Briards

[lizzybeth727]

I heard today that the life expectancy for briards is only about 4 years!



Is that true?? The person who told me said it was because they all die of cancer at young ages. She said that at one time there were only like 55 briards in the country, so there was a lot of inbreeding which resulted in the prevalance of cancer.

Is this a myth??

[Zoom]

Someone better tell that to the 6 year old Briard I knew...

[jess2416]

http://www.briard.com/about/health.html

[lizzybeth727]

I actually read that link before posting here, and as you can see, it's not very specific as to the actual life expectancy of the breed as a whole.

6 years old still sounds young.... Zoom, do you know if it died of cancer??

[xpaeanx]

all the sites I see say 10-12 yrs

[MicksMom]

Originally Posted by Zoom

Someone better tell that to the 6 year old Briard I knew...

And the one someone in one of my classes owns who's somewhere around 10. She's had Birards for years now, I'll try to remember to ask her what their life expectancy is when I see her tomorrow.

[shadowfacedanes]

Briards are prone to bloat and cancers, but do have a higher life expectancy than four. Either that, or the 15+ briards I used to care for were anomolies. I believe the youngest one they lost while I worked for them was 5 or 6 but it was due to a very rare and untreatable cancer. The rest of their briards live(d) well into old age, which was anywhere from 9 to 14 years old.

And when I say lived to be that old, I mean lived full throttle. Those dogs are amazing. One day when I can cope with the grooming requirements, I'll add one if the breeder I worked for is still breeding at that point.