog’s perception of the world.

Humans respond to most smells unconsciously, but smells only reach our consciousness if pungent or strong. Dogs are different. Dogs respond to many more individual scents and their minds work quite differently in processing information. This fact “makes the dog’s mind an enigma to us. If we could share a dog’s consciousness for a moment, it is likely that our familiar world would appear to be quite alien and incomprehensible” (pp. 50-51).

It is thought that the proportion of the dog’s brain that is devoted to smell is 40 times greater than that of humans, and further, that they can identify smells between 1,000 and 10,000 times better than their humans.

Dogs are different. Dogs respond to many more individual scents and their minds work quite differently in processing information.

The nose of a dog is complex. Nose leather is patterned with ridges and dimple-like crevices. Dogs don’t merely “allow” scent to the nose; they actually “gather” scent and “store it” for analysis. They wiggle their nostrils to determine from which direction scent is coming. Each nostril wiggles independently. When a dog sniffs, he suspends his breathing to trap the odor and places it in a small chamber or shelf for interpretation.

The human genome project has shown that humans have the gene for the Jacobson’s organ (that special organ for storage and interpretation of odor) but our organ is vestigial, no longer useful. It has very few smell receptors as compared to the dog (p. 58).

The dog’s nose is attuned to smells emitted from other animals, sort of personal smells, biologically generated smells. Pheromones are thought to be a communications system for a species among its own kind. These pheromones can give dogs information about the sex, age, health, and emotional state of another animal. Where humans have sweat glands in the armpit and groin areas only, animals, including dogs, have these apocrine glands spread over the whole body.

They also appear in the urine, which makes the nearest tree the “gossip column” and “personal ad section of the paper.” Dominance, it has been found, is important to males, so they spray above the ground so that it is carried farther by the air. They announce something about their size to other dogs as well. “Dogs’ ability to separate scents can be compared to our ability to separate visual objects” (p. 64).

He can odor layer or separate scents and detect them as individual ingredients. Chili, to your dog, claims Coren, is not a blend as we would detect it; your dog smells meat, tomato, onions, and each of the spices as individual ingredients.

I Sniff, Therefore I Am
Photos: © The Golden Hound

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The Petit Basset Griffon Vendeen is a rustic hound that should have a casual, tousled appearance in the show ring. However, because individual interpretations of rustic, tousled, and casual differ, one person’s perception that a dog is overgroomed is another person’s opinion that a dog is correctly groomed. We all come from different backgrounds and differently groomed breeds. So, these differences of opinion are understandable. But it is important to note that casual and tousled have nothing to do with quantity of hair but with the overall appearance of that coat.

Here are four definitions, all of which describe the correct PBGV appearance created by coat:

• Casual – Occurring by Chance
• Unrefined – Not Arranged
• Tousled – Disarranged, Rumpled, Disheveled
• Natural – A Product of Nature, Not Artificial

The Petit Basset Griffon Vendeen Breed Standard reads, “The most distinguishing characteristics of this bold hunter are; his rough, unrefined, outlines; his proudly carried head displaying definitive long eyebrows, beard and mustache; his strong, tapered tail…”

This statement clearly calls for a casual overall look. Note those two especially important adjectives, rough and unrefined.

Knowing a bit about the PBGV’s ancestry should help conjure up a rustic image of this breed. The PBGV descended from the large Grand Griffon developed during the Middle Ages. Standing at about 26 inches, the Grand Griffon hunted wild boar in the Vendee, an area situated on the West Coast of France; a harsh landscape replete with rock, bramble, thorn, and thicket. In addition to great courage, these hounds required strong limbs and bodies. For protection against those harsh elements, a rough coat and protective furnishings were essential for preventing punctures, cuts, and other injuries while the hounds pursued wild boar.

The PBGV is a rustic hound that should have a casual, tousled appearance in the show ring.

