Page 90 - ShowSight - February 2020

Becoming: Preservation Breeders—Saving Their Wisdom BY JACQUELYN FOGEL continued
“MOST OF THE BREEDERS TODAY HAVE LIVES THAT ARE TOO BUSY TO PRODUCE MORE THAN ONE OR TWO LITTERS A YEAR, AND THAT’S JUST NOT ENOUGH TO
PRESERVE A BLOODLINE, OR SATISFY A MARKET.
THERE HAS BEEN A FAIR AMOUNT OF BRAINW”
ETHICAL TO LIMIT OUR BREEDING AND MAKE NO MONEY FROM THE SALES OF OUR DOGS.
Unfortunately Dan’s fantastic idea is in it. It even cleared up a misconception breed dogs. Why would they? Work hard, coming at a time when the end of an era is about Lyn Mar dogs that I had harbored for spend a lot of money, and get rewarded clearly in sight. That means it must become decades, and it has caused me to rethink my with ribbons—that’s not a formula to keep
ASHING THAT HAS LED US TO BELIEVE THAT IT’S SOMEHOW
an urgent priority, even though it will not make any money up front for the AKC. In many breeds, including my own, we have already lost the people who were widely accepted as the standard bearers. In Bassets we have lost Peg Walton of Lyn Mar Acres and in Bedlingtons we lost David Ramsey of Willow Wind fame just last year. I was fortunate enough to spend time with both of these people, and I am eternally grateful for the knowledge they passed along to me. Recently an old video of Peg’s dogs surfaced. I can’t tell you the excitement I felt when I watched one after another truly great Lyn Mar basset trot back and forth across the screen, handled by Peg herself. I first saw the video when I badly needed to sleep before the next day’s show—and I watched for nearly two hours anyway. I couldn’t stop watching. After more than 40 years in this breed I am still learning about it. The adrenaline rush I got from watching those beautifully bred dogs carried me through the next days’ shows, and I am still think- ing about that old video and the great dogs
own breeding program—yet again.
I have written about the Willow Wind dogs before. What I didn’t know or appreciate in time to record, was that David Ramsey had a photographic memory that could recall not only every dog he showed, but surprisingly minute details of the dogs he was competing against at the time. He could tell me exactly why he did certain breedings, and which directions he had to veer away from. If only I had taken the time to record some of that information, suc- ceeding breeders would have a magnificent foundation from which to proceed. I have only 22 years in the breed—David had a
lifetime. His knowledge is irreplaceable. Most of the breeders today have lives that are too busy to produce more than one or two litters a year, and that’s just not enough to preserve a bloodline, or satisfy a market. There has been a fair amount of brainwashing that has led us to believe that it’s somehow ethical to limit our breeding and make no money from the sales of our dogs. We then wonder why nobody wants to
anybody interested for long. At least now we have the AKC assisting in our market- ing with the MarketPlace pages on their website. In past years breeders had to pay all expenses themselves. Assistance came in the way of ethical roadblocks that pre- vented us from advertising in local newspa- pers, selling to pet stores, or using brokers to help sell puppies. Nobody told us how to sell our valuable puppies, they only told us what we couldn’t do to market them. We worked mostly in isolation from each oth- er, and only got to know each other at the dog shows. We didn’t have the internet or portable phones. Our social networks were the people we hung out with at shows every weekend, or worked with in a kennel club.
And yet we survived because we had been mentored by people who believed wholeheartedly in what they were doing— breeding better dogs. That was what kept them going, and ultimately what kept us going. We had a passion for breeding that was passed on to us, and we got to see the results of that passion at the dog shows. >
88 • ShowSight Magazine, February 2020