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Changes in the shape
of the Bull Terrier head, 1930, 1950, 1980
Photos courtesy of the
Albert Heim Foundation for Canine
Research, Basil, Switzerland
The pictures
above are a physical and visible monument to what the show ring did to one
terrier breed in less than 50 years time.
Bulldog and terrier crosses, which once had
powerful jaws well-placed to do important work (gripping and holding
semi-wild bulls and pigs so they could be altered or slaughtered), were
rapidly transformed at the turn of the 20th Century to the point that the
jaws of today's Bull Terrier, while still massive, are now no longer set
at a proper angle to do the work the dogs were once bred to do.
If you look at the Fox
Terrier, you will see a similar transformation over time -- once small and
supple dogs transformed into large, stiff-legged creatures unable to move
properly in the field and with chests too deep for the animal to go to
ground after fox.
This is what show ring
breeders do -- they ruin working breeds. And it is not just the AKC show
ring, either -- it's the UKC show ring and the JRTCA show ring as well.
Give any show ring enough time, and it will ruin any breed of working dog
-- it always has and it always will.
Go through John
Broadhurst's excellent new book, "Terriermen & Terriers" (ISBN
0-0687296-1-4) and look for Welsh Terriers, Border Terriers, Wire Fox
Terriers, Smooth Fox Terriers, Cairn Terriers, Lakelands, Skye Terriers,
West Highland White Terriers, Cairn Terriers.
They are simply NOT there.
 Instead
you see terriers that are not registered or are unregisterable -- Jack
Russells, Fell Terriers, Fell-Border crosses, and the black Fells called
Patterdales. There's even a Dachshund. The only terrierman named working a
Kennel Club breed (53 terriermen are profiled) is a single fellow who
recounts a Border Terrier story that is now more than 30 years old.
"Working" terrier breeds?
Ha! It seems they are all gone -- shot dead by the show ring.
Former AKC President
Kenneth Marden has acknowledged the role of the show ring in killing off
working breeds:
"We [the AKC] have gotten away from
what dogs were originally bred for. In some cases we have paid so much
attention to form that we have lost the use of the dog."
I should say!
In the February 13, 2002
edition of The New Republic magazine there is an article entitled
"The Westminster Eugenics Show" in which the author writes of the Search
And Rescue dogs trotted into the Westminster Ring in New York after the
September 11th terrorists brought down to the twin towers of the World
Trade Center:
"The problem is that Westminster does
not judge breeds for those traits which rightly make a breed a breed.
The Pointers aren't asked to point (even though the logo of the
Westminster Kennel Club has been a pointing Pointer for over a century).
The Bassets and Bloodhounds do not track. The Otter Hounds are not
tested to see if they could kill, let alone identify, an otter. And so
on and so on.
"With the exception of a handful of
breeds who were bred to do nothing but either keep your hands warm or
wait until some Aztec chef could cook them, not a single breed at
Westminster is expected to do what it was bred to do. The beautiful
German Shepherd in the competition last night no doubt looked at the
visiting search-and-rescue dogs the way Alec Baldwin looks at people who
actually know how to read, and said, 'I wish I could be like them.'
"The cohost of the Westminster
broadcast repeatedly declared 'This is not a beauty contest... because
we have definitions for how a dog is supposed to look and feel.'
"Someone needs to tell this
blow-dried Afghan-breeder that that makes it more of a
beauty contest, not less of one. Simply writing down the criteria does
not make a pageant any less of a pageant."
The number of
working dogs ruined by the show ring grows every year.
Irish Setters, once famed
at finding birds, are now so brain-befogged they can no longer find the
front door. Cocker Spaniels, once terrific pocket-sized birds dogs, have
been reduced to poodle-coated mops incapable of working their way through
a field or fence row. Fox terriers are now so large they cannot go down a
fox hole. Saint Bernards, once proud pulling dogs, are now so riddled with
hip dysplasia that it's hard to find one that can walk without surgery in
old age.
