Link: Rosettes to Ruin. Interesting article for breeder education
The number of
working dogs ruined by the show ring grows every year.
Irish Setters, once famed
at finding birds, are now so brain-befogged they can no
longer find the front door. Cocker Spaniels, once
terrific pocket-sized birds dogs, have been reduced to
poodle-coated mops incapable of working their way through
a field or fence row. Fox terriers are now so large they
cannot go down a fox hole. Saint Bernards, once proud
pulling dogs, are now so riddled with hip dysplasia that
it's hard to find one that can walk without surgery in
old age.
In recent years,
protectors of at least two working breeds -- the Border
Collie and the Jack Russell Terrier -- have gone to war
with the AKC in an effort to protect the working
qualities of their dogs.
Unfortunately, those
seeking to protect the gene pool of working dogs -- and
the tradition of breeding worker to worker -- lost and
both breeds are now found in the AKC show ring. While
there are still working Border Collies and working Jack
Russell Terriers, the number of honest working dogs of
either breed in the AKC show ring is small and is falling
rapidly. In time it is likely that these two breeds will
in fact split off from their working roots as has
happened with gun dogs where there are
"working" labs and "show labs" and
"working" pointers and "show"
pointers.
Lesson One in the
world of dogs is that if you put anything above breeding
for utility, you will start to lose working abilities.
Work is a tough task
master and it shows no favoritism. Fox and pheasant do
not judge "up the leash" nor are they taken in
by fads. Quarry is not much interested in nose or eye
color, the set of the ear, or the "expression"
on a dog's face as it creeps up a hedgerow.
In working dogs, utility
is beauty, and "beauty is as beauty does."
E.L. Hagedoorn, a Dutch
consulting geneticist to dog breed societies around the
world, believed the show ring would ruin working dog
breeds, and time has proven him right. As he noted in his
1939 book:
"In the
production of economically useful animals, the show
ring is more of a menace than an aid to breeding.
Once fancy points are introduced into the standard of
perfection, the breeders will give more attention to
those easily judged qualities than to the more
important qualities that do not happen to be of such
a nature that we can evaluate them at shows. Showing
has nothing to do with utility at all, it is simply a
competitive game."
A noted breeder of alpacas
said much the same thing, noting that when farm stock is
judged on the basis of wool or meat it is a different
standard than that used at shows:
"Breeding
animals for the shows is a very peculiar business,
because of the fact that it is wholly competitive.
Whereas the breeder of utility sheep or utility pigs
produces something that has a certain market value,
which is not changed very much even if ten of his
neighbors start in with him to raise the same sort of
sheep or hogs, breeding animals for the shows can
only pay the man who succeeds in producing such stock
as is pronounced by the judges of the moment to be
the most beautiful and the most fashionable."
The "judge of the moment" in a show ring
may know very little about real terrier work.
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