Hopefully I made it clear in the first part of this series, but just in case I didn’t, I am NOT picking on working dogs. I love me a dog that can work stock. I have never said that if a dog can work it wouldn’t do well in the show ring, but there are a lot of people that say if a dog can do well in conformation it can’t work stock (which makes no sense!). What I was picking on was breeding for any one trait exclusively at the expense, or apathy, of other important traits. Whether that “all important” trait is working ability, head, coat, color, etc, it can’t be idealized to the point that the dog as a whole suffers because of that focus.
On the other hand comes the question, can you be breeding to preserve the breed, and use dogs that don’t show that instinct? In my case this is herding, so I will probably just refer to it as such, but you can substitute hunting, pulling, etc. I don’t have the perfect answer to that question but here’s what I do know, if I’m looking at the whole picture of a dog I am not going to automatically include or exclude a certain dog on herding instinct alone.
If I come across a dog in my program that isn’t showing the level of working ability I’d like to see in a dog, I would have to seriously consider whether or not to breed that dog, but I wouldn’t make an immediate decision to take the dog out of my breeding program. In the past I thought perhaps I would, but the more I think about it, for what I want to do, I think that a dog showing low or maybe even no instinct would be a similar situation to me as a dog with an ugly head or not enough coat . It’s something I would try to breed back in, but I would hate to take out an otherwise good dog that could have something to contribute. That’s the point where I have to balance, and I don’t think that herding instinct means more or less than any of my other priorities. Instinct is important, and I certainly want to preserve it, but it is not the be all end all of my breeding program.
I know some people might think that is wrong, and that’s really okay because this is nothing other than pure opinion, but what I’ve really had to look at is also creating a dog that can best fit into the world I put it into. The honest to goodness fact of the matter is that the majority of my dogs are going to be heading into pet, performance, or serious show homes. Most of those homes are not going to have the resources and/or desire to have a true working dog that has energy and drive to work stock every single day. If they wanted a dog like that, they probably wouldn’t be looking at me anyway because most of the really serious working dog people either breed their own dogs or buy them from someone on another ranch… none of those “foofy show dogs” for them.
While I certainly would hope and expect that my dogs could hold their own in the herding trial world if their owners choose to do that venue, a trial dog is still not a working dog (and that is a whole other can of worms I’m not getting in to). There is very little need for true working dogs in our modern society, and to create a dog that has the drive of a real working ranch dog and placing those dogs into family homes would be miserable for the dogs and the families. I would much rather create a moderate dog with an off switch.
As I’ve said before, my opinion might change in the future after I’ve seen what my efforts produce, but for now, my ultimate goals is moderation in all aspects. Moderate coat, moderate bone, moderate drive. If I can come close to that, I think I can be happy.
Erin, I think that even the most serious working breeders don’t eliminate a single dog who has low drive/instinct. Say I’m breeding Border Collies, and after several generations of excellent sheep dogs I notice that my last few litters of pups are a little too sharp. Too drivey, not a good off-switch, and a bit bull-headed.
I might then cross in a softer bitch who was biddable but lacked the drive herself to be a good worker, especially if she came from good sheep-dog lines herself.
An overall program is not based on one or two individual dogs.
As far as dogs who can work and whether or not folks say they can’t do well in the show ring, I think I may have some questions to ponder at another point. I don’t expect you (or anyone) to have the answers to the questions, but the questions help define the sort of split you are talking about. For some light summer reading 🙂 here’s a link to what happened to the red (Irish) setters; they had so lost instinct that they were crossed out with English setters to get it back, with the blessings of AKC, but at some point after that the new dogs were kicked out of the registry. There has been effort recently to get them back in.
The reason I bring it into the conversation is that I hate to see other breeds go down a path that has already been long trod by older breeds.
Whoops, forgot the link! Silly me!
http://www.nrsftc.com/history.htm
Ok, now time for those questions I promised. 🙂 And I want to reiterate that I agree with you completely that balance is important. I see many working breeders who do talk about balanced conformation and health-testing and temperament, but then again I see others that flat-out say “conformation is not important” and that is just plain wrong.
I also want to say that I intentionally chose to get my own dogs from a show breeder. I have never regretted that for one instant. These are the best dogs one could ask for. The breeder is a pretty big show breeder, though her dogs also compete in other venues, and she is everything I would ever look for in a breeder. So please, don’t think this post is anti-dog-show, because it is not. It would be so much nicer to have the conversation over coffee, and less likely to lead to misunderstanding, but I don’t think you’re all that close. 🙂
Here’s where the questions come in. You point out that if your dogs can’t get the approval of fellow fanciers, it’s time to look at your program and wonder what’s what (paraphrasing). So let’s pose some hypotheticals, and I’ll start with an extreme example or two.
Let’s say I breed German Shepherds, primarily for police and drug dogs. And let’s say I notice that we’ve been having some dogs getting sore and gimpy at what seems an awfully early age. I start to look at my dogs and think I see some issues; maybe the shoulder’s a bit straight, maybe the chest is a bit narrow, and I think that what I need is some evaluation of my stock for form. I think a conformation show would be just the thing, but then I see the German Shepherds winning at the shows. I come to you and say “I read your blog, and I completely agree with you and realize lack of attention to conformation has hurt my lines. But I cannot morally breed a dog with as extreme a back-end as those dogs. Who decided that was the norm for the dog? Why would I want these folks evaluating my dogs, if they think this is a desirable hind end?”
Or maybe I have been breeding pet and show pugs. I’m a responsible breeder. I test, I only breed happy, outgoing, stable dogs. And I win. But I feel sort of guilty for breeding dogs that snuffle and snort and overheat so easily. I want to make some small face modifications to my lines so they can breathe easier, but my breed club is horrified at the thought and three generations later, I’m confident that I’m taking my dogs in the right direction, but I can’t win any more.
Now let’s take a less extreme case. I hunt (rather than trial) English Setters. I would like some evaluation of my stock’s conformation, because my hunting peers aren’t too concerned about conformation and that bothers me. So I start talking to some show breeders. They’re very nice people, happy to evaluate some of my stock and my puppies based on what they will be doing, not based on their own standards for showing. We have a blast, the dogs play together, we spend plenty of time getting to know each other and compare notes on angles and ear-set and toplines. All is going well, but then at some point we awkwardly realize that some of the very things that are necessary for a dog to win in the show ring actually detract from the aims of my breeding program in terms of suitability to hunt. And we all go home puzzling over what it means to breed to a standard, and what a standard is meant to define, exactly, and who our peers are.
Since the Aussie is a fairly natural breed, I think the last scenario is most likely to come closest to issues you run into. And I think, in a sense, when you talk about where to find balance and which things are most important, that is sort of what you are getting at. And I think that’s where I come down, in the end: for those dogs whose job still exists, I am perfectly content if the dog would never win at a breed show, if a panel of judges deemed them sound and healthy and free from major flaws.