The Petit Basset Griffon Vendeen is a descendant of that rustic boar-hunting Grand Griffon. Although hunting smaller prey, the PBGV worked in the same adverse environment as the Grand Griffon, his ancient cousin, and therefore he also needed a coat that required little maintenance; a coat that would resist matting or entanglement; a coat that could be torn and thinned by harsh terrain without harm to the body beneath.

We all understand that a dog show is not hunting. However, understanding a breed’s history is essential to preserving its heritage. To understand casual, tousled, and rustic is to understand correct PBGV type. Regardless of the manner the handler chooses to achieve this casual appearance, the end result should reflect the PBGV that is tough, rough, and ready—with a coat a bit unkempt; not primped or dandified.

While the Standard generally describes the ideal Petit Basset Griffon Vendeen, it does not give a list of grooming infractions. And while dogs should be clean and hair may be thin to enable the body proportions to be evaluated, in all cases we want to see a natural dog; this means we do not want to see PBGVs with the following infractions:

1. A topcoat stripped like a terrier or with blunt scissor marks anywhere.
2. Hair clipped to all the same length, or a groomed-in Sporting Dog underline; or trimming around each toe.
3. The hair removed from the ends of the ears. The Standard says that hair on the ears is long. Too much hair removed from the top of the head giving it a flat appearance.
4. Legs fluffed up or stiff with product.
5. Very offensive is the removal of the little fan of hair on top of the muzzle and between the eyes; this fan is protective and a prime breed characteristic.
6. Finally, and perhaps most offensive, the eyebrows shortened by cutting straight across forming a visor.

Of course, when judging, you must use your common sense. You are judging the whole, the overall dog and how the parts fit—not merely the grooming and coat treatment. Therefore, one shortcoming or infraction should not ruin the whole dog for you. But ask yourself this question:

“Does the dog appear compact and robust like a tough little hunter, or does he remind you of another breed?”

All grooming infractions should be considered to the extent of their deviation from the ideal. Remember, grooming is not genetic. Structure is.

One last item you may have missed: the words eliminate from competition have been deleted from our Standard, and that emphasis has been placed on the casual disarray of the coat. In addition, the size disqualification has been clarified: DQ dogs under 13 inches at one year of age or older; DQ any dog more than 15 inches at any age.

AKC and PBGVCA Anniversaries

(A version of the information provided below was published in the September 2009 issue of the AKC Gazette.)

Founded in 1984, the Petit Basset Griffon Vendeen Club of America held its Inaugural Meeting in Philadelphia at AKC’s Centennial Celebration. As the AKC celebrated its 125th year, PBGVCA celebrated its 25th.

PBGVs, smallest of the four Vendeen hounds, remains the popular hunting breed in France. Mrs. Elizabeth Streeter of Pennsylvania had imported many French PBGVs for developing her “basset” pack in the late ‘70s. Unwittingly, some called them hairy Bassets.

The breed evolved over 400 years to meet the rigors of the Vendee region. In early ‘80s, Danish breeder Per Knudsen popularized the breed all over Europe. Soon after, Nick Frost established PBGVs in England. Pedigrees of American dogs reflect these origins. The PBGVCA’s logo is fashioned after Per’s Raymond le Rebel. It is only in the last 35-40 years that the breed has entered Conformation events.

Interest in the US exploded in 1983 when a PBGV, “Alexander,” won Best in Show at SuperMatch in New Jersey. Charmed and captivated fanciers returned from Crufts with PBGVs, and imported them from France, Holland, and Denmark. We continue to admire him for his rustic appearance and happy demeanor. PBGVs compete in Obedience, Rally, and Field too.

Are you looking for a Petit Basset Griffon Vendeen puppy?

The best way to ensure a long and happy relationship with a purebred dog is to purchase one from a responsible breeder. Not sure where to begin finding a breeder?

Contact the National Parent Club’s Breeder Referral person, which you can find on the AKC Breeder Referral Contacts page.

Want to help rescue and re-home a Petit Basset Griffon Vendeen dog?

Did you know nearly every recognized AKC purebred has a dedicated rescue group? Find your new best friend on the AKC Rescue Network Listing.

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