| Faultlessness vs. Virtue by
Jonathan Jeffrey Kimes, Pluperfect Cardigans, USA Many people assume, I suspect, that technical accordance to a breed standard is the highest level of perfection a breeder should strive to achieve. To these fanciers, the aim of breeding purebred dogs is to have all these pieces of the puzzle assembled in the same animal. There are, of course, two problems with such thinking. The first problem is assuming meeting the breed standard signifies excellence or perfection of the trait. If this were the case, one could easily argue the state of purebred dogs today is quite exceptional as most show dogs meet the breed standard in most ways. To test the effectiveness to which a breed standard describes perfection, I would challenge anyone to take the written breed standard to 10 artists, none of whom have ever seen the breed, and have them provide illustrations of the written descriptions. I suspect some renderings would be unrecognizable as breed specimens. The second issue which closely follows this
thinking puts a reliance on the identification of faults as the tool of separation between
the exceptional specimens and the less valuable dogs.
Here I am using the term „fault“ in its most classical meaning. Many breed standards specifically list out faults
while the few remaining others have the rather more enlightened caveat that
„departure from the standard is a fault, the degree of which is determined by the
extent to which the characteristic departs from the standard.“ Consequently the dog must possess a specific
departure from the standard in an area to be „faulty“. This also literally means if two dogs possess
headpieces, both of which meet the standard, then neither can be considered preferable to
the other. Odd thinking, isn’t it? We know, if we are truly students of one or more
breeds, that there is some invisible ideal out there, our „vision“ of
perfection, which is far more specific and detailed than what is described by most breed
standards. It is the existence of this
very specific „vision“ in the mind of a judge which makes his/her opinion a
valuable assessment. It also is an extremely
critical understanding for one to become a successful breeder. I cannot ever recall meeting a truly successful
breeder who did not carry with them a very clear mental vision of what the ideal of their
breed should be. So I think it is fair to say just meeting the
physical description of a breed standard is not enough for most keen fanciers of a breed. There is something above and beyond this which is
recognized as „excellence“. Quite
naturally, this idea of excellence may vary amongst individuals, but it is a vision which
each person holds in their mind. And
generally speaking, those who have something akin to an expert’s knowledge of a breed
will tend to agree on what these exceptional attributes look like. Think for a moment, if you will, about the front
in your breed. Surely you have seen a
majority of which are acceptable and totally meet the standard, but are „nothing
special“. But can’t you also
envision the front of perhaps a few specimens which were over and beyond the basic
requirements and weren’t they truly beautiful? Both
type of fronts meet the standard but only the latter group are what you might consider
truly virtuous. If one would agree that meeting a standard is
technically „fault-free“ or „faultless“ then I think we begin to
understand what being faultless truly means. I
think we can agree there is obviously a difference between being faultless and being truly
virtuous. This is not, by the way, new
thinking by any regard. In fact, the late
extraordinary Raymond Oppenheimer (a partner in Ormandy/Souperlative, the phenomenally
successful English kennel of bull terriers) expounded on this very topic quite nicely. He once wrote, „The absence of fault in no
way signifies the presence of its corresponding virtue.“ What he meant is what I have just written about
– just because it isn’t technically wrong doesn’t mean it’s
anyone’s ideal. I began reading
RHO’s writings when I was 13 and I still find them profoundly perceptive. It is this thinking which supports the notion of
specialist judges – those who are supposedly most likely to have in-depth knowledge
of a breed to the extent they have clearly envisioned the ultimate, virtuous animal in
their mind’s eye. It’s not quite
that straight-forward, of course, because experience in a breed is needed for an
individual to understand how to properly weigh departures from this vision. For instance, while both small and closely set
ears may be a fault in a certain breed, the experienced judge (or breeder for that matter)
may come to understand that small but properly placed ears are less threatening to correct
breed type than properly sized but close-set ears. The true reason for my essay is to understand how
we breed the dogs who possess such strength of virtue. We would not breed two dogs with
bad fronts together with an expectation of obtaining good fronts. We generally breed dogs based on a concept I call
complementarity. (I use that term not only
for its descriptive value, but because it seems rather long and therefore, sophisticated!) At any rate, it is based on this notion that one
would cross-fault one’s bitch with a stud dog who complements her where she has
failings, and vice versa. I fully realize dog
breeding is not quite so simple or systematic, but this is the basic methodology used. So for the bitch with the poor front, one would
use a stud dog with a good front in the hopes some of the puppies will have the
sire’s good front. We use, in fact,
phenotypical attributes to help determine the genetic consequences. That is to say, we make assumptions about what a
dog is likely to produce based on how s/he appears. This
is the whole basis for holding dog shows at all. If
examining a dog provided no insight into how s/he would produce, the point of dog shows
would be not for the judging of breeding stock, but for the celebration of show dogs unto
themselves – a perspective which I am certain pervades the minds of those fanciers
(and here I mean judges as well as breeders!) who tolerate or participate in the coloring
and ear-, bite- and tail-fixing which is endemic in some breeds today. If one were to think about the challenge of
manifesting in the flesh that vision in one’s mind, there are really the same two
kind of methodologies one can use. The first
is to breed away from faults. If the bitch has characteristics which are
considered faulty, the breeder will complement those by finding a stud dog who is not
faulty in the same area. If this process is
followed religiously, I suspect the eventual outcome would be dogs who possess few faults. The program might produce, dare I say it,
faultless dogs! However, to the breed
student, dogs who „just“ meet the standard in all areas are most likely
considered „common,“ „without quality,“ or „boring.“ The bull terrier fancy refer to these sort of
animals as „faultless non-entities.“ The second approach is to breed for virtues.
This means to select a stud dog based on the fact he has a
„gorgeous“ head, or a „great“ sidegait.