In recent years, protectors
of at least two working breeds -- the Border Collie and the Jack Russell
Terrier -- have gone to war with the AKC in an effort to protect the
working qualities of their dogs.
Unfortunately, those
seeking to protect the gene pool of working dogs -- and the tradition of
breeding worker to worker -- lost and both breeds are now found in the AKC
show ring. While there are still working Border Collies and working Jack
Russell Terriers, the number of honest working dogs of either breed in the
AKC show ring is small and is falling rapidly. In time it is likely that
these two breeds will in fact split off from their working roots as has
happened with gun dogs where there are "working" labs and "show labs" and
"working" pointers and "show" pointers.
Lesson One in the
world of dogs is that if you put anything above breeding for utility, you
will start to lose working abilities.
Work is a tough task master
and it shows no favoritism. Fox and pheasant do not judge "up the leash"
nor are they taken in by fads. Quarry is not much interested in nose or
eye color, the set of the ear, or the "expression" on a dog's face as it
creeps up a hedgerow.
In working dogs, utility is beauty, and
"beauty is as beauty does."
E.L. Hagedoorn, a Dutch
consulting geneticist to dog breed societies around the world, believed
the show ring would ruin working dog breeds, and time has proven him
right. As he noted in his 1939 book:
"In the production of economically useful
animals, the show ring is more of a menace than an aid to breeding. Once
fancy points are introduced into the standard of perfection, the
breeders will give more attention to those easily judged qualities than
to the more important qualities that do not happen to be of such a
nature that we can evaluate them at shows. Showing has nothing to do
with utility at all, it is simply a competitive game."
A noted breeder of alpacas
said much the same thing, noting that when farm stock is judged on the
basis of wool or meat it is a different standard than that used at shows:
"Breeding animals for the shows is a
very peculiar business, because of the fact that it is wholly
competitive. Whereas the breeder of utility sheep or utility pigs
produces something that has a certain market value, which is not changed
very much even if ten of his neighbors start in with him to raise the
same sort of sheep or hogs, breeding animals for the shows can only pay
the man who succeeds in producing such stock as is pronounced by the
judges of the moment to be the most beautiful and the most fashionable."
The "judge of the moment" in a show ring may know very little about
real terrier work.
In the AKC, for example,
most judges are experts in a half dozen breeds. In the terrier ring, it's
almost a guarantee none has ever owned a deben collar or cut a shoulder
into a trench in order to get down another two feet. As a rule these
authorities are experts by dint of having spent far too many nights in bad
hotels attending show trials. In 20 years of owning dogs, they have logged
a thousand miles bouncing around show rings in plaid skirts and blue
blazers. They may have driven to the moon and back to pick up rosettes,
but few have driven 10 miles out into the country to even see a fox den,
much less put a dog down one or dig to it.
A few will claim expertise
because they have bought an airplane ticket and attended a mounted hunt or
two in the U.K.. They have seen "the real thing" they will tell you, and
know what is required of a working dog thanks to their two-week vacation
in Scotland! Just don't ask them how to extract quarry from the stop-end
of a pipe or how to treat a bite wound.
Theory always ends where
reality begins, and it always seems to have always been this way.
The very first Kennel Club
shows occurred in 1873 in the U.K., and 1874 in the U.S.. By 1893 Rawdon
Lee Briggs was writing in his book, "Modern Dogs," that:
"I have known a man act as a judge of
fox terriers who had never bred one in his life, had never seen a fox in
front of hounds, had never seen a terrier go to ground ... had not even
seen a terrier chase a rabbit."
By the AKC's own
estimates, a majority of newcomers to the sport, obsessed with
championship ribbons, stick with it an average of five years.
When they give up or move on to a new hobby, they leave behind a trail of
dogs that were not systematically bred to do a job -- they were bred to
produce ribbons and often by people who never completely finished reading
a book on their own breed.
