UNDERSTANDING AND SURVIVING POLITICS IN BREEDING Im getting tired of this subject but it is a reality and I will try to explain it like everything else. No preaching, just the way I see it, the implications and how I believe it can be solved. I will only write about something if I believe it has negative effects on chinchillas. If it cant affect the chinnies it is just not important. Unfortunately our actions directly affects our chinnies. Ignorance is the worst, followed by plain cruelty and just not caring. Then comes politics. It is worldwide, typical of all people that breed any animal and is in competition with anyone else. Everyone is involved, some just dont even realize it. You dont even have to say a word about anyone, if you react against something someone said about you, you are involved. If you are discussed without your knowledge, you are involved. Which means we are all involved, every single one of us. Simply because we are human. What causes this? Only a few things. Money, ambition, pride and prestige. These driving factors are not exclusive to breeding, it is part of being human. We all have it in some degree. It just depends how strong it is and how it will affect the decisions you make. It is easier to discuss with a few examples. I dont mind using myself because I dont mind criticism. Money. Here I have a very unfair advantage, hahaha. No, Im not rich, my wife is a teacher and I receive a military disability pension. My advantage is that I got it knocked out of me, hahaha. I was in an accident, there was damage to the part of my brain that gives me the ability to concentrate for long times, my short term memory and my ability to realize the value of objects. All I am left with is the love for living things. It is a huge advantage and none of my doing but it also causes problems. My poor wife, hahaha. She must make everything work. Willie also took over running our business because I just give stuff away. So money doesnt drive me simply because I dont have the ability to understand it. Ambition. This drives you to be the best. It is an extremely strong motivator and it makes people ruthless. I already am the best at what I want to be. No more need for ambition. Instead of making breeding my focus I made the rescues my focus. I am ambitious, I achieved a lot in my life. It can just be channeled and I made it easy for myself. Because the rescues are so important and I cant do as much as I used to I just dont have time to be ambitious in breeding, it just doesnt come up. Pride. We are all proud. If you are not proud of something or yourself you lack self esteem. Again you can channel it. I am extremely proud of the lives I save and the good life I provide rescues. I will write about it permanently and must keep myself from doing it. Then I am extremely proud of the babies that chinnnies I bred give to other people. It is very easy to brag with the chinnies Willie and other breeders breed. I am even more proud of the happy families that have wonderful pets that gives them many years of pleasure and love. This leaves no room to be proud of anything else. It leaves me free to post pics just because they are cute, hahaha. Prestige. The glory that comes with being known as the best breeder or the most knowlegable breeder. Well, I am just realistic. I will never be the best breeder because I make too many decisions based on emotion. I cant be clinical enough. So I decided to be the best at helping others and taking the best care of rescues. The knowledge part is easy. You can only be the breeder with the most knowledge if you know everything. Since nobody does I dont waste my time with something I cant achieve. Instead I channel this energy into learning even more instead of believing I know it all. Nobody does, there is a lot more I dont know that what I do know. I realize it every day. Then you share the knowledge because it makes you seek even more. This solved my problem, it happened by accident, hahaha. It is not this easy. Money is important. You need money to take care of your chinchillas. I spend a lot of money and the only reason I can afford what I do with the rescues is because of my wife and Willie. I will never be able to do it on my own. Apart from this, I believe if you pay for something you appreciate it more. Then money is the best way to measure quality. When I sold chinchillas I asked the prices I saw others ask. Then I gave a discount because I liked the people. This means I never established the appreciation of quality. Now Willie does it for me. The only condition is that I will still help people looking for pets for the right reasons and I will let good chinchillas go to people who needs a companion for a lonely chinchilla. The rest is not my decision anymore because I will never ask the price they are worth. Ambition. If you do not aim to get anywhere you dont even have to start. It just depends on what you want to achieve. The ambition to breed the best and strongest chinchillas cant be argued with. Sadly it is also the ambition of many breeders to breed as many babies as possible, breed the rarest mutations the fastest way possible and be the first to breed something unique. Where I cant argue with the ambition to breed stronger babies that are beautiful too I have a huge problem with the rest. This is where money and ambition gets intertwined and a breeder loses focus of what is important. Pride. Well, if you breed a baby you are not proud of you made a mess. Off course you must be proud, just like a parent is proud of a child. It just depends on why you are proud. Is it because of the mutation