| 12.04.2013 My monology of cynology |
During this winter season I have really had time to think a lot and write about my thoughts to my blog. Or maybe I have just inspired of Nordic darkness of winter… Now the winter has already turned to spring and I want to write something in English too. Because last year and this winter has been very dog-active in my life and this activeness shall continue all year long. So this has been a time of many cynological thoughts and acts of which I write you some highlights.
I have been planning for several years to try to get to Finnish dog show judge course. Finnish Kennel Club starts judge course about in every third year. In order to be ready to apply for it you need to fur fill several criteria. At first you must have been active in canine world at least 10 years and it is recommended that you are a breeder. That is the time limit why I had the change to apply to this judge course first this year. When the last course began three years ago I had bred just 9 years. Then there are several courses you must have taken like breeder´s follow-up course, ring master/secretary course and ground course for judge school that included for example judging ethics and the different types of breeds and their structure and movements. Last course was on September 2012 and it had an exam with couple of books. That was very exciting because last time I had been in a real exam was in University year 1993... I heard that about 90 people took part in this exam but some 70 ones passed it at the first time. There was possibility to retake the exam and try to rise the grade and some people passed it in their second trial. All these courses lasted one weekend and they were in September-November. But that was not all work – it was more or less like a prelude fo this applying process…
In order to be qualified ring master/secretary you must work in dog shows for 5 days in a ring and in order to be able to apply for the judge course one must work 5 days as a qualified ring master. So during January – March I have been as a ring master/secretary for 10 days in dog shows. And as you may guess winter is more like off season in every dog sport here in Finland including dog shows. Therefore I needed to travel really long distances in order to find enough dog shows to work for. But I succeeded and was able to apply to the judge course before the 22nd of March! Now I hopefully get invitation to dog-eye-test and interviews that are organized at the end of summer.
This applying process has been very nice and I noticed that I do like ring mastering as much as I like to organize working-dog tests. Organizing happenings gives an excellent inspection forum to the world of dog hobbies. It gives a different perspective to it than you get when you take part to these hobbies with your own dogs. I have been really enjoying all I have learned. But as you may have noticed I love to think and process things a lot and this winter has been just perfect for that too!
An introduction of Hovawart as a working dog to a book representing all working dogsIn the early autumn last year I was asked to write an introduction or a presentation of Hovawart as a working dog breed. This article will be in a book that is going to be published next autumn and you can then buy it from ordinary book shops. The idea of the book is that working dog breeder´s tell in their own words about their breeds. I have been thinking about the strenghts and weaknesses of Hovawart as working dog for several years now and also written here in my blog some of them. So I had some ideas already in my mind and it was very easy to write. I was very flattered and happy to have this opportunity that I see as some kind of milestone in my cynological career. Now I am just waiting for the publishing party to come in autumn ;-) The form follows the action – it is an old cynological wisdom that does not happen vice versa That is a legendary truth in breeding. As a matter of fact it is the base in the theory of evolution. Rules according to this truth were the main subject in all courses I took part last autumn. Because as a show judge I want to specialize first to all FCI working dogs and then to hunting dogs I must see the relation between action and form in breeding dogs.
I have been reading several books of dogs and breeding but one of the most interesting was written by a famous Swedish cynologist Per-Erik Sundgren already in 1975. Almost 40 years ago he wrote about how modern city-life will change the dog breeding criterions. And now we can very well notice that he was right in his many thoughts. He saw that dogs should have more active roles in modern societies than just to be at the end of leash. He hoped that dogs should have more working and sport dog roles in our lives. Then dogs have possibilities to show their real value. He thought that dog shows gives dog more value of just a showpiece that is a great danger to the future of dogs in our society when they lead breeding to wrong kind of dogs and breeding criterions. I am worried about the same things in breeding working dogs because I am sad to see that in many times the aim is to breed only look alike working dogs.
I have been very interested in dual-purpose breeding for years and I see that as the strongest strategy to keep the genetic variation as wide as possible and also take care of the working potential of the dogs. Dog shows are most popular hobbies and will be that in the future too. And therefore it is the most important forum to try to influence on breeding criterions. That is also one reason for me to apply to be a show judge.
