Showsight - June 2018

Becoming

You Don’t Even Know What You Don’t Know BY JACQUELINE FOGEL

I just wrapped up a three-month experience with a very young man who had told me for two years how much he loved Bed- lingtons and wanted to be a breeder. He told me his dream was to breed and show them and he wanted me to teach him how to be a great breeder. I don’t think he had any idea that finding a young person to men-

they had immersed themselves into. And they worked very hard at the daily maintenance for those long-ago breeders and their kennels. I know things are changing rapidly. I understand that technology can bring us instant information from far away worlds. I understand that our communication and transporta- tion abilities have been able to speed up a lot of the things we do on a daily basis. But all that speed can’t speed up the human capacity to learn a trade. We don’t have a microchip or a jet engine inside us that allows us to speed up our abil- ity to traverse the distance from pre-novice to master. Our brains and our brawn are basically the same as they have been for thousands of years. We must still have a daily exer- cise program to build muscle and we must still have a long- term plan to acquire the necessary information to enrich our knowledge of any given subject. The quantity of information that any good breeder needs has grown exponentially in the past few decades, but our brain’s capacity to absorb it has remained essentially the same. In other words, it should take longer now to learn the dog business because we have so much more information about it. That model does not fit with the younger generation who honestly believe they can become instant experts on any given subject because they own a smart phone and a com- puter and they know how to use them. Want to become a master plumber? Read a book and take a test. That should take about a week. Want to become a mason? Read two books and take a test. That should take about a month. Want to be a car mechanic, electrician, landscape architect or roofer? You can surely become an expert in all of those because everyone has driven a car, changed a light bulb, planted a tree or lived in a house with a roof. Isn’t that about all there is to it? I mean, for heaven’s sake, there are BOOKS about all that stuff and some of them even have pictures about how to do it. If you’ve owned a dog once, breeding and pet care should be easy! Except trades don’t work that way and dog care—breed- ing, grooming, training and exhibiting is in every sense a trade. I don’t think any occupation, blue or white collar, works that way. The more you know, the more you know you don’t know. It is only a fool who thinks that time practicing a trade or any occupation is a waste of time. It is only a fool who believes they are as good at their work on the first day as they are on their last. I do believe there is great value to the energy and naivete of youth. Sometimes young people get a lot done just because they don’t know what they can’t do when they start a new job. It’s kind of fun and energizing to turn them loose to see what they accomplish before reality sets in. When I worked

tor in my rare breed was a dream of mine. Most people who work for me don’t actually like the Bedlingtons—they toler- ate them because the person who signs their checks breeds them. So I put my blinders and my rose-colored glasses on, and welcomed this charming young man into our world of showing and breeding dogs. While this young man lived in another state I gave him three beautiful Bedlingtons that could easily start an expe- rienced breeder on the path to stardom. He had two bitches and a male. He just had to listen, watch and learn. He just had to practice the care and feeding, exercising, training, groom- ing, breeding, whelping, evaluating and care of multiple dogs. He just had to observe and ask questions and listen to the stories about the great ones of the past. He just had to give it time—lots of it. Nothing worth knowing comes quickly or easily—and he could become a great breeder some day. Except it didn’t work quite the way I hoped it would. I had heard many of the stories about some of the great handlers of the past half century. I listened to the stories about the years they worked for great breeders who taught them everything they knew about dog care and breeding. Eventually they took over the reins of the breeding programs, and ultimately the handling of those dogs. They apprenticed with masters who had learned their trade at the feet of the masters who came before them. Apprenticing was how the great dog people learned to do what they did. Sure, they read books about genetics and stayed on top of the latest technol- ogy in breeding and canine nutrition. They wrote books and made videos about training practices they had perfected over the years. Every week they went to a show where they sat with other masters and apprentices and discussed the trade

“THE QUANTITY OF INFORMATION THAT ANY GOOD BREEDER NEEDS HAS GROWN EXPONENTIALLY IN THE PAST FEW DECADES,

BUT OUR BRAIN’S CAPACITY TO ABSORB IT HAS REMAINED ESSENTIALLY THE SAME.” 100 • S how S ight M agazine , J une 2018

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