I have always been a dog person. I wanted nothing more as a kid than my own dog. I have had mutts and pure bred dogs and I have loved them all. I followed this year's Westminster show and got to thinking...
Like anyone in our dog sphere I see things and hear things that are connected with this common interest in dogs. Some of the things I see and hear I find worrisome.
The increasing tendency in some breeds for the show dog to be something so different from say a working member of the breed is a sad thing to me. Is not the ability to do what the breed was created to do paramount to the standard that the dog is supposed to be judged against?
The peke that won Westmister this year looks more like a wobbly hair-sausage than a dog. You can not even see his gait when he moves...how on earth can you judge something you can't observe?
The breed winner in the collie ring is the offspring of a know merle to merle breeding...a breeding that was done with the full knowledge of what the risks to the resulting puppies would be (blindness, deafness, other possible genetic defects, non-viability of puppies). In order to try and breed a stud that the breeder would find desireable.
I am of the strong belief that I should never do anything that betrays the trust of my dogs who depend on me for their lives. It is my responsibility to keep them happy, loved, healthy, fed, and safe.
Should that not still be at the core of things for someone that shows and breeds their dogs? I believe so and I know that the people that I got my puppies from feel that way. So why are there people out there that seem to feel that it is more important to win in the show ring that to safeguard the lives they have taken in their hands?
Don't get me wrong I am so not anti breeder or anti pure bred dogs...but I just can not seem to align some of these things I see and hear with a love of dogs (or the betterment of the breed in general in some cases).
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