Origins of the Bouvier des Flandres

The Bouvier des Flandres was a relatively massive, athletic, short coupled, rough coated dog consolidated into a formal breed for police, guard and military service in the Flemish region of Belgium in the early years of the twentieth century. The name derives from the age old agrarian foundations, for "bouvier" is simply French for things having to do with the cattle or the cowherd, and the founding stock was indeed the gruff canine guardians of these Flemish meadows of the costal region adjacent to the North Sea.  The essential function was that of the drover and guardian, sharing a heritage with dogs such as the Rottweiler in the various regions of Germany and other droving and cattle guarding stock which had served in obscurity for a thousand years in the pastoral regions of Europe, all dominant, short coupled dogs with a unique blending of power and agility, in contrast to the fleetness and endurance of the herding dogs of the shepherd.

The creation of the Bouvier as a breed must be understood in the context of these Flemish people from which he emerged, following some twenty to thirty years in the footsteps of another famous Flemish working dog, the Malinois variety of the Belgian Shepherd.  The formal emergence of the Malinois as the prototype police dog from very roughly 1885 through 1905 was the foundation for a century of increasingly sophisticated and refined police dog service, and set the stage for the emergence of the Bouvier des Flandres.

Thus this rustic Bouvier served in obscurity for almost another generation in the remote northwestern regions of Flanders, adjacent to the sea, as the shepherd breeds commenced, prospered and gained world wide prominence.  Although growing interest and a hand full of registrations were made before WWI this great conflict, fought with such devastation in this entire region, delayed the real emergence until the early 1920s.

Many of the key personalities behind these two Flemish breeds were the same men, and the social and historical forces driving the process were similar.  Felix Verbanck, for many years president of the Belgian Bouvier des Flandres club, mentor to many, including Edmee Bowles in America, was not a Bouvier breeder at all but a famous breeder of a principal Malinois foundation line.  Men such as Louis Huyghebaert, who was the author of the principle existent history of the Bouvier des Flandres, will be famous as the father of the Malinois as long as men value such dogs.  Both of these breeds emerged from among the agrarian dogs of the Flemish people, were ushered into the twentieth century driven by the same societal, agricultural and economic changes and created for the same purpose as guard and police breeds, leaving an obsolete but honored herding heritage in the past.  

Beginning in the middle 1800s the sheep in the low countries, Belgium and Holland, were disappearing from the fields as wool and mutton was coming for very low prices from places such as Argentina and Australia, where they were evolving their own herding dogs for their own conditions.  The sheep dog was on the brink of obsolesce in Belgium , and the cattle dog was not far behind.

Beginning about 1890 in Germany and Belgium men were gathering these native shepherd's dogs, often literally from the fields, with the purpose of preserving this patrimony as the herding style of agriculture was driven from these regions of Europe by the industrial revolution the general movement of the people to the cities.  By 1905 there were well established national Belgian Shepherd breed clubs and police style training was ongoing in local clubs in several nations.  The Germans were preparing for war on a scale which would define the history of the twentieth century, and as a footnote also the fortunes of these emerging working breeds.

The first modern, formal police dog program had been established in Ghent, Belgium in 1900, and men from Britain , Germany , France and even the United States were coming to learn and seek out these famous Belgian police dogs.  This was in the very heart of Bouvier country, and indeed many of the photos of these Ghent police dogs are obviously of the primitive Bouvier type in spite of the fact that another twenty years, and a devastating war, would pass before Bouvier registration began in earnest.  The Germans, led by Konrad Most, were right behind, and German Shepherds and a few Airedales, Rottweilers and Dobermans were being established in police units across Germany and then into neighboring nations such as Austria.  The police dog had arrived, and was enormously popular both in service and as a civilian companion dog. 

In the 1890's an attempt to establish Belgian sheep herding trials in imitation of the British had been promoted, but quickly faded because of a lack of interest in an obsolete function; these men were looking to the future rather than grasping at the past.

