AREWE HONORING OUR BREED STANDARDS?
BY KATHY LORENTZEN
M y family has owned AKC registered Sporting Dogs since I was born. My father kept and hunted pheas- ant with both Weimaraners and Brittanys (then called Brittany Spaniels) when I was a young child. In fact, our very first litter of registered puppies were Brittanys, born when I was about ten years old. When I was twelve, our first Golden Retriever came along and with it my love for the breed that will last forever. At nineteen, I added my first English Springer Spaniel, the breed that truly became my passion. For 49 years, I have dedicated myself to study- ing, exhibiting, breeding and, finally, judging the breed that has truly captured my heart. I was fortunate to have been mentored in this sport by breeders who taught me that my job as a breeder, and later as a judge, was to always stay true to the breed standard. These people first taught me about basic structure in a hunting dog and then trained me in the intricacies of breed type, while always referring to the standard of whichever breed we were discussing. I was taught that breed stan- dards were not arbitrary documents written at the whim of a few sportsmen who then attempted to create a dog that fit the standard, but instead they are descriptions of a perfect specimen of a specific breed that the sportsmen had already created to do a particular job. When the standard of a breed was finally written, that breed was already breeding true to type and function. So, the written stan- dard became the blueprint by which future generations of fanciers could continue to produce animals of the same quality in order to keep the breed capable of performing its original function. Every requirement in a Sporting Dog standard is there for a reason; that reason being to produce a dog that can most easily and efficiently perform the job for which it was created. The early fanciers of hunting dogs who wrote the original breed standards were people who used dogs to enhance the quality of their lives. Meat didn’t come packaged in cellophane at the grocery store, it came by being shot by the hunter after having been tracked and either caught, flushed or pointed at by a dog. Dogs earned their living by being good at what they were bred to do, and dogs that did not make the grade as hunters were removed from the gene pool. In this simple manner, function and instinct were kept strong in each breed. Back then, it was all about “pretty is as pretty does,” and just being pretty did not keep a dog in the breeding program. As the years passed and dog shows became popular, more and more fanciers who had never hunted over their chosen breed began breeding dogs for the show ring. This created a shift from breeding for function to breeding for attractiveness and the attitude that could win in the show ring, which was fine as long as those breed- ers understood and accepted the breed standard as their guide. In our modern world, hunting has become a part-time sport instead of a means of survival, and relatively few show dog breed- ers actually hunt over their dogs. Again, not a problem as long as today’s breeders continue to produce dogs that would be fully
capable of performing their original function should they be asked to do so. What makes this a possibility? Understanding and breed- ing to the breed standard! I have always had a keen interest in all Sporting breeds, not just those that I have personally bred, so I have watched all these breeds at dog shows (and at field trials and working tests) for fifty years. My observations have led me to some interesting conclusions. While it is true that all breeds evolve to some extent and that there is always something or another that we would like to change or improve about each individual dog in our breeding program, our aim should be to attempt to improve upon each generation to keep our dogs as closely adhering to our breed standard as possible, not to change a breed because we “like it better this way.” Yet, I see a distinct shift in many Sporting breeds away from breeding to the standard and, instead, to breeding for popular fads and many traits that distinctly go against the standard of the breed. I see breeders producing these traits with purpose and, most unfortu- nately, I see judges accepting these incorrect traits as normal and rewarding them. WHEN THE STANDARD OF A BREED WAS FINALLY WRITTEN, THAT BREED WAS ALREADY BREEDING TRUE TO TYPE AND FUNCTION. SO, THE WRITTEN STANDARD BECAME THE BLUEPRINT BY WHICH FUTURE GENERATIONS OF FANCIERS COULD CONTINUE TO PRODUCE ANIMALS OF THE SAME
QUALITY IN ORDER TO KEEP THE BREED CAPABLE OF PERFORMING ITS ORIGINAL FUNCTION.
SHOWSIGHT MAGAZINE, JANUARY 2021 | 177
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