The FCI 352 standard describes the Russkiy Toy as a small, well-balanced dog with a square outline, two coat varieties (smooth and long), a height at the withers of 20 to 28 cm and a weight that stays within the breed’s own limits rather than being bred down towards the smallest possible dog. It sets out the head, topline, movement and coat in enough detail that a judge can separate a correct toy from a merely tiny dog, and it treats the breed’s health as that of a small dog, not a fragile miniature.
What does the FCI 352 standard describe in the Russkiy Toy?
FCI standard 352 is the breed’s official blueprint. It covers the general appearance, the temperament, the head and skull, the eyes and ears, the neck and topline, the body proportions, the limbs, the gait and the coat. The key numbers are the height at the withers, 20 to 28 cm, and the weight, which the standard keeps in proportion to that height rather than rewarding the lightest possible dog. The outline is described as square, meaning the body length from the point of the shoulder to the point of the buttock is roughly equal to the height at the withers. The tail, the ears and the eyes are all specified, and the standard notes that the breed should be alert and lively in temperament.
For an owner, the practical value of the standard is that it gives you a vocabulary. When a breeder says a puppy is “correct”, you can ask which part of the standard they mean: the topline, the head, the coat, the movement. A dog that is simply very small is not automatically a good Russkiy Toy, and the standard is the document that says so. If you want the French-language version of that material, with the history and the French figures alongside it, the Russkiy Toy breed atlas sets out the standard, the size and the coat in one place.
How do the smooth and long coats differ?
The smooth coat is short, close and glossy, with no undercoat of any consequence and no feathering on the ears, legs or tail. The long coat is longer, with a soft undercoat and clear feathering on the ears, the limbs and the tail, and a distinct parting along the back. Both are accepted in the same breed, and both are judged on texture and outline rather than on length alone.
The practical difference for an owner is grooming and, to a lesser extent, how the dog copes with cold and wet. A smooth-coated Russkiy Toy needs very little beyond a rubber mitt and a warm coat in winter. A long-coated dog needs regular brushing, especially behind the ears, under the elbows and around the tail, where the coat mats first. Neither coat should be clipped short to make it easier to manage, because the coat is part of what the standard describes. If you are choosing between the two, the honest question is how much grooming you will actually do each week, not which one looks better in a photograph.
Which health points matter in a very small breed?
In a breed this small, the health points that matter are the ones that follow from size and from the shape of the skull, not from the breed being inherently fragile. The first is patellar luxation, the slipping of the kneecap, which is common in small breeds and is checked by a vet manipulating the stifle. The second is the dental problem that comes with a small jaw: crowded teeth, retained baby teeth and early periodontal disease. The third is the trachea, because a very small dog’s windpipe is easily irritated by a collar and lead, which is why a harness is the sensible default. The fourth is the fontanelle, the soft spot on the top of the skull, which should close but can remain slightly open in some toy breeds and is worth asking about. The fifth is the eye, where conditions such as dry eye and lens luxation appear more often in small breeds than in large ones.
None of this means the Russkiy Toy is a sickly breed. It means the checks are specific. A breeder who knows the breed will be able to tell you which of these have been seen in their lines and what they have done about it. A breeder who answers “never had a problem” to every question is telling you they do not track the information, not that the dogs are perfect.
How is a serious breeder recognised?
A serious breeder is recognised by what they can show you, not by what they say. They will show you the dam with the puppies, in the home, and they will not hand a puppy over before eight weeks. They will give you the pedigree and the health records, and they will be able to explain the results rather than just hand over a certificate. They will ask you questions about your home, your working hours and your experience with small dogs, because a Russkiy Toy that is left alone all day is a welfare problem. They will let you meet the sire, or at least show you his records, and they will be honest about the breed’s drawbacks: the barking, the house-training that takes patience, the coat that needs work.
In France, the breed’s numbers are small enough that the breeder network is not large, and the French stud book figures are published each year. A serious breeder will know those figures and will be able to tell you where their dogs sit within them. They will also be able to tell you which club represents the breed in France and what the club’s criteria are for a litter to be registered. If a breeder cannot tell you any of that, the paperwork is not the problem; the breeder is.
The figures that frame the breed in France
The Russkiy Toy is a numerically small breed in France. The French stud book, the Livre des Origines Français, publishes registrations by breed each year, and the Russkiy Toy sits in the low hundreds rather than the thousands. That matters for two reasons. First, a small population means a smaller gene pool, so health checks and honest record-keeping carry more weight than they would in a numerically large breed. Second, it means the breed is not widely known, so a buyer is more likely to meet a breeder who is the only one in their region, and less likely to be able to compare several litters side by side.
The history of the breed runs from the late nineteenth century to the present, and the documented record is thinner than the legends. The breed is usually traced to Russian toy dogs of the 1800s, with the English Toy Terrier and other small breeds appearing in the ancestry, and the modern standard was formalised in the twentieth century. The French club and the FCI standard 352 are the two documents that anchor the breed today. If you are buying a puppy, those are the two things to read before you visit, because they tell you what the dog should be and what the paperwork should say.
What to check before you commit
Ask for the height and weight of both parents, not just the puppy. Ask which health checks have been done on the parents and what the results were. Ask to see the dam with the litter. Ask what the breeder does if the puppy turns out to have a problem the vet finds at the first check. Ask how many litters the dam has had and how old she is. Ask what the breeder feeds and why. A breeder who answers all of that without irritation is a breeder worth travelling for.
Then take the puppy to your own vet within the first few days, with the vaccination record and the pedigree in hand. Your vet will check the knees, the teeth, the fontanelle, the eyes and the heart, and will tell you what to watch as the dog grows. In a breed this small, that first check is not a formality. It is the baseline you will compare everything else against for the next fifteen years.