you got or how strong the baby is? I will be proud of a strong and healthy Std, even if it isnt beautiful. It will still be healthy and will make a family happy for many years. I will be extremely ashamed of a Sapphire or Ebony I bred just to get the color but in the process bred a weak baby. Nothing wrong with pride, it must just not cloud your judgement. Prestige. Easy one. Since you can never have the most knowledge, dont waste your time. Rather learn more. Knowledge is dangerous. All it takes is one piece of wrong advice, a chinchilla that dies or babies that gets born weak. If you gave the advice, you will be blamed and they will tell everyone. People are vindictive this way. There is simply no way you will always be right. There is also a difference in just making a mistake because you didnt get all the facts from whoever asked. Just like no 2 chinnies are the same and you cant see inside them. But giving the wrong advice when it takes 10 minutes on the internet to get the facts will sink you. You should know all the basics if you are a breeder anyways. Being known as the best breeder is fine. Just be careful that you dont become known as the breeder who breeds all the rare mutations but they dont live long enough to give babies. I will rather just be known for healthy chinnies who gives healthy babies. More than enough. The part about politics that angers me is that it stands in the way of sensible breeding decisions. The rest is just human. The problem is that it causes breeders to make decisions based on personal feelings instead of what can be achieved for chinchillas. I am also guilty of this. I just see it differently. I believe the politics reflects the true reason why someone breeds and based on this I will not help them with chinchillas, just advice. It sounds pretty holier than thou but it is actually just basic common sense. You see, if they do not breed the way I believe, they will breed what I believe is weak chinchillas. These weak chinchillas will be sold, bought by other breeders and bred with, where it gets worse. For this simple reason it is already very difficult for me to buy a chinchilla from anyone. The politics just makes it clear. Distasteful but clear. As with everything else, you draw the line back to what is best for the chinnies. The politics in breeding causes so many enemies. It seems like breeders believe if you cant breed better than the next breeder, you try to talk yourself better and talk their chinnies down. This does work, hahaha. It works till the babies of the babies arrives. You cant hide babies. You can hide them if they are your own but you cant hide it if your babies gets babies at another breeder. A weak baby here and there is natural. If it forms a pattern there is no way you can talk it away. There are more people looking for chinchillas than you will ever talk to in your life, so you might even get away with it. It just depends on if you always want to sell to some sucker or if you want to attract the breeders that will become a force in the future. I will never be a force because I have different aims but others will. They tend to attract each other. It happens all over the world. It becomes us and them. Like minded people will stick together and they tend to help each other, based on respect and trust. My approach. People talk, way too much. If I didnt hear it out of your mouth, you never said it. If you didnt hear it out of my mouth, I didnt say it. The more successful you are, the worst it will get. It is easy to say you should just ignore it. We are human, it hurts and it makes you angry. It also doesnt help. The way I cope with it, I write. No matter who says what, there will always be something in it that I can explain or share. I have this thing for explaining stuff, hahaha. So I just take whatever is said and explain the facts. Often with way too much anger involved but it gets better as I calm down. Politics is human and will never ever go away. Neither will our reaction to it. By having a totally open approach, sharing everything and admitting mistakes it doesnt leave a lot to talk about, hahaha. All it leaves is that I am a pain in the ass who preaches an awful lot and am extremely narrow minded in my approach to both breeding and business. Since everyone already knows this, what is left, hahaha. Just keep this in mind. Breeding is extremely competitive. Ive seen this here and all over the world. It starts small and it can escalate into something very nasty. This is why I am very careful, it happened to too many friends and to me too. Whatever a friend do or say to or about anyone else, they will do and say to or about you too. It is just as human as the rest. If It is in someones nature, what makes you special. Nothing, hahaha. You are competition too, remember. If not yet, you will be. It is just a matter of time. It always happens because it is human nature. The one force you cant fight against is nature. If it is someones nature, nothing will change it. Once you accept it you can even work with such a person. It can benefit you both but it will always just be temporary. For this reason I choose not to work with people who doesnt share my beliefs. I am a sucker and must protect myself. You cant talk yourself into being a good breeder, the babies of your babies will be the proof. Just like you cant talk another breeder out of anything. The babies of their babies will do the talking. As for the rest, it is just being human and all it tells me is where you fit in my world.
Posted on: Wed, 23 Oct 2013 11:17:35 +0000
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