Retrieverman's Weblog

I have been thinking a lot today about the real problem dogs face from us.

I think the biggest threat to dogs is the human ego.

If my dogs don’t beat someone else’s dogs, then they are inferior. If they are inferior, then I am inferior.

And so we have engaged in contests to prove our dogs’ quality.

And for a while, it helped us produce better dogs. The various competitions told breeders what worked and what didn’t. The competitions were kept in perspective, and sometimes, even an inferior dog got bred because it had some new trait to offer the line.

And things were fine.

But then the human ego took over. Competition became more important that long-term breeding goals. Stud dogs became flavors of the year, simply because they’d won a lot competitions in that year.  These studs wound up producing virtually all the puppies.

The ego says, “Win, win, win.” Breed what wins to what wins, and we’ll see what we get. Never mind if the two dogs who win are close relatives, derived from the same sire, great grandsire, and great-great-great-grandsire.

Now, I’m talking here about the contours of a general problem that exists in purebred dogs.  The contours are not absolutes. Some breeders are trying to do the best they can to make things better.

It is just an uphill battle.

The collective egos of so many people (and some of their salaries) are caught up in making sure things don’t change.

That’s the real problem that drives most of the problems domestic dogs face.

How we reform it is not an easy answer.

This is an intergenerational struggle, just like the struggle for reform in human affairs continues to be.

But the first thing we must do is check our egos at the door.