PERFORl\/1A1"TCE v'VORLD
Breedingof Piibred k
Dogs
of the fren:iecl Victmicll1 dri \'e to classify, cHegori:e, cOliify anJ impose order on almost everything. Mc)st of the gundog breeds are creations of the 1800s. The Industrial Revolution maJe relatively inexpensive guns a\路ailable. Different breeders developed dogs with specific stalking and r~trieVll\~ beh<.lviors. These were de\'eloped from the dogs originally used to roint and flush game or herd
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flocks. Herding and Hushing dogs both have the sU[1pression of the acti \'e huntand-gr:Jb pomon of the wild canid cycle of
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predation. They do the hunt up to the take, then they freeze in the stalk or merely herd. These dogs are quite distinct in behavior from hounds, which are bred to actually carture rrey. As world commerce breeds were imwduced
expanded,
exotic
into England
and
France. The appearance of these "foreign" dogs helped a move to select native breeds for uniformity and distinguished appearance. For examrle, we can see the increased differences of size and proportion that occurred when the Celtic Greyhound was broken into two breeds in the late 1800s: the Scottish Oeerhound and the Irish Wolfhound. Livestock
exhibits
process of Vicwrian These inally vidual came
contributed
to the
breed generation.
included dog shows. They private exhibitions, put on promoters for a profit. The not so much from the entry
were origby indiprofits fees of
the exhibitors, but more from the fees paid by the public to come to the exhibit and look at the dogs. Our modern conformation shows have descended from these exhibitions. Now you may ask: "What
does all of this
show history have to do with performance dogs in the field /" Unfortunately,
striving for physical uni-
formity in a breed does not guarantee behavioral uniformity. It doesn't guarantee that performance dogs will perform. Also,
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sometimes as a breed becomes popular and the number of animals exhibited in bench
functional animals become less frequent. They may even be lost to the breed.
shows increases, the winners can become more and more extreme in appearance. This extreme appearance is usually at the expense of working ability. This is a hard truth, and it may be vehemently denied by the very people breeding the exaggerated
If a dog breed is to remain heald1\", then its breeding population must be healthy and vigorous. The average member of that breed needs to be physically healthy, physiologically normal, and capable of doing the work for which the breed was intend-
dogs. They often claim that it is not exaggeration, but breed improvement. Nlany disagree with this claim. If you examine photos and written descriptions comaining the actual measurements of working dogs from the turn of the century and compare
ed. The surest method of rromoting the health of a breed is to have as many animals as possible participate in honesdy-run performance events. Honor those animals as breeding stock O\'er the animals who have merely won in conformation.
them with today's top conformation dogs, you will see these differences: increased coat, increased size, exaggeration of angulation and an increase in some unique breed
Breeding animals in a closed gene pool, without guidelines provided by rerformance events, is like blindfolding a person sinking in quicksand. There is lots of act iv-
characteristic (For example, the depth of body in sighthounds.) All of our modern breeds, especially
ity, but no clear-cut son keeps sinking. In future articles,
those registered by bodies with closed stud books, have a population characterized by a
of canine field performance, anatomy, behavior and genetics from the point of
closed gene pool. The most common genes in the breed are those presem in the average dog of that breed. The rarer genes are those seen with less frequency, in animals on the extremes of the breed characteris-
view of successful breeders of field rerformance dogs.
tics. As the body type of winners
in the
show ring starts to shift wward extremes, the genes responsible for normal form in
direction
and the per-
I will discuss elements
'i
Bonnie Dalzell, an evolutionary
biologist,
has been breeding chamPion coursing hounds for over 20 years. She lives in Maryland with her hHSband, Dr. James Saldad, A.-1.D. and 45 dogs.
JUNE/JUlY
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