In the new Coton standard there is one main change that curiously almost nobody has noticed. The change is original since not many breed standards are insisting on it : it's the introduction of behavior and temperament not only as a part of the standard, but also as one of the main characteristics of the breed:

BEHAVIOR / TEMPERAMENT: Of a happy temperament, stable, very sociable with humans and with other dogs; it adapts perfectly to all ways of life. The temperament of the Coton de Tuléar is one of the main characteristics of the breed.

ELIMINATING FAULTS:

- "Aggressive or extremely shy specimen"

The reasons for that change:

Unfortunately in my country (France) 80 % of dogs are sold in pet stores. Only one third of dogs sold there, as pure breed, are in fact puppies registered in the stud book. The two thirds are dogs with no registration, and no pedigree. Again, some 80% of puppies sold in pet stores come from french puppy mills or from puppy mills of Eastern Europe. Anyone who purchases puppies as a wholesaler can get them from puppy mills at a price of 100-150 US$.

As far as I know, the situation is not much better in other european countries, except Scandinavia and Germany in some extent.
Since the Coton de Tulear is a popular and lovely breed, with no major health problems, easy to mate and easy to breed it has been partially confiscated by that kind of people.

To make things worst, for some of "official" breeders, who do register their puppies in the stud book, the Coton is all but their preferred breed. They breed many other breeds and they "produce" Cotons only for "alimentary" reasons, since it's "easy to sell". Statistics also show that all bitches of the same  "official"  breeders have only litters with a minimum of 6 puppies, (while the average for the 6000 litters born since the beginning of the breed here is 3,3 pup/litter).

Even if we dont have legal possibilities to deter those people who, just for easy money, might end  destroying the Coton, we tried to use the only weapon we have against them:  the breed standard.

That is the reason for introducing Coton behavior as a main characteristic. Pups coming from puppy mills, from pet stores or from breeders not caring for the breed are mainly poor, unhappy and frightened beings and will appear extremely shy or even aggressive. So they should not fulfill the new standard requirements. We do hope that judges worldwide will take seriously this point in consideration by penalizing those dogs and helping our struggle against puppy mills and pet stores.

I also hope that the Coton fanciers of the Cotoncanada list will present this point as often as possible to their judges to make sure they keep it in mind when judging our Cotons!

Thank you, Goran