Because I’m getting lots of comments from people who don’t get it, I’m posting a link to this again.
This isn’t sensationalized journalism. Of course, if you don’t like the message, you’ll say everything to tarnish the message and the messenger.
Hey, I’m in politics. I get it.
When you give a hit, you’d better be prepared to take one.
It seems that for some in the dog fancier world it has a lot to do with control. To somehow bully those who come to them for a dog into thinking that the dog is forever theirs even after selling it to you. Well, if the contracts for buying one of their dogs was that strict as to detail that even after an exchange of money that you still have no rights to the dog as solely your own then the show minded breeders would be selling a lot less dogs. Because, those contracts don’t keep the buyers coming, especially when they have choices.
Responsible breeding goes further than tests and titles. Its a skill that you just have to be good at or sadly just bad at. For most breeders they wind up being mediocre while convincing themselves and others they are the exception, while raising their dogs and pups in a line of kennels in a separate barn or a bunch of huts outdoors and yet still feel they should demand top dollar for their poor effort into raising you a well adjusted puppy (in their minds) . Terrierman was quoted “That for the dog that is being purchased as a pet that there is even more reason to be concerned with the health of that dog than there is with a show dog”. I got what he meant then and now. I understand that in the show circuit there isn’t much except to get that title. I’ve yet to witness any show minded breeders that are there just to be a part of the fun. They are there to best the rest and look down their noses when they do win. IN the effort to get more show people looking at their dogs and consider paying top dollar for stud fees and brood fees just so they can have the next winner.
If you talk health with any of them then suddenly they start to talk about the conformation aspects as if that is a way of defining a healthy dog over the rest. It merely is their definition of what a healthy looking specimen is rather than a truly healthy dog. And again some of them might actually know the history of their dogs to the point of knowing what was mixed to obtain them in the form we see before us today, yet if you ask any of them if they would go through the effort to recreate this process….. suddenly blank stares. Why do that? For people who are supposed to be the professional breeders… they sure as hell say and do some really dumb things.
I now have a kennel that for whatever reason wants my dogs. But fortunately for my dogs since I am not harming them, or exploiting them the law is on my side. And whatever contracts these fanatics flash in my face, it fails them time and again. Perhaps in the past these breeders could sway a judge to see things their way, but the world is catching onto the real injustice. And our Dogs may actually start to benefit from it when all the OLD Kennel owners move on and the new age owners take over. It seems the majority of sane individuals see more merit in a mix breed over purebred dogs currently and the trend is quickly starting to accept mix breeds over the pure bred dogs. AKC membership is down. Interest in Conformation events is down and the public is starting to see things beyond the facade the show fanciers have put up for generations.
I just want to be there to witness the whole thing come crashing in on itself before we see our favorite breed’s genetic diversity implode. I have a feeling that in the future there will be some relief from the status quo and another choice will present itself. I can predict with certainty that the current trend of the dogfancier will see the majority of the population choose to leave them completely to deal with themselves among themselves. Sort of like an insane asylum. While the sane people of this world start to raise dogs. Imagine that.
People do not like the idea of the dog fancy as political. Hence the smearing of Mark Derr.
It was founded by the Sir Tuftons and Sir Buftons of British society in the 50’s. Then the Americans copied them along with the rest of Europe.
The reason why we think of curs as mixed breeds and not a functional strain that breeds true is that people who worked for a living typically didn’t waste tons of energy into “improving” their working dogs. They were in the strange concept of breeding a dog that works to another dog that works. The old gents who ran gun dogs certainly did, as their wives did with their small house dogs. Then they started “improving” collies and other working breeds. It wasn’t long before most strains of dog were placed into institutionalized breeds.
Those strains that remain outside the fancy were called curs in the US. Because they varied too much they got confused with randomly bred dogs. They were not. They are these “unimproved’ working dogs that small farmers have kept for generations.