In all books I have read during the winter it is noticed that breeding good working dogs is very difficult although there are different BLUP values to support that goal. One thing that makes it even more difficult is that if you import a breed to another country you seldom import the infrastructure needed to breed it. That causes that the same breed like Hovawart can be almost like a different variation of a breed in different countries. And especially working dog qualities need a suitable testing culture. That is why many Hovawarts are more like look alike Hovawarts in countries that working dog sports are not popular among Hovi-breeders. So as I see it Hovawart breeders in most of the countries including Finland should value more working dog capacity of Hovawarts and try to breed them. I really see it as a value that must be assimilated by everyone who wants to breed working dogs. If you do not see the worth of working capacity and you want to breed just show and family dogs you should choose a breed that is created for that. In Finland dual-purpose idea has been very strong in our own hunting breeds already from 1877. Our hunting dogs must for example have always hunting dog test results before they can became Finnish Champion or C.I.B. All Nordic hunting breed organization decided not to accept new FCI´s C.I.E title because of their dual-purpose breeding strategy. So those hunting breeds cannot get the title C.I.E. that a dog can get just with show CACIBs. I really admire them because of their powerful decision and hope working dog organizations would have the same kind of politic in future.
Look alike Hovawarts in Finland?Hovawart is an old German working dog. Der Hovawart ist eine sehr alte deutsche Gebrauchshunderasse. Although this main purpose of the breed is taken seriously in strategic level only in RZV Germany and in other countries breeding working dogs is just in hands of some breeders. In Finland Hovawarts have been bred since 1960. In this 50 years of breeding you can see that we have created our own idea of Hovawart and our own Hovawart population and the main purpose of the breed here has becoma a show dog and a family dog. I have noticed that as much as Finnish Hovawart owners think that Hovawart is a show dog thinks original German RZV Hovawart owners that Hovawart is a working dog. This is easy to notice just by comparing how litters are announced by the breeding clubs and what kind of hobby breeders themselves have interest in.
If the form follows the action where will the show dog based breeding lead Hovawarts?And if you have not bred the working capacity for several dog generations it will maybe take twice the time to get the capacity back to a breed than it takes to disappear. That is why many of the breeders here simply ignore the issue totaly and they seem that they rather want to deny the origin of the working dog in Hovawarts than to take it seriously as breeding criteria. And of course without a systematically organized testing of working dog capacity you will not be able to breed working dogs. I have started to look every dog and other animals too in different way because I am preparing myself to go to the dog eye test that is at the end of August for the show judge course. There I must be able to see different proportions and qualities in dogs. I must also understand the different purposes of these qualities in breeding for example working dogs.
In a very interesting course last autumn our lecture a famous Finnish show judge and dog breeder Juha Kares told us how he had been thrilled of a dog´s upper arm. He told us a breeding hint that you can test what puppy to leave to yourself for breeding. He advised that when you lift a puppy under its chin and his front legs come easily of the mark that puppy is not going to be good for breeding because it will not have optimally placed upper arm. So he wanted a dog to have an upwards stretching front part. That means that the upper arm should most likely to be longer than the shoulder blade. In Finnish Winner shows in the beginning of December I was then looking for the Hovawarts with these new ideas and that really had happened. Also in Hovawarts you could notice that the upper arms are getting longer and dogs are more upwards stretching in their front part than they were about 10 years ago. Many of the Hovawarts were also presented like show Poodles with their head pulled upwards with a very thin chain. Some of them were pulled so hard that they almost puked. I was very unhappy to see that and I cannot see it as a normal way to present a working dog.
Also the top line of Finnish Hovawarts has become more and more downward ending. The shinbone has become also longer and hindquarters are set very much behind of a dog. Hovi´s are also becoming more and more angulated from back and less angulated in front so their trotting balance has become worse. Front legs are swinging too up and they have much shorter step than back legs. So the dog is not in so good balance anymore and these kinds of dogs will surely have lot of problems in jumping high barriers.
Kares showed as a photo of is book that had a show type Irish setter in it and Finnish Hovawarts are more and more having the same show breeding based problems than setters. A hunting setter is also a little bit upward stretching in front and has a long upper arm but it is functional in them because they search birds in high grass and bushes and try to get the smell as high as possible from the mark. Just like hyenas do and also look like. But Hovawart as a working do should has it very easy to keep his nose near the ground because of tracking is one of the most important function working dogs do. One reason of the state of Finnish Hovawarts is that about last two generations have been bred totally without a breeding tests last breeding outlook test (ZTP like) was held in 2007. Since that Finnish Hovawart club has at least once tried to have one but it was cancelled because there were not enough interest in that. I heard that I was the only one who had signed up to take some of my breeding dogs there. So practically Finnish Hovawarts are bred just according to the show merits and breeder´s own thoughts how they think a Hovawart should be. And you must breed according to those criteria in order to get show merits to your dogs and therefore show dog breeding changes every breed to look like a show breed. And beside that I noticed that the heads and ears of Hovawarts are getting smaller. If Hovawarts are continued to breed like this in Finland we will not even have any look alike Hovawarts in the future.
