Page 92 - ShowSight - February 2020

Becoming: Preservation Breeders—Saving Their Wisdom BY JACQUELYN FOGEL continued
“THE WISDOM OF THE BREEDING ELDERS SHOULD BE PRESERVED SO THAT SOME FUTURE GENERATION OF BREEDERS WILL HAVE SOMETHING REAL TO GUIDE THEM. THERE ARE NO
SHORTCUTS TO BREEDING BETTER DOGS.
IT’S NOT A HIGH-TECH PURSUIT, AND A F”
UTURE GENERATION, I THINK, WILL APPRECIATE OUR
PRESERVING THE WISDOM OF THE AGES SO THEY DON’T HAVE TO START FROM ZERO.
We couldn’t wait to see the next batch of beneficial for dog breeding. Emphasis wisdom of the ages so they don’t have to puppies brought to each show. National has shifted from breeding better dogs start from zero. It’s a little like preserving shows were the best because they brought to winning more ribbons and achieving documents from our country’s past—the breeders from all over the country togeth- higher rankings. That isn’t what my Declaration of Independence, the Constitu- er to watch, discuss and plan futures with mentors taught me to strive for, but it’s tion or the Gettysburg Address. These docu- people we rarely got to see during the rest what the younger people are teaching ments were written by people who could
of the year. Our social networks were our dog-show friends and co-breeders. We usually kept in close touch with less than half a dozen other breeders because that’s about all the time we had to spend on those one-on-one telephone conver- sations that had to occur before or after work hours.
Now we just have to sit in front of a computer screen and page through dozens of on-line magazines to see all the photo- shopped and manipulated pictures of win- ning dogs. The social networks provide us daily with enough drama to last a lifetime. We have thousands of “friends” now. It’s exhausting keeping track of so many, but we keep trying. And if we need informa- tion about a breeding problem, dog food, a coat supplement, or a quick at-home remedy to cure mites we just have to ask Google. Who needs mentors when we have Siri and Google to answer all of our questions?
Things have changed a lot in the last 50 years—and not all of them have been
themselves. They don’t look for mentors so much any more, they look for cohorts who can teach handling techniques or grooming tips to help them win more. All of our electronic connectedness hasn’t brought us wisdom, it’s only brought us unfiltered information.
I love Dan’s idea, even if it’s old school. At some point in the not too distant future we are all going to realize that computers and hand-held devices don’t make purebred dogs, people do. Computers aren’t even very good assistants. But they can be used to store information we collect now so that future generation will have access to real wisdom, not just an internet search of unfil- tered, unverified, unchecked, and often unreliable information. The wisdom of the breeding elders should be preserved so that some future generation of breeders will have something real to guide them. There are no shortcuts to breeding better dogs. It’s not a high-tech pursuit, and a future generation, I think, will appreciate our preserving the
never foresee this future, but the human wisdom stored in them is invaluable even in a modern society.
I am predicting that a generation young- er than the Millennials will find soul-ful- filling value in breeding purebred dogs. I think they will try to resurrect lost breeds and breeding programs of long ago. As our fascination with technology and all things electronic wanes, we will begin to realize the value of real work with real animals in a real world. Some things will never be done better by a computer, no matter how sophis- ticated the programming is. We will always need people to care for live animals. It is one of the few occupations left where a person cannot be replaced by a keystroke. For this future generation the AKC should begin now to store the wisdom of past breeders. It won’t make the kind of money an urban daycare center will, but it’s the right thing to do to preserve our core mission. Thanks, Dan Buchwald—for bringing this to our attention while we still have time.
90 • ShowSight Magazine, February 2020