Page 118 - ShowSight - October 2019

Becoming: Basset Hounds–A Breed In Trouble BY JACQUELYN FOGEL continued
“BREEDING MORE HEALTHY
AND VIABLE DOGS WILL
KEEP BREEDERS RELEVANT.
THE PUBLIC IS SLOWLY GETTING THE MESSAGE THAT PREDICTABLE IS GOOD, AND RESCUES ARE OFTEN UNHEALTHY AND ALWAYS UNPREDICTABLE.
I DON’T KNOW IF THIS WILL SAVE DOG SHOWS, BUT IT SURE WON’T HURT THE MARKET FOR OUR PUREBREDS.”
passing along the genetic inability to whelp and nurse naturally, I did it to make my life easier. I was tired of hand-raising pup- pies. But it did not occur to me until much later, that my experiment to line breed on good reproductive traits was also good for the breed’s survival, though I admit I lost some breed type in the first and second generations. As I began to breed the better mothers I became more confident that the people who were wanting to breed a Basset for the first time would have a good experi- ence without a lot of outside intervention or extra cost. They could enjoy the experience and their new babies without constant wor- ry that the puppies were going to die. I don’t know too many people who could afford to stay with a new mother 24/7 for two full weeks and still make a decent living. Yet that’s what we Basset breeders were expect- ing our potential new breeders to commit to. And if they didn’t, then they could not have one of our precious bitches. The only option we left them with was to spay or neuter their puppies or breed the way we want them to breed. And now we’re won- dering why we cannot attract more people into breeding and showing conformation Bassets. What have we done to encourage them? We tell them it will be very hard and time-consuming, and they will not make any money on the puppies. What a deal!
We are in different times. The dogs are not irrelevant, but we are becoming irrele- vant, and we’ve only got ourselves to blame. People want dogs, and they want to do stuff with their dogs. They want healthy dogs, but they have not been educated to understand
how line-breeding can sometimes be used to enhance healthy genetics. Some breeds have been changed so much that they can no longer reproduce naturally, and some have physical structures that make them unsound in many climates. Humans have always manipulated animals and plants with selective breeding, and that by itself is not bad. It has brought us the predicable nature of many of our purpose-bred dogs. But we have also had the propensity to take some of the changes to ridiculous extremes, and these extremes are now threatening the existence of some breeds. Dog breeders are not alone in this push to extremes. One quick look at Arabian horses over the past 50 years will tell the same story. If a little is good, more must be better!
I think conformation breeders ignore some of the Animal Rights complaints about us at our own peril. They are mak- ing a pretty simple argument to the pub- lic. Breeders breed extreme looks without regard to overall health and welfare. Some- times we really do sacrifice our breed’s overall health and welfare for our chang- ing ideas of what makes a dog typey. Stroll through the Museum of the Dog and you will see the remarkable changes that have taken place in some breeds in the past 100 years, while other breeds have remained remarkably similar. No one could show a Bulldog today if it looked like the Bulldogs at the turn of the last century, but some of the smooth fox terriers from that era would be able to compete just fine at today’s shows.
I think we need to start discussing the financial impact of breeding without
being embarrassed. We should be charging enough money for our puppies to keep our breeding programs going, and we should stop believing that profiting from the sales of our dogs is somehow evil. We work hard. We produce a valuable product that is very much in demand, and we should be finan- cially rewarded for our work. That’s about as American as a concept can get–work hard and get paid. I think people are honestly shocked when I report that to date in 2019 I have grossed more than $20,000 from puppy sales alone, and that only required me to sell eight Bedlington puppies for $2,500 each. Two litters. Do I also have some expenses? Of course! And some years are better than others. This year I had some major veterinary expenses, but at least I had the revenue to cover them. One breeder I know puts aside the sale amount from one puppy in each litter to cover expenses for the next breeding. You may not be able to pre- dict exactly how many sales you will have, but some form of budgeting is advisable.
Breeding more healthy and viable dogs will keep breeders relevant. The public is slowly getting the message that predictable is good, and rescues are often unhealthy and always unpredictable. I don’t know if this will save dog shows, but it sure won’t hurt the market for our purebreds. And as num- bers of well-bred purebreds increase, maybe a resurgence in the willingness to partici- pate in the judging of livestock will also return. Then we just need to clean-up the dog show image of being political beauty pageants. But that’s another story.
116 • ShowSight Magazine, october 2019