I have been thinking a lot about Hovawart as a working dog and what these changes in their outlook/form shall do to their capability to function as a proper working dog. One of the special strengths of Hovawart is a good nose. Hovawarts are very good tracking dogs and they should have it easy to track. Therefore it should be natural for them to walk and to keep the nose down near mark like a horse on pasture. Horses have a much shorter upper arm than shoulder blade than dogs. That is why we must not try to breed longer upper arms in Hovawarts in order to maintain their well balanced body for tracking. The breeds that are known to be very good trackers have also a very big nose like Bloodhound and German shepherd. They must have a long nose that is easy to ventilate lot of air. Today´s Hovis in Finland with their longer upper arm and high set front part and with their smaller head seem to develop just to opposite direction than a good tracking dog should develop. And that is worrying me. The final essay of breeder´s follow-up course brightened my breeding goals We were supposed to make a real business plan of our breeding in Finnish kennel club´s breeder´s follow-up course. While I was writing my final essay my ideas crystallized. About one year ago I would not have been so sure about my ideas that I would have written them here. But now I am ready to say them out loud. I find that I have got forward many steps in my cynological growth and I see the correlations of different things more clearly. I have planned how future Tallivahdin Hovawarts and their owners shall be in the form of product-customer-matrix. And as a Psychologist I also know the meaning of self furfilling prognoses… The most difficult is the group 1 dogs are already more than before in my third generation of breeding in litters F and G. Now I am closer to my goal and I know how to get there. But I still not have the dog owner´s of A group and I am just practicing how to get them TABLE 1. Tallivahdin kennel dog-owner-matrix DOG 1: DOG 2: DOG 3: strongly brave and little reserved working open and and rather tracking dog easy independent who needs a working guardian dog skilled owner dog to country side X OWNER A: FH-enthusiast aims in Champion Games X OWNER B: Beginner in working or rescue hobbys X X X OWNER C: An owner who needs a best friend Closing words My former notices support me to develop my eye for dogs and of course also working Hovawarts. I will continue to study these things and dogs more and my perspective shall be dogs in working and hunting jobs. This monology had its purpose and soon I begin the REAL LIFE of training dogs instead of writing. And to get the training spirit high I recall the highlights of the year 2012 in Tallivahdin kennel.
Main things in order to breed good working dogs are the working dog test results. Last year 2012 was the most active working dog test year in Tallivahdin history. We made our new record when five dogs Cremefarben, Emanze, Eminent, Englein and Freiberufler got result in working dog tests. Eminent got HK1 in people surching (like in IPOR) and is the first Tallivahdin hovawart with result in that working dog sport. Freiberufler started his tracking career with FH1 at the age of 2 years and 3 months and is the youngest Hovawart in Finland who has made FH1 and among 8 youngest dogs of all breeds. Cremefarben, Emanze and Englein got FH2 results and were ranked in activity list of all FH-dogs in Finnish Working Dog Association. Year 2012 was the first year they listed FH2 dogs so Tallivahdin Hovis were part of really nice history. in that FH2 activity ranking list there were totally 52 dogs of different breeds and they were ranked according to their results and number of tests they started. 11 of those FH2 dogs were Hovawarts.
Tallivahdin year 2012 was rather typical in our history of dog show results. 12 Tallivahdin Hovawarts took part in dog shows 54 times in year 2012. They represented every litter we have had A, B, C, E, F and G. They got 2 BOBs, excellent record 35 times (c. 65%), very good 15 (28%) and 3 times good and 1 abandoned. The most successful Tallivahdin dog was a beautiful veteran bitch Augenweide that filled 11 years last October. She got excellent in her every seven dog show and in five of them she got also CQ, 4 times she was placed in best bitch ring (which two were international shows) and then she made Tallivahdin history by becoming our first BIS3 VET. Tallivahdin kennel (Bildschön, Cremefarben, Emanze and Englein) became BIS2 breeder group in Finnish Hovawart Club Show among about 25 breeder groups. On the 31.12.12 Freiberufler got the title of Finnish Champion that crowned our year.
Our winter has continued longer than I have ever experienced here in Southern Finland. We are still able to ski on our fields on the 12th of April and the tracking season is over two weeks late than normally… That makes our first tracking tests even more exciting in May. Finnish representatives for FH World Championship Games have also had it impossible to train here in Finland before the games that are at the them moment in Denmark 10-14.4.2013. That is very bad timing for us Finns because of our very long (5 months) winter pause in tracking. I am keeping my thumbs up for them and also for German Hovawart representative Astrid Nessler and Ninjo ex Mercator (RZV). You can follow the Games in http://www.fci-wm-fh2013.com/ And as the summer comes my hobby of writing and thinking about dogs turns into real life ;-) So we shall see when I have time to write my next text in English… Have a nice time with your dogs and remember that dogs make better people ;-D |
| Takaisin |