HOW DID WE GET HERE ?
I make no bones about being an American and 100% a Patriot. I love this country and I love my freedom. I know many others feel the same and talk about how they want to remain in control of their own lives yet turn right around and pay homage to the control of breeding by government officials.
If I have learned one thing from life it is that diversity is what made this country great. People who were FREE to pursue their dreams in any manner they felt would work for them. They fought for freedom and the worked hard to succeed. They believe in the power of each one to live their life without threat of censorship.
I find this to be a conflict of personal beliefs and other things said by some individuals who spout we should have breed wardens and rules to dictate who can, should or should not be allowed to breed or tell them what dogs they could breed. They speak loudly how diversity is the best indicator of health while not having the first clue on how it happens and even less understanding to the condition of Doberman breeding in American or Europe so let’s take a look at it.
Let’s look at some indicators and see where each stands - On average if I read the results correctly European Doberman’s come in at 50% or higher on the diversity scale and American Doberman’s come in at 40% on average. So if the German rule works so well, I have to ask what has it done to the gene pool as far as preserving diversity??? It is claimed that the DV has done a better job producing Doberman’s that work, YET they also claim that the show line Europeans don’t work just like the American show line. So I have to ask if they are all required to pass a fit for breeding test why the distinct difference in the “show Lines” and ‘working lines”?
I have to ask if the DV fit for breeding test is required for every Doberman sire and dam than why aren’t they all working dogs??? This tells me that in effect there are flaws in our thinking on who to breed and no one way to judge correct the best of the best since that is the goal for breeding.
I will probably be called a heretic for saying this, but I feel we were far better off in the 70’s when approximately 80,000 Dobermans were registered a year right here in America. Iit seems every breed at some point goes through a wave of popularity where anyone and everyone jumps into breeding them. It seems to reason that diversity would be high under these circumstances. . So what happened?
Showing in and of itself will restrict breeding to only the best. In and of itself that is not wrong, but it is very limiting if you consider 100 Dobermans in a show and only one will be champion. Compound the problem as everyone wants to breed to the champion then you immediately have a problem with the popular sire who will multiply any genetic problems he might carry as well as create a problem with diversity.
Another reason is AKC discovered that breeders were withholding AKC registration papers in order to “protect” their breeding program when they sent a puppy to a pet home. Then the pet family decided to breed and you can imagine the rest, they wanted to register their litter. AKC wants purebred dogs registered to keep themselves in business. Limited registration gave breeders a way to register pet puppies and still preserve some control over breeding and AKC got their money..
I must mention the AR (animal radicals) whose sole purpose is to stop all breeding, eating or working of all animals. We have caved in to their radical views and tried to appease them to the point that we are afraid to stand up and proudly say we are breeders and we have sadly adopted a lot of their rhetoric and thinking - spay/neuter contracts, we now place puppies as opposed to “sell” them and we have falling into the “parent” child trap thinking our dogs are not dogs who were bred with a purpose and should be allowed to perform their job at some level.
Now we have less than 10,000 Doberman registered a year last time AKC released numbers which I think was about 2009. Consider half of those are on spay/neuter contacts and limited registration that cuts down the gene pool to about 5,000 dogs that could be available for breeding and that is a very conservative estimate. We limit that further to only champions or titled dogs and you can surely see where diversity went.
I hate to even mention all the biting and backstabbing by the “Show Snob” crowd who will chew you up and spit you out without a second thought to the future of the breed. I have seen people who complain about the rudeness of show people and as soon as they achieve a title they are right there with them pointing fingers at new people and treating them just a bad as the “snob crowd” they complained against. This is very discouraging to anyone who is serious about breeding.
It does make one ask the question: “ how we got so far off track with such good intentions?”One thing we know for sure is diversity went out the window.
Copyright © 2010 Suzan Shipp/Dobs4ever. All rights reserved both written, pictorial material and content on this blog are the sole property of Suzan Shipp, Dobs4ever and J Bar S Dobermans and may not be used, copied or reprinted without express written permission of the author/owner Suzan Shipp
