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cwalt

MH
Posts:180

08/27/2008 5:31 PM
The problem with pointing is that it is a fixed action pattern selected and strengthened by artificial selection. The only thing that the breeder can rely on in selecting a pointing dog to breed is the strength of the pointing behavior in the parental line(s). Take the breeder who sells pups to North American versatile dog enthusiasts who believe that they have to train a dog to point. The result, by and large, is the production of pups that don't point very well because the handler/trainers have screwed up the pointing behavior by trying to train it. The poor breeder, not knowing what his customers have done to his pups, selected for increasingly stronger pointing instincts until they have truly sticky lines, dogs that will not relocate a moving bird. Now a truly sticky dog with a strong pointing instinct doesn't react to trainers who try to teach them to point, they ignore just about anything the trainer does to them. The customers are satisfied, their mutts point, and the breeder thinks he's producing good pointing dogs. I don't think most North American versatile dog fanciers know enough about bird dogs and bird hunting to correctly evaluate a dog. It doesn't look like this is likely to change. So the breeder is limited to feedback from people who don't know what they're seeing. That's why I gave up on breeding dogs 30 years ago. In my own case the days of exposure of a young dog to 50 or 75 birds in a day is long gone and I have to go to somewhat artificial methods such as the quick point introduction to scent pointing . I have been very lucky in that I have had the opportunity to study literally hundreds of versatile bird dogs being trained by hundreds of people. I have also had the opportunity to study the development of many of these dogs as they transited from a testing environment to bird hunting. Contrasting the hunting dogs with the test/trial dogs has demonstrated that a lot of training seriously retards the development of a good bird hunting dog. The difficult, perhaps impossible, task is convincing the average dog owner that the training books and clinics are screwing up their dog. If all you see is poorly adapted and poorly trained gun dogs you have no basis for comparison, you have no opportunity to see what a dog should do because all you see are cripples. Should we discuss how to make a crippled bird dog? Cj

rospigan

MH
Posts:372

08/28/2008 11:19 AM
>>>The difficult, perhaps impossible, task is convincing the average dog owner that the training books and clinics are screwing up their dog. If all you see is poorly adapted and poorly trained gun dogs you have no basis for comparison, you have no opportunity to see what a dog should do because all you see are cripples. Should we discuss how to make a crippled bird dog? Cj>>> To some degree we have a similar problem over here. People compare their dogs to other dogs they have seen. If you never have seen the crème de la crème, the best of the best, you do not know where you are with your dog/-s. You may even have one that belongs among the best and you do not know about it. This is common with those who hunts only and do not give a damn about the trials. You don't have to trial your dog but you could go to see a trial before you breed from your own dog. It doesn't hurt but would broaden your vision. There is a problem here since not all trials hold the same class. The first spaniel trial I ever saw was a special one for the so called dual purpose (=neither purpose, not good show dogs and not good working dogs)spaniels. No working spaniel with some self-respect would have started there. To my luck I had in advance seen enough of true working spaniel videos to understand that this was not the "real" thing so I did not turn my back to the working spaniel world after seeing the first trial. However, there are folks with rather mediocre dogs that truly, really believe they are good. The reason is simply that they have never seen anything better, or even worse - anything else for that matter. Unless they breed from their "super star" there is nothing wrong with that. If they admire their dog then they are happy and hence the dog is most likely happy also and that's what it is all about. Problem starts when they decide to take a litter so that they can have a progeny from their loved one. The litter will be 9 puppies large and they sell 8 of them and spread the un-trialled genes around. It is easy to calculate the impact those dogs will have at least on a breed that is small in population, regionally or nationally. My first dog, the Klenier Munsterlander was one of that kind. Torsti Borta Med Vindens Kennel "Ask not what your dog can do for you. Ask what you can do for your dog." www.rospigan.net

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