The breeder is seeking, in point of fact, something beyond the minimum standard. For the forward thinkers, they know just meeting a
baseline standard is not a very successful manner in which to expect any degree of
consistent success or satisfaction. They
strive for something that stands out, something that is better than the rest. So this breeder will tend to search for strength
of virtues. Quite naturally, the ideal scenario is to obtain a
high proportion of virtuous characteristics with no faults.
What we find in practice, though, is that the dogs who are very virtuous in some
aspect or aspects sometimes are also saddled with faults.
If I were the breeder who bred for lack of faults, such a dog would be sent out to
a pet home for his faults. If I were the
breeder who is striving for that ideal in my mind, I would hesitate and determine whether
the dog, overall, was worth using despite the fault or faults. The frustrating fact is
when these „phenoms“ appear they not only have extreme virtues but often extreme
faults as well! I euphemistically think this
is Mother Nature’s way of keeping things in balance.
The „house rule“ I use in this instance is quite simple. I ask myself, „Can I obtain these great
virtues elsewhere, in a less faulty dog?“ If
the answer is yes, the animal can be discarded from the breeding program. If the answer is no, there is the distinct
possibility that discarding such an animal will ensure those characteristics will never be
bred to such a high standard again. For the
judge, the question is the same, „Have I seen such strength of virtue exhibited in
this breed before?“ If not, then one
must ponder the value that animal has in a breeding program before deciding his/her
placement amongst the competitors. The challenge the breeder is faced with, when
presented with a dog of extreme virtue and extreme fault, is to determine if such a dog
can be leveraged in a breeding program successfully.
It really takes considerable cleverness to accurately determine if the risk is
worth the potential value. Some breeders fail
at this miserably and possibly end up breeding a line of beautifully headed cripples or
some other sort of ill-conceived manifestations. But
given the right opportunity by the person who somehow has the ability to understand when
these controversial dogs are useful, they typically make profound influences on their
breed. I shall not delve further into the
needed importance of a judge’s ability to possess the same talent in order for their
opinion to be truly useful. Inevitably, these
extreme animals have two long lines of followers – those who love the dog (for
his/her virtues) and those who despise the dog (for his/her faults and sometimes virtues!) There is very little middle-ground with these
guys. Enough theorizing, I’ll now provide a couple
of examples. My first example comes from the
bull terrier breed. I will freely acknowledge
that progressive, liberal thinking was practiced by this fancy long before such posturing
was fashionable and I suspect it was largely due to Mr. Oppenheimer’s genius. He was wealthy, opinionated and generally right in
his thinking – a formula for becoming a mover and shaker! So to begin, there appeared from the smoke of WWII
a very impressive colored bull terrier. Notwithstanding
the fact this particular dog had the gall to be colored (whites were historically
considered superior in those days), he had a simply phenomenal head. Much of bull terrier breed type is in the head, so
when an extreme headed dog has appeared, I have often read stories of how the judge almost
fainted! being overcome but such extraordinary perfection.
At any rate, this dog, who became English Ch. Romany Reliance, was such an animal. He had a superb gunbarrel front, bone, substance,
a lovely neck and an auspicious headpiece. What
were wrong were straight shoulders, straight stifles, a high-set tail, a certain lack of
body shape and an imperfect bite – he was, in short, riddled with faults. Plenty of ammunition for both sides to rally
around! Suffice it to say he was an
extraordinary link to vast breed improvement and is probably single-handedly responsible
why the breeders of whites mutinied against their parent club to allow them free use of
coloreds and color-bred whites in their breeding programs.
In Cardigan Welsh Corgis, I can illustrate such a
case in which I played some part. There
existed in the seventies a most beautiful brindle dog by the name of Ch. Brymore’s
Taliesin. While he possessed many exceptional virtues he was not a particularly
up-to-standard mover. He won well for his
day, competing in the Working Group as Cardis did in those days, with two Best in Shows
and two CWCCA National Specialty BBs. But he
was most controversial and I very much remember overhearing much debate about his value. Being a teenager I tended to keep my mouth closed
(or at least that’s how I remember it) but I always thought him of exceptional virtue
without question. In the event he was, in
fact, very little used at stud. When I
reached a point where I was actively involved in breeding dogs, I championed his use, but
by now he was nearly 12 years old. Eventually,
a daughter of Taliesin was put to a dog of mine, Ch. Kennebec Ice Anchor. The bitch was a decent sort, she was long-coated,
barely acceptable in movement but typical in many ways and quite obviously carried many of
the good points of her sire. What came out of
the litter was a rather glorious bitch by the name of Ch. Davenitch Shiloh Luca. She became the first Cardigan bitch in the world
to win an all breed Best in Show and won two national specialties and was BOS to her sire
at another. She was, indeed, a phenomenal
specimen. Before and after the advent of
Luca, I crossed the Taliesin descendents I had with the complementary Ice Anchor and they
proved extremely valuable in breed improvement, counting for a large number of national
specialty and all breed winners among their descendants. The point of my essay being that truly it is strength of virtue - intelligently recognized and utilized - which moves a breed forward, not a mad pursuit for lack of fault. Judging by faults is far easier but far less satisfactory in the end. I will insert the comment that I am by no means asserting a characteristic carried to extreme is always virtuous! But I do believe it true that as one approaches what we consider „perfection“ the horizon ever recedes and our concept of perfection then alters. I do believe, with great conviction, that without the recognition and use of these rare occurrences in dog breeding, we lose momentum and great opportunities for breed advancement. So when we come upon these phenoms and they are saddled with shortcomings, let us recognize both the good and bad and evaluate them in the light of breed improvement and not just as a static manifestation of an imperfect rendering of the breed standard. |