SPORTING BREEDER Q&A in terrain they were designed to work in; it’s a more glamorized pre- sentation of most breeds that becomes popular in the show ring and it takes over and becomes pervasive in a breed, and if you are a purest and don’t have dogs like that, then, you struggle a bit to win more often than maybe you should. So, that is certainly a concern, and it is twofold: breeders who don’t know better and judges who reward the fad. You can look at breeds like the Golden Retriever, Irish Setter, English Springer Spaniel, to name a few, that have taken on sort of a stylized nature in their breed. Beautiful breeds but not all of them true to original type. I definitely think the trends in Clumbers have always been to make them sounder to be competitive in the Sporting Group. But, the exaggerated qualities of the breed are challenging for judges to understand and correctly reward. Currently, there’s a lot of raciness in the breed, narrowness of body, less bone, higher legs. These are genetic traits we do not desire, and yet, for some (breeders and judges), it can
be appealing to see a Clumber that can race around the ring and hold a strong back and, of course, free-stack on an 8-foot lead. But that is NOT how the breed was designed. Those are what we call the “drag” of the breed. The breed should be massive, deep, low-slung in body, long and low, in proportion. Know that nearly square, that’s just wrong. 4. The sport has gone through many years of recent changes. We survived COVID, we have come to the other side of this and the sport is still standing. Breeding dogs has changed, the impact of the breeder’s diminished role in the process has taken a toll on the quality of dogs being shown and produced today. We have a lower bar in the ring for qual- ity animals, the level of which many of my mentors would have never seen. These are dogs that are average in quality but win like they are better than average. They are managed well, presented well, but those who know… they know… they are still, on their best day, average. Not all experiences in judging are rewarding or positive. I think today’s judges are very gen- erous with their opinions and there is a great deal of sharing or spreading points around. Awarding Selects to the single champion entrant, even though that is a dog the judge wouldn’t reward points to in the classes. This practice is done often. As a judge who isn’t always generous, I can tell you that the exhibitor is generally upset with you, disappointed and dismayed that you didn’t GIVE Fluffy her Select ribbon (with no competition). After all, they paid their entry. So, it is not always fun and games out there. It is my opinion that there is no question there are too many shows, and too many shows dilutes the sport a bit. You don’t have to participate in a lot of shows unless you’re going to campaign on a high level, but it is unfortunate that we don’t have a little less options each weekend and more concentration of quality. I worry that it has almost become too easy to become a champion because you can do it so quickly and get points now, so many dif- ferent ways. Not only just by defeating your breed, you can place in a Group. It’s become very simple. I think that’s a detriment to quality breeders because they don’t have direct competition within a breed. If you live isolated and you breed in an isolated area, you’re not aware of what’s going on in another part of the country. It’s one of the reasons why a lot of National Specialties have roving Nationals, where people will take breeding stock from other areas and go to other areas to show. You want to show the West Coast people what the East Coast people are doing so that you can see dogs, and hopefully, you will then pass genetic qualities throughout the country. But if you’re living in isolation, you become, by virtue, isolated, and you won’t see progression in your kennel. And you also don’t see, maybe, some pitfalls that you have in your own kennel. As a preservationist, I worked hard to get that term with some very good friends, Bill Shelton, for one, We worked to get that term to become a part of popular vernacular today. The intent was to preserve the sport and purity of what we were doing so that you had people who would continue to breed and preserve genetic traits that were unique to their breed. That was the initial intent there. Having 7,000 dog shows is not a part of that; it’s just an activity. The number of shows and the activity of showing has virtually no real impact on what results in the whelping box other than to showcase your results.
SHOWSIGHT MAGAZINE, MARCH 2024 | 161
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