I absolutely love this commentary: http://terriermandotcom.blogspot.com/2006/04/thank-you-for-not-breeding.html
Did you know the average length of time a person shows and breeds dogs is 5 years?
5 years. Just enough time to totally eff up a dog.
http://terriermandotcom.blogspot.com/2009/01/good-old-lessons-from-good-old-timers.html
This one right here is quite good, too.
Good grief, of course the dog fancy is political. Any time more than five people participate in ANYTHING politics is involved. But there’s a huge difference between saying that something is political and alleging stuff that is completely untrue.
Derr is just plain wrong that all Chessies are dark brown and the same size. Just WRONG. That’s not a political statement; that’s poor research and he ought to be ashamed of himself.
Derr is wrong that a 100-lb Chessie is just as worth breeding as a 70-lb one. He doesn’t understand how dog bodies work if he thinks that. Again, it’s poor research.
Where people say things that are untrue, they deserve to be criticized, and people shouldn’t trust them. That’s how the system is supposed to work.
I’ve watched Pedigree Dogs Exposed, oh, ten times now. It’s hideously poorly researched; as far as I can tell their entire research effort is a series of Google Images searches. If you go to my blog, I’ve taken their examples one by one and analyzed them. You’re welcome to take a look at what I did and prove me wrong, but please don’t use google images to do so. And without accessing that accursed bulldog skull, the image of which was stolen from Bone Clones and has NOTHING to do with show breeding.
And no, syringomyelia in Cavaliers has nothing to do with breeding for a round head or a small head. Cavs have huge heads compared to their bodies. And there are many breeds with shorter, rounder heads that don’t have SM. Nobody knows what causes it, nobody knows how it’s inherited. It’s all guesswork at this point, which is why the Cavalier people are paying bazillions of dollars to MRI their dogs and why they’ve donated tens of thousands to research.
I do have to agree with Ruffly on some things about PDE: Showing how the Bull Terrer’s head has evolved in order to ‘shock’ people was very puzzling to me. I mean, the breed HAS issues but I don’t think any of them have to do with it’s lack of stop. The latest news from the Cav club shown in PDE, however, is that they expelled the lady who was pushing for more testing and voted down requiring testing for the disease in the club’s charter. I don’t know how that fact could be spun positively. But then again, the show was -purposely- highlighting the worst examples.
It seems to me that, although the overall message of the show was correct, it also dealt with issues that are in some ways unique to Britain and the KC. Not only is there ratio of pure to mutt completely backwards to the U.S., but because of their import restrictions, genetic diversity is MUCH smaller there than in some other countries, and the show community is MUCH smaller. I’d say they’re a good example of the future of many breeds (and the present of some) if other kennel clubs’ cultures are not improved in many ways. I know there are clubs in other countries that are actually doing very well and actually improving the health and COI of their dogs, as well as implementing things like COI restrictions and health testing requirements for registration. Throw in allowances for controlled outcrossing for the heavily inbred breeds with endemic genetic issues and I believe things could be improved A LOT. But ‘purebred culture’ has to change from the inside — the ‘old guard’ has to die off first and the more progressive breeders need to get involved politically.
I actually think the internet is helping with that, it’s allowing networking, information and discussion that couldn’tve happened 10-15 years ago. I honestly believe that purebred dogs can be saved and maintained ethically. But some things have to change to modernize the entire hobby and bring it inline with other animal husbandry hobbies (like horses) who embraced constructive outcrossing years ago.
Ironically, the changes that the KC felt forced to make by the show will isolate the British dogs even further and make them into genetic islands.
The UK dogs have long been seen as some of the very best in the entire world. Across the board, they really know how to breed dogs. British breeders understand how to get a sound shoulder, a moderate dog that is not exaggerated, lovely bone, sound movement. I can’t think of any other country where more dogs across more breeds are admired.
So where the UK was able to have some new genes come in was in reciprocal arrangements with show breeders outside their country. MANY UK dogs go to the northern European countries, many come to the US. Puppies or grandpuppies of those dogs (which represent new genetic material) are then sent back to the UK.
