What is a Breeder? The breeder is the mainspring of the dog world. Without the breeder, there would be no dogs. Without the dogs, there would be no kennel clubs, no dog shows, no judges, no handlers, no trainers, no dog food companies, no dog publications. Despite their importance, the breeder represents a very small segment of the dog world, which in turn, creates the dog business. Furthermore, they are the ones who seldom, if ever, make a profit, even in the most popular breeds; and since they cannot take a livelihood from their breeding activates, they must be able to rely on some other source of income. Why then, do people ever become Breeders?? A breeder has, in his mind, a perfect dog that he someday hopes to create. He presses on to breed his ideal dog, unfettered by desires to be a conformist, or to pander to the buying public. Like the artist or sculptor, he is activated by a creative, inner drive which is totally unaffected by considerations of what will sell or what wont. Unlike the sculptor however, he is working with living flesh and is constantly fighting time. He can never put his work away and come back to it later. The raw material on which he labors is constantly changing - sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse; sometimes as a result of his efforts and sometimes in spite of them. Nature and Time are his greatest adversaries, yet when he least expects it, they may prove to be his greatest allies. The sculptor can use the chisel to chip away at his mistakes,but it may take years for the breeder to see where he has made a mistake - a mistake which in some cases may never be remedied. True breeders speak the same language, whatever their breed. Without the slightest previous communication, they discover that they think the same way, they have the same ideals and goals and standards of behavior and the same awareness of responsibility. Like the Beautiful People in the social world, they immediately recognize each other - not because they know each others names or who they are, but because as kindred spirits they realize what they are. The Breeders and the Puppy Raisers The primary difference between the Breeder and the puppy-raiser is the awareness of responsibility; responsibility to his breed, to his goals, to the dogs he has bred and to the dogs he hopes to breed. He also has a never-ending responsibility to the people who have bought his dogs, to the people who are about to buy his dogs and to the public image--not only of the dogs he has been producing but of the breed itself. The Breeders are essentially givers. They give to their chosen breed much more than they will ever receive. Their rewards are intangible rather than financial. Here again is the great difference between the Breeder and the puppy-raiser. The latter produces puppies in order to sell them, getting them off his hands as quickly as possible before their cost has eaten up his hoped-for profit. The breeder, on the other hand, has an entirely different motivation. He breeds a litter only when he can devote the necessary time, money and work to it. he never breeds when he knows he will be up against a deadline; that is to say, a time when he knows all his puppies must be sold. Never, never does he breed a litter unless he plans to keep something from it, which hopefully will bring him one step closer to producing his ideal dog. If the litter is disappointing, he may sell the whole litter; but the better the breeder, the less often he will find it necessary to do this. The Breeder is constantly selecting and pruning his stock, sometimes because he no longer needs it, and sometimes because he has discovered a reason why he does not want it. The two reasons are very different. In the case of a dog he no longer needs, the reason may be that he has gotten from that dog what he wanted in order to further his breeding plans. In the case of the dog he no longer wants as breeding stock, he may have uncovered a reason why this dog would be detrimental to his breeding program. The Puppy-Raiser does not Care to Whom he Sells His Dogs The important objective for him is to get them sold, and as quickly as possible. He is like the gardener who scatters his seed all over the ground with little regard for its subsequent growth and cultivation. The breeder, on the other hand, has deep concern for the ultimate destination of what he has produced. To him, a dog is not an over-the-counter commodity to be sold to anyone who wants it and has the money to pay for it. This matter of attitude is another one of the great differences between the breeder and the puppy-raiser. When the Breeder sells or disposes of a dog, whether very young or grown, he is parting with something that is much more than what it looks to be in the eyes of the prospective buyer. The buyer sees a beautiful specimen of the breed- healthy, sound and a look of quality. The breeder sees all these things, but a great deal more. To him, the dog represents years of hard work-- often menial work-- years full of excitement, exultation and disappointments. He does not merely see the beauty in the individual dog before him, but a long line of ancestors, dogs that he knew and loved and that went into the making of this particular individual. When the Breeder looks at an animal he has bred, his view has an extra dimension-- he sees that dog in DEPTH.
Posted on: Tue, 25 Mar 2014 00:15:23 +0000
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