The first decade of the twentieth century saw the establishment of national police dog working trial systems across continental Europe, including the Ring program in Belgium , the Dutch Police (KNPV) trials and the Schutzhund or protection dog program in Germany .  These became immensely popular and influential, and each has prospered until this day. 

As the Belgian Shepherd, especially the Malinois, was evolving into a breed in the modern sense from the herding and farming dogs in the Flemish region north of Brussels, further to the East, in the region of Ghent and Roulers, another agrarian dog was serving in obscurity.  In the lush meadows from the rivers Lys and Schlde to the North sea coast there was a larger, more rugged, more rough coated native working dog adapted to the cattle predominating in the region.  This rustic Bouvier also had his advocates, men unwilling to let him fade into history with a passing way of life, men who would preserve these dogs for a few brief years, extend the twilight before another generation would dissipate this heritage in the false glory of the show ring and allow it finally to pass, to their everlasting shame.  

Although there were in Belgium several competing registries and several styles of bouvier were being promoted, amid a great deal of impassioned rhetoric in the various popular magazines, the Bouvier as the breed which came down to modern times was first registered in Belgium with Societe Royale Saint-Hubert as the Bouviers des Roulers, after one of the principle cities of the region.  To give a sense of the area involved, other cities in the midst of this Bouvier emergence include Courtrai and Ypres.  Later the breed was registered by St. Hubert as Bouvier Belge des Flandres, and then about 1930 as simply the Bouvier des Flandres.  The other varieties, a small number of which were registered in both Belgium and France , faded away, a few individuals being incorporated into the Belgian Bouvier des Flandres breeding records.

Although there was written mention of primitive bouviers in the various books and magazines commencing about 1890, it was the twentieth century before Bouviers were exhibited in dog shows in meaningful numbers, in the Netherlands as well as Belgium, and 1914 before a written standard and registry was established in Belgium.  A few dogs, less than twenty, were registered before the war, and then nothing until the Germans had been driven back. In 1922 the Belgian national club was established and very soon thereafter the Dutch club came into existence. Although the Dutch began with Belgian breeding stock and had contact with the Belgians through the 1920s, thereafter the center of Bouvier activity moved from the Flemish speaking land of creation in Flandres to the French speaking areas of Belgium, resulting in a gradual loss of contact between Belgian and Dutch enthusiasts which continued during the second world war and through the 1950s.

To comprehend the Bouvier soul, we must look into the minds and hearts of these men who, in the time period roughly from 1910 through 1915, the eve of the war, were gathering together to preserve their native cattle dogs.  Just as in the creation of every breed, a concept of type, physical form, and character emerged and foundation stock was sought out according to these principles and ideals.

How were these foundation dogs to be selected?  For their new breed to prosper, it needed to attract advocates, and the police dog was the dog in demand for service and which roused the passion of the common man, the dog which had captured imaginations across continental Europe.  The prototype was to be the larger, more aggressive, more gruff dogs guarding the fields, and this is from whence the founding lines emerged.

The draft dog function was ubiquitous in this era, and the fate of these dogs was the subject of the book and subsequent movie "A Dog of Flandres" which had to do with the Flemish or Belgian mastiff or draft dogs, entirely different dogs from the Bouvier in spite of what is portrayed in the movies.  Any available dog was under duress no doubt pressed into service to turn a churn or pull a cart, but the preference was quite naturally the native draft dogs, destined to fade into oblivion.  These larger mastiff and draft dog types are mentioned in the foundation selections but were incorporated primarily to produce a larger and more muscular breed rather than one with an ongoing draft or carting functionality.

Farms world wide have their yard dogs, thirty or forty pounds, of no particular breed similar to the old fashioned farm collie dog in Britain .  Some would claim that these yard dogs are progenitors of the Bouvier too, but this is absurd, makes no sense at all.  These men creating the Bouvier were looking for the foundations of a police dog breed, and would have paid no notice to these nondescript yard dogs, but passed them by without a glance on the way to the fields and pastures in search of the guardian prototypes.

