because of their socialization needs. This is a breed whose default setting is to know and love the familiar – their family, their friends – and no one and nothing else. SCHIPPERKE HISTORY The needs of the average urban lifestyle demand a more extroverted and social By Beverly Henry animal, making the socializing process a necessity to developing a dog that is a good he known history of the citizen in the world. Good Briard raising breed begins in 1690 when practices include constant exposure out the shoemakers in the St. of the home and away from the familiar Gery quarter organized a surroundings to create contact with competitive exhibition of constantly changing situations and new Schipperkes on designated people. This is a process which needs TSundays on the Grand’ Place in Brussels. The constant reinforcement for the first year or workmen exercised their ingenuity by mak- more of a Briard’s life. ing collars of hammered or carved brass for In its best form, the Briard is a their Schipperkes. Always kept gleaming, remarkably easy and quiet house dog with these collars were worn only on Sundays and a keen and developed sense of humor all were fastened in a manner designed to pull evident from an early age. They are smart out as few hairs as possible from the ruff. One hundred and fifty years later (1830– and engaged, busy and involved when 1840), the Schipperke remained very fash- appropriate and quietly content to lay in a ionable in Brussels and, curiously enough, heap on their loved one’s feet for the rest was protected by the disciples of Saint of their day. Crispin. Even in this later period, it was still the custom to adorn Schipperkes with enor- mous collars of worked brass that were often

real works of art. On Sundays, one could Photo by Rusty Wells see a shoemaker going out with or without his wife or children but never without his Schipperke. Although he could readily for- to the group of German Wolfspitz breeds Another interesting point of comparison, get to shine his boots, he would never forget which now includes the Keeshond of Hol- which may also shed some light on tracing to polish the dog’s collar. land, then the Schipperke is not a Spitz.” the ancestry of the Schipperke, is its natural During this period of early development, Over the years, various writers out- tail carriage. Although most twentieth cen- the breed was known by two names, giving side Belgium have claimed a Spitz origin tury literature maintains that the undocked rise to controversies on the true origin of the for the Schipperke. One well-known dog tail of a Schip is carried over the back like a breed. The people of Brussels used the col- chart even shows the Schipperke as a direct Spitz, early authorities are in disagreement loquial name “Spitz” or “Spitzke” to describe descendant of the Pomeranian. Victor Fally, with this assertion. Some years ago, the the small black dog. This name sheds little a founder of the Belgium Schipperkes Club, eminent Belgian judge, Charles Huge, and light on the breed’s ancestry because several debated the possibility of such an origin, Victor Fally wrote that those Schipperkes breeds which are referred to as a “Spitz” in writing, “It is true that the Pomeranian and left with a tail carry it like a Groenendael Germany or America are called “Loulou” the Schipperke resemble each other just as Sheepdog or Shepherd. For proof, in an ear- in Belgium. Thus, no relationship to these they resemble the sheepdogs. They belong lier French dog book by M. Megnin, there breeds is established by the Belgian call name. to the same original stem which corresponds is a photograph of a Schipperke with a tail Mr. F. Verbanck of Ghent, a noted to a primitive type spread throughout the carried straight like that of a sporting dog. Belgian authority of the breed, summed regions of the North and Baltic Seas, which Mr. Fally also contended that an undocked up his thoughts on this subject when he is related to the Norwegian, Swedish and Schipperke with its tail curled over the back wrote, “If the Spitz group is composed of even the Eskimo breeds. [But] it is impossi- like a Pug or a Spitz is evidence that there has all the nordic dogs, the German Shepherd ble for the Pomeranian, itself, to have served been crossbreeding in its ancestry, regardless and the other continental sheepdogs of the to create the Schipperke because the latter of the names appearing in the pedigree. wolf-type, as well as the Collie and the has been revealed to have existed here before Some English authorities have stated that Shetland Sheepdog, then the Schipperke the introduction of the Pomeranian. The the undocked tails of the Schipperke are car- is also a Spitz. But, if the Spitz is limited Schipperke has an entirely different aspect.” ried in two ways: some are straight like a shep-

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Briard L.indd 2 10/30/12 6:12 PM Schipperke H 2.indd 1 11/1/12 7:51 PM