Quote:
Originally Posted by draggar
As far as I know every breed was engineered for a purpose, to do a job, and none of their jobs was to look nice - so why the stress on their physical look?
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I don't think that for the most part the art of purebred dogs can simply be put into 'purpose only'. There are a few dogs that are widely purpose bred - see racing greyhounds and Alaskan Huskies.. I've seen true racing greyhounds and those dogs you would hardly even recognize as a greyhound. Alaskan Huskies aren't considered a breed.. people breed them expressly for speed and endurance in snow, and only that. They don't care if they have masks, if they have standing ears, if they are white or grey or all black. They don't care if they are 30lbs or if they are 50lbs. As long as they get the job done and get it done well, sledders breed them, and they don't care what breed it is. Implicit in this is that Alaskan Huskies are a group of mixed breeds bred for work.
And you know what? Those dogs reflect that 100%.. from one Alaskan Husky to the other you will find very little in the way of *any* true type of uniformity. But they do the work. Is that what you're talking about? Then if that's so, why do we need a set of physical standards? Because purebred dogs are about the entire package - BOTH how they look and how they are supposed to act. It doesn't make sense to say looks don't matter and nobody should stress it. Looks are every bit as important to the purebred dog as how they act.
"Take GSDs for example, every standard states "
Must show confidence". Not can, not may, not should,
MUST."
Right, but this leaves room for interpretation too. One person's judgment of how much confidence is sufficient, differs from another's person's judgment on sufficient confidence. Is a dog that has passed SchH "confident"? Sure, within the boundaries of the sport. But there are many police dogs in training out of SchH kennels that do wash out. Were they not confident enough?
All very complicated questions, indeed.
Nebulosa - Open stud book: Mostly this means dogs of unknown or unregistered parents, who are of-type, can be registered officially into the breed, so to speak. So say you have a dog you think, looks, acts like a CSV. But.. you've no papers and you don't really know.. for all you know it could be a mix. Actually the AKC FSS system works under open stud book.
Luna's mom said, "I have been in SchH for 17 years and have yet to see an American bred dog in the sport."
Have you heard of the American GSD kennel Valiantdale?