By changing the UK standards to the point that they do not meet either FCI or AKC expectations for the breeds (and I’m not talking Pekes here; look at the changes to the hounds, herders, sporting dogs, etc., many of which have nothing to do with the health of the dog), the appearance of those breeds will change and depart from the international expectations. So the US breeders will no longer trade dogs. The FCI may, in fact, throw out a bunch of the UK breeds (they do this when a country radically changes the appearance of a breed, like the American Akita). The isolation of the breeds will be accelerated.
I’m 100% in favor of establishing COI guidelines, but you need to realize how slippery this is. Do you mean COI over four generations? Ten? Fifty? Each of these options means VERY different things about individual pairings and about the future of the breed. Making a fast or foolish decision on COI will destroy breeds.
I’m not in favor of hunt tests, because I’ve seen how they destroy cooperation between kennel clubs. I’ve seen a heck of a lot more hatred between the German clubs and the American clubs over “fur sharpness” (which is a hunt test) than I’ve ever seen between AKC groups.
A British show golden retriever is about as useful as a working dog as a bulldog is for catching wild hogs.
This is why dog shows are terrible things. You are blaming the people who are pointing out that these things are harming dogs long-term. I can tell you that in the Scandinavian countries, which are FCI, they have already started implementing even more drastic reforms than the ones in Britain. The FCI and the KC will probably reform themselves. The AKC has lost much of its institutional legitimacy.
You are under some weird impression that all dog people care about breed standards. I care about working conformation. Most working dog people won’t have these problems, because a breed standard is a (gasp) contrivance.
I like working golden lines from the UK. Perfect things to add to the gene pools of our dogs here.
What needs to be done away with is this thing called a closed registry, and this problem will be solved.
But we’re in a paradigm revolution (Thomas Kuhn–science philospher) right now in the science of breeding dogs.
The old paradigm was based upon a flawed logic called blood purity. Now, science is questioning it.
Most dog breeders have been slow to react, as have our registries.
Any registry that wants to be relevant in the future had better figure out that conformation shows and closed studbooks are reaching their end point. If a registry doesn’t adapt to this new world, it will disappear.
In 25 years, we won’t be breeding and registering dogs in the same way we do today. The paradigm is about to shift.
You are like Buckley “standing athwart history yelling ‘Stop’!”
It’s been a nice run, but it’s about to end.
Ruffly: I would say that the final decision about COI details would of course depend on the breed. Each breed has it’s own unique circumstances and genetic history, and needs to be evaluated individually by people who are experts in the breed and in genetics in general.
Nobody is saying things should be done quickly or foolishly. But they need to be DONE, and most clubs have not even started, or else are making NO real progress. We need to identify why that is, what cultural aspects of showing and breeding and club/registry politics are holding back progress, and hammer at them until they come out of the 19th century already. For the good of the breeds themselves.
Most of them are in denial. The AKC is in total denial– although it does fund health research, it’s a dollar short and day late.
I think they will be done, but probably won’t be done by the institutions as they exist right now.
US institutions (I’m speaking as political scientist here) generally don’t change easily. It doesn’t matter what it is.
Labs and cruciate injuries. Seems to run in some of the popular and productive lines, but with the tough training they endure it’s hard to say.
Get the FC-AFC. Injury. Get the TPLO surgery, return to the circuit; get the next TPLO, maybe return to the circuit, maybe retire. Not a big deal for some folks (though I bet the dogs don’t enjoy it), but at 5-10 thou a knee including fancy rehab, you’d better know your field breedings, and I’m convinced it wouldn’t hurt to have a conformation friend look at a good standing picture, to minimize your risk if you can’t spare the change and would rather spare the dog the discomfort!
Breeding only for performance is bad, too.
Balance.
The breed ring CAN help in establishing and keeping balance. Maybe, perhaps. If the standard works and is followed.
