Becoming: When Opportunity Knocks...
BY JACQUELYN FOGEL continued
die young. Many of those affected dogs lived well into old age, mostly in pet homes with people who neutered or spayed them. I have come close to giving up on breeding Bedlington Terriers because of their health issues. There is no DNA test for auto-immune or kidney dis- order. We could do blood tests for kidney function on brood bitches, but they are snapshots in time with no predictive value. The breeders have not always acted rationally, and far too many healthy dogs were spayed and neutered, while many dogs affected with diseases we could not predict have been imbedded into breed- ing programs. Breeders took the DNA as gospel, even though the developers never claimed at any time that it was 100% accurate. Our parent club still insists that the COMMD DNA tests be done on all breeding dogs, even though the newer evidence suggests it’s not as valuable as we had hoped. And that means I won’t be able to advance through the higher levels of the AKC “Breeder of Merit” system, because I can no longer support a test that has led to so many unexpected, negative consequences. Just as I was about to throw in the proverbial towel, two unexpected opportunities presented themselves. The first was an announcement by a dear friend and co-breeder in France that she was no longer going to breed bedlington terriers, and all of her dogs would be placed immediately. I sent Chantal a message asking who she still had to place, and as luck would have it, one was a 10-year old son of an affected dog I had sent to her as a puppy. She had the dog because he was identified as a carrier by the COMMD DNA test, and nobody else in this country would breed to him. His father was a top-winning dog who died at 13 after a long, otherwise healthy life – and because he was affected, nobody in this country would breed to him, either. I took a lot of criticism from other breeders who could not believe I used an affected dog in my breeding program, so I made the decision to breed him only once rather than suffer the very public con- demnation of several breeders who looked for ways to discredit my breeding program. As it turned out, 2 years after the dog died, VetGen, the company that developed the COMMD test started recommending that breeders use the dogs who tested affected, but were living long, otherwise healthy lives. It was an announcement that came about 13 years too late to save the breed from the mess the test and breeders had already created. I told Darling Husband we had to make an emer- gency trip to France to pick up this dog, and a puppy from another bitch I had sent to France. We left 3 weeks later, and my horror story from the Paris airport aside, all went well. The old guy is still fertile, though he does not freeze well, so we are making hasty plans
to use him as much as possible while we still have him. The second opportunity came from a surprise phone call from a person I have known for more than 20 years, though I had never met in person. He occa- sionally breeds bedlingtons – but just as pets, for him- self only. He never shows dogs, and has never encour- aged anyone to show his puppies. I knew him because he started out with dogs from the Chicago area when he lived there 30 years ago, and then bred to dogs in northern California when he moved there. We had talked on the phone many times, and I was aware that he had some dogs in his pedigree that went back to some of the old Willow Wind and Barma lines. In addi- tion, I also knew that he had recently purchased a dog from a woman in Louisiana that had Russian lines, and some of my own bloodline. We were on different plan- ets when it came to our breeding philosophies. Ben only wanted to produce healthy, friendly, long-lived dogs that looked nice to him. He loves BIG bedling- tons, and he didn’t care what anybody else thought about them. I wanted healthy, long-lived, sound and beautiful dogs that could compete successfully in con- formation. None of Ben’s dogs have titles, and all of my dogs do. As fate would have it, Ben had temporarily moved to his home in Indiana to whelp what would probably be his last litter. He planned to keep most if not all of the puppies. I started talking to him again when he realized his dam was in trouble during the whelp, though I really was of no use to him from a distance. He found a local vet to work with him, and all 9 of his puppies survived. Ben had not counted on a litter quite that large, so he called me to find out the best way to start selling a few of them. I gave him some advice, then asked if he could send me a pedigree – and better yet, would he be willing to meet me at the Rosemont shows so I could actually see some of the puppies. They would be 9-weeks old on that weekend. He was going to O’Hare airport to pick up his wife, and that was only 5 minutes from the show site, so he agreed to meet. He brought 3 males, their sire, dam and grand-sire along with him. It was a shock of a lifetime for this breeder. Two of the 3 male puppies were stunningly beautiful. The sire was not mentally very stable, but his conformation is lovely. The dam and grand sire are beautifully con- structed, though overweight and large. None of them had been trimmed in months, though most were brushed out and mat-free. This unknown breeder was producing sounder dogs than many I see in the ring today. Their heads are beautiful, and they all have nice long necks flowing into smooth, well-laid-back shoul- ders. They have strong, straight rears, great toplines, and correct bedlington movement. I was stunned.
112 • S how S ight M agazine , F ebruary 2018
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