The creation of the Bouvier as a police and guard dog is without doubt; it is what was novel and popular, it is what was in demand for service,  it is what they said they were about, it is indeed what they declared in their standard for the world to see.  Modern dilatants seeking to portray herding, draft work or other functions as the purpose of the breed, or as sufficient basis for breeding selection, are profoundly ignorant or purposefully disingenuous; there is no other way to say it.  This Bouvier des Flandres was not a random gathering of the local farm dogs, but a rigorous selection from among the elite canine guardians of the region, as bred and passed down from generation to generation. 

The emerging new world was that of the police dog, the training and trialing organizations were in place and prospering mightily; and these Bouvier advocates knew they were late to the party and needed to catch up, to put dogs on the police and ring trial fields.  And by the middle 1920s men such as  Edmond Moreaux were winning trial field fame with dogs such as the immortal Francoeur de Liege.  In this era, the Bouvier soon had presence in the Belgian Ring championships and on the KNPV trial fields, was earning his place in this new canine police dog world.

Bouvier popularity grew steadily in Belgium , approaching a thousand in yearly registrations in the 1930s with many active and vigorous breeding programs. (A mere drop in the bucket of German Shepherd registrations.) Bouviers appear regularly in the records of the Belgian Ring working championships in this era.  Although the numbers were somewhat less in the Netherlands , growth was steady there also.

Although France is mentioned as a nation of origin, it is well documented fact that the vast majority of dogs known as Bouviers today spring from the breeding of the Dutch speaking herdsmen of Flandres, which spread first to French speaking Belgium and the Netherlands.  Although French records are very sparse, where they can be traced back French roots invariably go back to these founding Flemish dogs, first registered as the Bouviers des Roulers.

The Second World War devastated the Bouvier, not so much by the direct loss of dogs — although this was tragic — as by the damage done to the basic social fabric of Belgium by the second German atrocity in a generation. For five long years in the early 1950s fewer than 100 Bouviers were registered in Belgium with similar dismal numbers in the Netherlands and France . The breed did indeed come very near to flickering out. Justin Chastel and Felix Verbanck were the pillars in this era, and without their iron willed perseverance the Bouvier indeed might well not exist today.

Although a few odd dogs came to the Americas in the twenties and thirties, the arrival of Edmee Bowles from Belgium early in the war, fleeing the advancing German greed and plundering, began her American saga and the growth of the breed in this country. Beginning in the middle fifties and extending into the early eighties her du Clos des Cerberes line was not only the American fountainhead, it was recognized as among the best in the world by men such as Justin Chastel, modern founder of the breed in Belgium.

The work of the Bouvier des Flandres, the reason for which he was created, is police style search and protection work. In his creation, the founders melded the native cattle dogs with the larger native regional guard dogs, a natural response to the population shift to cities and industrial work that the agricultural revolution of the last century was causing all over Europe, and in which Belgium was among the earliest and most strongly effected. The words of the founders and guardians testify to this fact. As Felix Verbanck, primary leader of the Belgian club through the early 1960s, said:

"The breeders do not forget that the Bouvier is first of all a working dog, and although they try to standardize its type, they do not want it to lose the early qualities which first called attention to its desirability. For that reason, in Belgium a Bouvier cannot win the title of Champion unless he has also won a prize in a working competition as a police dog, as a defense dog or as an army dog."

Herding is not mentioned for the simple reason that there was no longer any herding to do in Belgium , that along with draft work, it was rapidly becoming obsolete when the Bouvier was being established in the formal sense.

Much more can be said, and has been in our book, "Bouvier des Flandres, the Dogs of Flandres Fields," to which you are referred. This article may be copied and published freely, on the web and in print, as long as absolutely no changes are made, my Copyright notice is maintained, and this statement as it appears here is included.