BTW, how did your dogs do this weekend?
Well, it was sort of a mixed bag. Since you asked…
The flattie did a super job on day one and got her first little ribbon; they were short hunty little marks, lots of cover and obstacles on land and reeds in the water; I was pleased with her desire, marking, and line manners, and I was comfortable running her. Day two she did a great job on land, but on water we had two longer retrieves and we haven’t done much water work to speak of, and the first long swim was nice, but the second long swim she spooked on something and I was too slow with a “fetch it up” and couldn’t get her back to the bird. It’s a trait she’s shown before, a bit of a young flat-coat thing perhaps (sorry flat-coat lovers, but I call it like I see it), and we’ll have to work on it with different types of funky water distractions. It was really disappointing, but she’s young and talented.
My Lab and I were doing a nice job and made it to the third series in great shape; he marked well on both land and water. The first land setup was a triple with a tight walking honor, and the marks were what I would call a little tricky (criss-crossing over each other), and he stepped on all three, including an out of order flyer that landed behind a gun station, and he lined the blind; the land-water marks were a triple as well, he got the water bird and the middle bird nicely, and had a smart hunt on the key bird where I had to really cross my arms on to keep from handling, but he worked it out with style; a double blind was nice, really working with me where some other nice dogs hacked it up a good deal. Then the water series was down in a flooded stick pond, and he marked well and worked great as the first dog through a whole bunch of brush and briars and crap on the flooded shore and a tempting diversion bird–but I had a mental lapse and lost him on a blind tight to shore and he wrapped around out of site. It was his first true water blind of the year, and he wanted to seek the edge and I should have handled him earlier. It got a lot of dogs; I’d like to think that if I’d had a chance to see a few failures I would have been a bit quicker on that first whistle.
It’s thrilling to know you’re working as a team, and a terrible feeling when your dog comes back without the bird because you let down your end of the work. But he’s a great dog and did a nice job for me.
So, not a great weekend, but things to be pleased with anyway.
Oh, well, at least the dogs had a good time.
Handling these dogs is a skill unto itself.
How many flat-coats were at the test?
Entries were way down–economy???
84 entries of 61 dogs (some dogs ran a stake each day): 42 Labs; 8 flatcoats (3 in master, 3 in senior, 2 in junior); 5 goldens; 4 tollers; 2 Chessies.
The flat-coat had fun–she has fun no matter what. The big dog, though, I swear, knew he failed when I called him in without a bird. He looked positively depressed, the poor guy–the very portrait of a hang-dog look. Up until then he had fun.
Rufflyspeaking wrote: “And without accessing that accursed bulldog skull, the image of which was stolen from Bone Clones and has NOTHING to do with show breeding.”
We STOLE the bulldog skull? I suggest you should be a little more careful of challenging our professional integrity by accusing us stealing.
I have never heard of Bone Clones. Our bulldog skulls came from a Swiss museum. We built the morph. And it is provable nonsense to suggest that show breeding is not responsible for distorting the bulldog into the hideous mess it is today.
I am absolutely fed up of people who think it is all right to accuse us of poor research but then just make things up to support their lazy claims. That goes for the accusation of our “entire research effort” being “a series of Google imagine searches” too.
So insulting.
And while am here, Rufflyspeaking said: “And no, syringomyelia in Cavaliers has nothing to do with breeding for a round head or a small head. Cavs have huge heads compared to their bodies. And there are many breeds with shorter, rounder heads that don’t have SM. Nobody knows what causes it, nobody knows how it’s inherited. It’s all guesswork at this point, which is why the Cavalier people are paying bazillions of dollars to MRI their dogs and why they’ve donated tens of thousands to research.”
