Are you a dog breeder, or Just breeding dogs ?

Fall into a conversation at any dog show with someone who has been in the sport for 30 years or more and inevitably the subject turns to the decline of overall quality in so many breeds. I’ve had many such conversations recently. Glamorous, showy, beautifully schooled and presented dogs abound at American dog shows, and many people are dazzled by their condition, trim and showmanship, and feel these dogs are amazing and so deserving of everything that they win. And then there are those of us of the Old School who remember when dog shows were as much about the dog as they were about the show. The quality of the dog came first; the showmanship and fancy trim were icing on the cake. These days, they seem to be pretty much the whole cake, including the icing! We lament that so many top-winning dogs lack a number of breed characteristics so basic yet critical that we simply cannot believe that these dogs are heralded as great ones. Either few breeders and judges are reading the breed standards and striving to interpret them, or they have no true understanding of the requirements in those standards, or they simply don’t care as long as the dogs they are producing and pointing at are fancy and showy.

Many people who have been in dogs for a very long time are of the opinion that it is the demise of the large breeding kennels that has so adversely affected the quality of current show dogs. Those breeders with 100 dogs to choose from and the opportunity to create many litters a year did for sure have more room for error, more chance to experiment with pedigree combinations and many more dogs to pick from when choosing one for the show ring. For every one that surfaced as a show dog, there were probably 20 back in the kennel that were never seen by the public. Certainly there were advantages to this method of breeding, but I personally do not see the loss of these kennels as the reason for the decline in the quality of many of today’s breeds. In my mind it is not that current breeders lack large numbers of dogs to work with but instead it is that they lack real knowledge of their chosen breed because they missed the true opportunity to gain the in-depth schooling that comes from long-term mentorship.

 Please go to :http://www.dogchannel.com/dogsinreview/are-you-a-dog-breeder-or-just-breeding-dogs.aspx for the rest of this interesting article! 

What are some of the qualities that make a committed dog breeder? I agree with the author of this article's opinon that the best breeders take the time and make the effort to :

1. Gain knowledge from mentors

 "...She instilled in me an ethic about dog breeding that I strive to uphold to this day. She was my go-to person for the rest of her life. I never outgrew her, and I surely never thought I knew more than she did about dogs. She was my second mother, my friend, my conscience and my strongest critic. She guided me, schooled me, reined me in when I needed it and forced me to think for myself by always offering me a choice when I needed help. (She never just gave me the answer: She gave me two, and then helped me work through to the correct answer.) Betty taught me many things, one of the most important being how to create a breeding program and build a family of dogs that would breed true to a vision of perfection that I would eventually create in my mind..."

2. Study your breed standard 

If you were the architect who had created the blueprint for a functional building that was going to serve a particular purpose, do you think that the contractor hired to do the actual building should be able to make changes to suit his own whims because he "likes it better that way”? Of course not. And if he did, the end result would most likely be a building that failed miserably at its intended function or even collapsed. The same theory should apply to our dogs when we breed them. We need to keep them capable of easily performing the functions for which they were originally developed, not change them into caricatures that exude some sort of beauty but are riddled with failings when compared to their breed standard.

 3. Understand the Influece of Type and Style

 Instead, breeding should be based on years spent learning about your chosen breed from knowledgeable mentors who are willing to share; understanding your standard and applying that standard to produce a family of dogs that breed true in type while having a style distinctly their own; and, most importantly, fit the breed standard as closely as possible generation after generation. If this is how you are breeding dogs, then you are a dog breeder.

From the June 2014 issue of Dogs in Review magazine. Subscribe to receive 12 months of Dogs in Reviewmagazine, or call 1-888-738-2665 to purchase a single copy.