Fellewell
Well-Known Member
You raise points worthy of thought. I've no real answers but considering that health tests, no matter how rigorous seem to have little effect upon the wellbeing of what we produce, and the decline seems to continue, I suspect that diet is the only other path to consider and how we rear our pups.
Temperament Testing? Who would carry this out? With work dogs, mostly we don't really care what they look like, temperament is everything and self selecting. For the show bench, then the emphasis is on 'looks' and conformation, and despite the claims to the contrary, lip service is paid to temperament and often by those who don't really understand about temperament because their dogs are rarely tested under conditions of work.
Dogs, mostly, have been designed as our companions. When they're with us all but 24/7, then they tend to be the better adjusted dogs. When I lived alone, except for my sheep dogs, we were together at all times. They lived in the house with me, and I never had better work dogs. It sounds as though the guy who you mention has, as you say, a mate and it's probably a relationship which has grown because they're together.
Alec.
Well I'm a bit of a sucker for a good looking dog and I don't agree that a dog in a show ring isn't capable of working too. Even our beloved Foxhounds have beauty shows!
I know you don't like Crufts but all other things being equal, at the end of the day, the judge has to decide on a best in show based on which dog is still showing its socks off. He has to decide whether he's looking at stamina or nervous energy. Dogs don't always perform well in noise and heat so that shows something regards temperament and/or staying power but everything else is open to too many variables, such as a bitch who may be protecting her rear end against an ardent male in best in breed and not showing her true potential despite hip/elbow scores being well within normal parameters.
I've got two here; one show lines, one working lines. The show bred one is the one with the brains. When I took on my first shep in 1968 he was beautiful, from show lines and had been holding a very nice family hostage for six months. He didn't think anything through, much like the working line dog I have now, who was also a reject. One day I hope the breeders will get it right, but you can get lovely dogs from any kind of breeding IME. There will always be throwbacks.
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