Just what makes you think you know better than the key researchers? The film stated clearly that the problem with the cavalier stems from a mismatch between skull and brain-size – not that they have round or small heads. Whatever other factorss are involved, it really is NOT normal pathology for the cerebellum to squeeze out of the rear of the skull causing compression of the spinal cord. Yes, there is still much to learn, and nobody knows exactly how it’s inherited. But it does have a high heritability (.8) and so selecting away from should help. As for the clubs donating “tens of thousands to research” – again, you need to check your facts. And what HAS been donated has, believe me, been dragged out of a community in which way too many breeders have denied the condition for way too long. (With no offence meant towards those breeders who have totally grasped the issue and are doing everything they can to help solve this hideous problem.)
As a Cavalier owner and lover who has known about SM a couple of years and been on support lists for those dealing with it in their dogs . . . a heartfelt thankyou, Jemima.
In regards to clubs donating to research, they didn’t do this until they were pushed and prodded and dragged by concerned researchers and pet owners dealing with this disease. I read on lists as “health nutters” were poked fun of by many breeders. This is a link to an SM site put up in 1999 by PET OWNERS out of frustration as clubs would not acknowledge their concern about SM in the breed. http://website.lineone.net/~malburley/page5.html
Pet owners have a need to be more focused on health more so than any show minded breeder. A pet owner is thinking about this investment in a pet as a long term addition to the family, not a short term run for some ribbons.
“… more so than any show minded breeder …”
You are so right. Any breeder that puts a dog in the ring is breeding for glory alone. Because there’s so much glory in it. People bow to them on the streets. I see it all the time, now that you have opened my eyes.
It has nothing to do with demonstrating a breed standard conformation, ever. In any breed. By any breeder. Sure. Got it.
And every breeder who sells pets exclusively is in it for the health of the dogs. Every pet breeder.
Because we are dealing in absolutes here, apparently.
Oh–and no show breeder would ever sell a pet. Because there are so many show homes out there. And the dogs all keel over at like age 4, so they gotta be replaced quick. So there’s no overlap or connection between a good pet and a show dog. Ever.
Evil, evil breeders, every single one of them.
I was paraphrasing the beloved terrierman F&L. Don’t take it so hard. Its just the way it is.
Sengimage says –
“Pet owners have a need to be more focused on health more so than any show minded breeder. A pet owner is thinking about this investment in a pet as a long term addition to the family, not a short term run for some ribbons.”
And yet, most breeders that show or compete with their dogs (at least in the breed you and I & F&L have in common) guarantee their puppies to be free of known hereditary conditions. If the breed has a hereditary problem, and there is ANY way to test or screen for that problem, most breeders’ contracts will offer a replacement puppy or a refund or financial assistance if a pup is diagnosed with that problem.
Of course, since Sengimage doesn’t feel that contracts carry any weight, then that won’t be something that they will have to deal with when one of their “clients” encounter a problem…
And if Sengimage chooses to paraphrase “the beloved Terrierman”, why don’t they ask him how he feels about their breeding program. He makes a concerted effort to work his dogs almost every week.
Let’s see. No FCRs over four, three mixed breed litters planned or on the ground so far, no clue about working ability. Terrierman does value a dog that can do a day’s work.
Any pheasants or ducks in Sengimage’s freezer? Mornings (early, say 5 a.m.) spent arranging decoys and hiding in a duck blind? Days trudging through fields, waiting for a dog to flush a pheasant (chucker, quail, partridge) holed up in a stand of brush?
Testing working ability when someone lives in a subdivision (as I do, and as Sengimange does) requires a LOT of extra effort. Training club memberships. Agreements with land owners. Acquiring training birds (live & dead) from providers frequently several states away. Hooking up with training groups and trainers to replicate hunt test scenarios. Guides, hunt club memberships, friends with land with wild birds to hunt & train with. Trust me. That’s a LOT harder in Northern California than it is in Pennsylvania.
I work my dogs. I have some awesome pheasant & mallard recipes. I have a freezer full of game. It is vitally important that my dogs are fit, healthy and able to work well into old age.
Terrierman works his dogs. I think he would agree that the true test of a breeding program and of a working dog is their ability to do a days work well into old age.
