Mary, Mary, Quite
Contrary??
The old nursery rhyme went “Mary, Mary, quite contrary, how
does your garden grow? With silver
bells and cockle shells and great big awful eggplants!” (The eggplants were my
idea)
Just as the modern rendition of the nursery rhyme has been
tweaked by this dinosaur, so has breeding and exhibiting dogs changed over the
years. We used to breed our
bitches to the one stud we considered most suitable based on a careful
study of what we expected both sire and dam to bring to the party. What they each showed in outward
physical type was weighed, as was their ancestry, and any record of past
producing tendencies.
If we shipped a bitch to a stud somewhere far from home and
could not witness the breeding, we had the breeder’s integrity to trust as to
the breeding. Some breeders
furnished a photograph of the tie, but there was no DNA testing. Some studs were dominant to the point
you could pick out their offspring, but basically trust was what you bought
when you shipped. Shipping a bitch
today has also gotten very expensive compared to years ago. Airlines would really rather not handle
live animals.
Today we have people breeding bitches to more than one stud
and they use DNA testing to straighten out the parentage. I have no idea what all this costs, but
obviously all the animals involved must have their DNA recorded somewhere. If you really can’t decide who the best
match would be for your bitch I suppose this type of Russian Roulette has some
merit. You can test your bitch with
multiple studs and decide which to go back to in the future. Of course, if none of the pups turn out
to be exceptional, it’s back to the drawing board or the sperm bank.
This method reminds me a bit of handlers who show many
specials at the National. In the
old days good handlers used to pick out the dog or bitch that they thought had
the best chance under that judge and let the chips fall where they may. I don’t know if what we see today is
just a result of not being able to decide which one is best, a desire to pick
up more money, or having no idea what a judge may like. In any event it lets people cover more
bases just like breeding to multiple studs. I suppose if you do that you may seem smarter, at least in
your own estimation. We have lots
of changes in dog shows just as we do in breeding dogs. Back in the old days you could find two
shows a week (Saturday and Sunday) and often with a drive between shows. The only circuit I can recall was in
Florida in January each year. In
fact in the East the show season pretty much shut down after Philadelphia and
Camden in early December and didn’t start back up until The Garden. Dogs and people got a break unless they
went to Florida.
Today we have dog shows which have sprouted up like
mushrooms. The old rules which
governed the spacing between shows seems to have gone by the boards. As these many, many shows compete for
entries, some will inevitably fall by the wayside. The cost of judges, venues,
and superintendants will weed out the excess. As the shows go belly up that can’t compete so will the
legion of judges who cannot do multiple breeds, groups, and Best In Show. Registrations of purebred dogs have
been falling at an alarming rate as the public has become less concerned with
owning a registered dog and more enamored with rescues.
In the attempt to survive shows are banding together to hold
multiple shows in one place and also morning and afternoon shows each day with
specialties or match shows squeezed in between. I don’t know what this does to humans, but the dogs must get
tired. No wonder some dogs can
pile up records with such vast numbers.
The numbers seem to be rather hollow when your BIS had less than 400
dogs. Some years ago I said that
dog shows would not look the same in fifty years. It’s not taking that long.
The dogs are changing as much as breeding and dog
shows. The ones who win big are
more on edge (alert) and must be to hold up under the pressure this often give
us temperaments who show endlessly, but aren’t fun to live with at home. We’ve learned to fix so many things
with judicious fakery that we expect almost every puppy to finish. Of course, finishing isn’t a big deal
when it takes less than 10 dogs for a major. Long range breeding programs are often replaced by plans to
win the next points. Instead of
taking a chance to breed a once in a lifetime dog people seem content with
breeding nice mediocre dogs whose faults are easy to doctor.
Can these things be reversed or does the dog fancy even have
the will to do so? The final
outcome will not be decided by this old dinosaur. The only way I see things getting better is by putting the dogs first. Not the records, not the glamour, not
the parties with fancy clothes, not the human egos, but the dogs.
Think about it!!