Most of these
back-yard-and-hobby-show-breeders do not do any genetic testing on their
dogs, and when asked are quick to say their bumbling acquiescence to the
destruction of a working breed is OK because "No one's hunting birds to
feed their families any more," "We don't need strong jaws on a bull
terrier, we have barbed wire now" "No one hunts fox anymore -- it's
illegal in the UK you know."
I would suggest to these
people that they get deeply involved in breeds that are not working breeds
-- Shit-zoos, Peeking-ease, or Pappy-yawns, perhaps. Miniature Schnauzers
or Minature Pinschers are nice dogs -- give them a try. Or better yet, get
a dog from the local shelter and train it in to a high degree of
perfection in agility, flyball or even circus tricks.
But please stay away from
breeds that are working dogs!
As for those actually
interested in terriers as working dogs (and if not, please read the
paragraph above), we would do well to remember that we did not create
these wonderful little dogs, and we do not 'own' a breed anymore than we
'own' anything in this world. Like most worthy things, we inherit our dogs
from our forbears, serve as custodians for their gene pool in our
lifetime, and have a responsibility to pass on this gene pool in a
reasonably good condition for the future.
In the modern world,
passing on the gene pool means breeding dogs that are the correct size as
determined after you have done some real earth work.
It also means doing genetic
testing (CERF, OFA, BAER) before breeding any litter.
For those looking to buy a
terrier -- especially a Jack Russell or Border Terrier which are two
breeds which still have some pretensions to being working dogs -- I would
suggest embracing a working standard, not only for the dog but for the
BREEDER as well. If the breeder doesn't own a deben collar, a $50 shovel,
and a digging bar, I would suggest giving that kennel a pass. Ask to see
pictures of the sire or dam in the field. No pictures, no cash.
A serious breeder
takes the work of their dogs seriously, and a serious breeder
will work their dogs at least a few times just to make sure they have the
drive, the size and the temperament to actually do the job.
The standard for a working
terrier is NOT in the ring, but in the field and it is only in the
field that a dog can be judged worthy of being bred.
I close with the very
succinct and dead-on standard for working terriers published by The Fell
and Moorland Working Terrier Club in their "Year Book and Club History:
1998-99". No better parody of the Kennel Club "standard" exists, nor does
it leave out a single thing required of a working terrier.
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A Working Terrier Standard
A working terrier should be terrier-like in appearance and should
have an acute and powerful motivation to work.
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HEAD: should be strong, and encased in the skull should
be a brain capable of showing intelligence and a fair amount of
obedience and respect with some affection.
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NECK: should be strong and muscular, joining the head to
the body.
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CHEST: should be big enough to hold the heart of a lion,
but small enough to enable its owner to follow the quarry into
extremely tight corners.
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LEGS: should be long, or short, according to the work
envisaged by the terrain of the area where he is to be employed.
The legs should be powerful enough to carry the owner through a
hard day.
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FEET: four, one at the end of each leg, with extremely
tough pads.
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COAT: whether rough or smooth, white or colored, should
be dense and tight, to keep its wearer warm and facilitate
cleaning without holding too much earth and water.
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BACK: strong and supple.
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TAIL: for preference, a working terrier should have a
tail.
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EYES: of great assistance above ground.
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EARS: yes, two.
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NOSE: should be able to detect and evaluate any slight
scent.
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TEETH: should be as large and as strong as possible,
firmly secured in a muscular jaw, capable of biting powerfully and
holding a firm grip.
In temperament, the animal should
be fairly docile and tractable, with a tremendous staying power and
great love of his task. He should enjoy going to ground and should
not appear at 10 minute intervals to see if his owner is still
waiting for him. He should disregard wounds and see his job through
at all times. He should be of sensible disposition and not easily
ruffled or upset.
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Show ring bulldog
skull
This is a long way from a working dog!
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