Sengimage?????
You have chukar in California?
We don’t have them here.
Yep, in Susanville and north. It’s hard on the dogs, though. Lots of lava rock. The first time Joe took Pete up there, his pads were ripped to shreds.
Of course, Pete didn’t let on until after the day of hunting. He did the same when we ran him in Eastern Washington. Poor boy had abrasions that completely covered his pads and the space between the pads. But he wouldn’t stop hunting. That was our first lesson in hunting a dog with a lot of drive.
The dog won’t stop, so you have to take responsibility for the well-being of the dog….
We have only limestone and sandstone for our dogs to run on.
That can’t really cut them, but if you run them in some streams, you have to watch and make sure they don’t cut themselves on discarded bottles and pieces of glass.
Yes PS . Yes I am up at 4 am for a walk in the woods with the pack then a run on the farm where they will find all the “Toys” hidden in the grass left out in the evening before. A call out to Dog 1 with a point of my arm to search and retrieve in that direction possibly 50 or more yards out …. he comes back with his “toy”. Call out to Bitch 1 she does the same. Then Dog2…. the same. Sometimes this is happening before the sun is up. ;-) Once these three have brought their toys in I call to the younger ones and send them off to retrieve these toys where ever it lands when thrown. They wait for the command and go. On the weekends I sometimes do this in the morning with my oldest children with me. They enjoy it as much as the dogs do. This happens maybe three times a day. Sometimes more but the mornings have the older ones doing a blind retrieve. Sorry no ducks. Do I require a duck to enjoy this?
Why live in the country if you can’t enjoy it? For some that doesn’t involve hunting the wild game to appreciate it. Nor does it involve training with a bird to satisfy the drive a dog requires. If you wish it to be a bird then in the dog’s mind its just a different “Toy”.
I have steaks and Chops in my freezer. But, I’m surprised you didn’t know that already PS. Next time I’ll keep records of that for you to mull over in all your spare time too. Perhaps you’ll find it interesting that since dogs are not all I live for that I actually designed my own home in my subdivision and that 90 acres of woodlands and 180 acres of green pastures is literally my back yard. And my neighbors are wonderful at raising cattle and horses. ;-)
And my neighbors have actually borrowed my dogs for their own forays into the woods for their turkey shoots. ;-) Lovely isn’t it. oops I forgot…those are birds they retrieve. Pretty big ones, too. And I’ve had the pleasure of a wild turkey and some Venison from our neighbors walk in. Unfortunately the way we raise our children we just can bring ourselves to get them into any type of gun hobby. So hunting for us is not in the cards. If it is your hobby….then thats pretty cool. If you ever visit my …eerrrr umm, subdivision come have some tea with us on the veranda overlooking the woods in front of my home or we can have a barbeque on the deck overlooking the woodlands to the left and a beautiful farm to the right in my back yard, perhaps with some dogs running around playing keep away or fetch with 5 children. You’re always welcome.
From our first litter we re-homed two pups we felt were in a bad situation. From our second litter we foot the bill for a Veterinary visit and medication for a run in with our client’s pup had with an outdoor cat. From our last litter and one before that we took back pups to provide some additional training and housebreaking. Hmmm, Okay Kettle care to call the Pot black again?
I prefer to live my life as I see fit and enjoy my dogs who enjoy this life, too. If it involves playing pretend hunter for you…. again thats cool. I prefer to play retrieve this and that with a pack of retrievers. Perhaps with all the exercise they receive and the stimulation they receive. We both achieve very similar results in a very different manner. That’s why we all have choices and why we all can achieve great things without having to follow a status quo invented by some bored and boring individuals.
Oh by the way. My Psychology college courses for four years help me to pick out certain traits pretty quickly. And for the most part. Most Breeders seem to have a need to control things. That tends to be the clients who “purchase” their products. When they lose control. They tend to act well….. like you.
All I can say is well, this is a free country, so get over it.