A pastor once said “text without context is pretext”; that is, people who read scripture without the proper context can make it mean anything they want: an excuse, a con job, a cause. The same can be applied to confirmation although it doesn’t sound as good: “confirmation without context is pretext”. There’s no question that in the proper context, breeding standards are a great benefit to dogs and breeds in general. Breeding standards without the proper context can be highly detrimental.
Breed standards were developed in order to describe the different breeds in terms that allowed them to perform their jobs to the fullest. In that respect, conformation standards should be maintained in the context of the breed’s purpose. Over the centuries, breeders have developed some remarkable dog breeds that today are both companions and assistants in our daily in our daily lives: hunting, ranching, guarding, therapy, guiding, even giving advanced warning of cancer or oncoming seizures.
However standards are a double-edged sword. According to onekind.org, ‘Breed standards’ often include exaggerated and unnatural physical characteristics that are detrimental to the dogs’ health and quality of life. And concludes with: This report has shown that current practices of pedigree dog breeding have created serious problems for the welfare of many dogs and for their owners. The problems have arisen because breeding goals have been, and too often still are, based on the dog’s appearance rather than on its health.
Problems arise when conformation takes on a life of its own and dogs are not bred within the context of their original purpose. In these situations you have the “splitting of the breed” such as with “field” and “show” Labrador Retrievers. This may be starting to show up in Spinone with the “field coat”/”flat coat”/”hunters coat” as opposed to the longer “show coat” as it were. There has been a long-standing argument over whether or not breeding dogs specifically for the show ring will breed OUT the abilities for which the breed was designed; with sporting dogs that would mean replacing their hunting abilities with “show” abilities. As Geoffrey English stated in the Gun Dogs Online article Field vs. Show – What’s the Difference, Field breeders are producing the athletes and show breeders are producing the models. However there is some hope in that many breeders produce both athletes and models in the same package.
So am I saying that altering Spinone standards are destined to cause health problems? Who knows, but Italians have been perfecting the breed for arguably 1,000 years or more and if anyone is an expert on Spinone, it is they. As I pointed out in my article on tail docking, the number of injuries to dogs increased significantly when tail docking was banned in Sweden. Other attributes such as head, muzzle, skin, coat, height and weight may not cause genetic problems, but could certainly affect their hunting abilities and introduce or perpetuate future health problems – none of which are recognized in conformation shows.
March 8, 2013 at 9:46 am |
Oh man is your post well timed. There is a bit of a stink going on with respect to Chessies. I have been debating doing a post on it, but am waiting to see what happens in the next little bit.
Our parent club, is not trying to change the breed standard per se, but Board and their cronies have put a picture guide together and sent it to all of the show judges, This guide contains explanations and nuances and opinion beyond, and in some cases contradictory to, our breed standard. A few of us have made a stink about it, with Storm’s breeder being the most vocal that I know of, (he has been breeding working Chessies forever).
You see with Chessies, the breed standard has changed very little over the years. Sure, they have tinkered around the edges with things like color (only 4 pts of our judging anyway). But now they want a different explanation of some structure and movement that could alter ours dogs in as short as two generations. In our breed, the show breeders out-breed the field or hunting breeders by a lot so the pool of breeding dogs could be changed in very short order. Chessies have always been a breed meant to be a working dog and not necessarily win the big dog shows. Correct conformation is very important to the dog being efficient in doing its job. Changing conformation to win Best of Show will not do our breed any favors. Hopefully that guide will be redone.
But I will say, that some of the conformation on some of the field dogs I have seen has been atrocious. All retriever breeds. Field breeders are not all pure. They do not always consider things like correct shoulders or correct angulation and as a result, their dogs are susceptible to injury at worst, or being inefficient in their movement at best. I wish more field breeders paid attention to structure and conformation and not just pedigree and titles.
Had to laugh a bit at the article you liked to though because the author kept writing “confirmation”, its “conformation”…two different things.
BTW Chessies just had another duel champion in the last 30 days.
March 8, 2013 at 10:39 am |
Thanks, I may be stirring up things with my articles, and I’d be happy to re-post any of yours. Do we confirm? Or do they conform? I wonder if it was intentional or not. I’m doing a little research into standards and conformation, and in the process am getting sidetracked with additional articles but they’re all related.
March 13, 2013 at 3:38 am
I thought at first the writer was using confirm intentionally, but by the end, I didn’t think so. lol I am still kicking around writing about the situation with Chessies.
I don’t know if it is true with Spins, but retrievers it definitely is. There is a split in breeding objectives between field and show. imo the breeders that blend the best of both are those breeding a good hunting dog which means attention to working ability and structure.
March 13, 2013 at 7:23 pm
I hope you do the article. I’m working on a couple of articles that may raise some eyebrows.
March 8, 2013 at 12:49 pm |
Real food for thought!
March 11, 2013 at 2:41 pm |
Nicely stated, again, Robert.
March 11, 2013 at 7:16 pm |
Thank you.