| DANELINKS.COM 7.1.06 | ||
|
||
|
|
||
|
People have looked at the Great Danes in the
show rings and lamented they lack quality. They have looked at some
advertisements and wondered why someone was paying money to promote the
dog pictured or display a bad photograph. They have seen puppies being
offered as show potential with wedge-shaped muzzles, soft or roached
toplines, and cowhocks, and wonder who is buying them. Someone is, for
they end up in the show rings. Why is this happening? What can be done about it? Who is at fault? All sorts of targets are being pilloried as the source of the problem. A frequent target is the judge. To hear it told, judges are at fault for most everything, from cheap champions to politics to bad dogs winning, and probably for inflation and global warming. Phooey! Judges are doing the best they can to pick the best dog. When the dogs are good, judging is fun and challenging, and judges are happy with their winners. (They are still probably to blame for global warming, though.) But what are they to do when there isn’t a good dog to find in the entry? Judging is a matter of what one will forgive. In the Dane ring too often, we may be asking judges to make hard decisions by having to forgive a great deal. Should they pick the small Dane that moves well or the one with good size that lacks reach and drive? Do they take the coarse dog with the decent head or the refined one with the correct angulation? Should the judges select the typey one that they can’t go over because of bad temperament? Do they pick the beautifully set up dog that has a bad topline when it moves? Should they prefer the great legs with a heavy skull and short muzzle over one with a nice head but that is unsound? These are hard choices for judges. They want the typey dog with a correct outline and proportion and size that moves well and has a breed-appropriate temperament. It is hard to find in the Dane ring today. People aren’t happy with the judges’ choices; the judges probably aren’t either. Some feel that the quality of the dogs would be improved if it took bigger entries to earn points and a championship. Great Danes are 24th in registrations (2005 statistics), the fourth highest registration for working breeds, and the most popular giant breed, so there are many available to be shown. They are easy to show since there is not much work to prepare them for the ring. All it takes is the money to hire professional handlers, who make more money by showing more dogs. Some handlers will take dogs that are not great quality. Our high numbers of dogs shown and the point schedule are not a cause of good or poor quality. Some breeds with large numbers, such as Dobes and Boxers, have better quality than we do. Some breeds with very small entry numbers, like some of the terrier breeds, also have very high quality. The difference is the breeders and the exhibitors, for breeders and exhibitors choose the Danes to breed and choose those they are willing to show. If the dogs in the ring lack quality, they collectively put them there. Either they don’t realize the dogs are not good enough or they do know, but forgive too much. Perhaps it is some of both. The first condition can hopefully be corrected by education. The parent club and affiliate clubs can and should take the lead here. They can offer programs to educate breeders, not just in how to whelp puppies, but in how to decide if a bitch is worth breeding, how to select a stud dog, how to evaluate puppies. We can seek out mentors who are master breeders of Great Danes as well as of other breeds, who consistently produce high quality dogs, and learn from them. We can learn from watching high quality Great Danes as well as high quality dogs of other breeds and see what excellence they have that we need to produce in our dogs. Breeding and exhibiting, like judging, is a matter about what we will forgive. Knowledgeable people are less forgiving on features they value and too forgiving on those they consider of lower priority. The breeder for whom structure and movement are important said that she could forgive a less than stellar head so long as it didn’t resemble a Doberman. The exhibitor for whom heads are a priority dismisses the criticism that his dog is out of condition. A breeder evaluating a puppy says “Who cares!” when another says the puppy is too small. We should all care very much where our dogs are lacking. We need to continue to be unforgiving in our priorities. But we must carry that unforgiving-ness (to coin a word) to those characteristics we haven’t paid as much attention to or have made excuses for. To get quality in the ring, we must stop making excuses for faulty dogs even if they are very good in other characteristics. Be unforgiving when deciding to breed a bitch. Don’t breed her if she doesn’t have a lot to contribute. All champions need not be bred. If you bred her once and she doesn’t produce excellence, rethink your stud dog choice or perhaps don’t breed her again. Be unforgiving when selecting a dog to breed to. He won’t be faultless, for no dog is, but he should have very few faults and none of them should duplicate a problem the bitch has. Look at him standing by himself. He should look “put together” even without a person molding him into position. Most of all, be unforgiving when evaluating puppies. Assume they are all pets until proven otherwise. Every litter doesn’t have a super star. Just because a puppy is the best in the litter doesn’t mean that it is worth keeping. Don’t keep one unless it is so good that you would buy it from someone else and that others who see it want to buy it from you. Don’t forgive major faults. Don’t forgive minor faults that exist to a significant degree. Look at the puppy standing by itself, not set up. You don’t want a dog that only looks good when stacked by a skilled handler. When such a dog is bred, he will produce the problems the handler is fixing. Does it carry itself well? Is it outgoing? Does it trot easily on its own? Does it have unity? Are its proportions correct: shape of head, length of neck, amount of bone, length of leg, ratio of height to length? Is it balanced throughout? The less we are willing to forgive when selecting a puppy for the show ring, the less the judge will have to forgive later. The less we collectively forgive when evaluating our puppies, the better quality dogs we will have in the ring. We will not only have dogs that are worth finishing, but we will also have dogs worth breeding. |
||
|
Contents & Graphics Copyright © DaneLinks.com 2005. |
