Barb Lee
Wed, 31 Aug 2005 14:29:34 -0700
"German Shepherd dog."What came to your mind? Police work. Tracking. Intelligent. 100% readily identifiable.
"I want one for a pet."What came to your mind? Temperament. Hip dysplasia. Suitability as family pet.
"I bought a German Shepherd puppy at the pet store." What came to your mind? Oh, what a stoopie.The German Shepherd dog is an example of a breed that wears many hats. It can be an adoring family pet, or it can be a trained killer. It was bred for certain work and wreckless breeding has branded it as a prime candidate for a life threatening genetic deformity.
It has a breed standard, and a registry. If I am looking for a pet, I am going to look in the pedigree for the prefixes of breeders that specialize in gentle temperaments. I am going to query the breeder about his commitment to breeding sound hips.
The fact that the German Shepherd breeders I contact might be unethical is an unfortunate fact of life. But if they are committed to excellence in the dogs they produce, I can be hopeful that the puppy I select will be a gentle healthy addition to my family. It doesn't have to be a show dog or a tracking dog, or even a police dog. But it has to have some continuity in successive generations for me to make an educated guess that this dog will work out for my purposes.
If the breeder can't produce some sort of verifiable ancestry, that this German Shepherd puppy meets the registry requirements, then, well, the puppy is only as good as his breeder's word.
If you are successful with your breeding program without adhering to a breed standard and providing the written proof of registry, that's great for you. Unfortunately, it doesn't do the breed as a whole any good. As long as we go off to our various corners of the world and don't collectively work toward raising the bar on our breed standards, the American Blackbelly will keep getting discounted at the sales, and there will be no eventual uniformity of type that will predict the future of an individual animal and help us sell our animals in all venues at the upper end of the market.
We SAY all these things about the good points of our animals, but rarely do I see anything relating to true marketable quality. We can't stop in our efforts to improve and promote our breeds until the sheep breeder can look in the meadows at blackbelly sheep and know in an instant what he can genuinely expect to introduce into his flock, beyond horns and a particular color pattern. Right now he sees poor cutability and grading. We can change that without damaging the identifying characteristics of the breed in the least.
My apologies for jacking my soapbox up so much today. I will leave you in peace (unless I get challenged to more discussion!)
Barb L.
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