Breeding fore Health, Money or Honour ???

[saschia]

Originally Posted by Mikael

[size=2]What I criticise is that there are no Bonititation Standard fore all to follow !!! and that the Bonitation apparently do not work, sense dogs whit serious disqualification faults can pas whit a good result.

Well it is a problem if thing as that happens. The problems which are maybe a cause for it are several, these I my thoughts on the matter:

1) Not enough judges. And I don't mean any judges - for dog show, the judge can be a person, who has his / her primary licence for any breed and obtained the licence dor CSW only later, and sometimes based only on very dubious knowledge (otherwise there would be no such marks as "too light eye", "too narrow posture" from international dog shows). For bonitation, you need an experienced judge, somebody, who works with wolfdogs already a long time and who know the breed and how it was meant to be. To get judge licence in Slovakia, you need to be active breeder and have 5 litters! That's very hard to do, so now, with Sonya gone, we have only two judges in Slovakia.

2) Tough breeding rules. Breeding rules are made by clubs and they reflect the momentary situation in the population of wolfdogs. Breeding rules need to be tough, so that we don't spread unwanted traits into the population. On the other hands, sometimes it happens that a line of dogs is about to go extinct, because there are no animals from that line, which would be bonitated and wouldn't have some bad traits. So sometimes situation is like this - a dog (maybe last opne in a line) is bonitated and it is found that it is too low, or has no mask, or has bad character or it has bit heavier had/bit open lips etc. Now, judge knows and breeding commitee knows that this is not good, but maybe it is on edge (64 cm - but maybe the dog is standing wrong, character between Ob and Oc, lips not quite open) - so if the judge gives worse mark, this animal is lost for breeding and diversity of the breed goes down. So they decide to put it in notes etc.
The Slovak club this summer decided, that the breeding rules should be less tough. Not that we should use animals with bad traits for breeding all the time. But that if an animal has some bad trait that removes it from breeding, but is very important for its blood or other important reason, that it could be used once, after the breeding committee decides so, and its offspring is thoroughly observed and everything is documented. So this decision might help in motivating the judges to rather give worse marks than better marks, if they feel the animal is at the border, for example.

3) some clubs in some countries, or individual breeders, if the country has no club, do not like the bonitation procedure implemented in Slovakia and Czech republic. And as they are not required by their FCI organization, they do not go for bonitations, or they organize bonitations with for example different test for character. We are not able to make them follow our rules. We have no say about if puppies from their litters should or should not get pedigrees, because this is governed by their FCI organization, not the global one. And it is sometimes very hard to persuade them. There are lot of myths about dog behavior - that for example defence training makes the dog aggressive, or that you actually have to train defence to be able to pass character test at bonitation. There is sometimes also problem with training - for example I think that a lot of problematic behavior of a dog during character test is that being left alone is something very new for it, and the chain makes very strange sound... And I know that leaving your dog tied somewhere alone is not possible in some countries - my friend, when she left her dog in front of a shop in Germany, found it a couple of minutes later surrounded by a mob of people ready to call police and dog rescue, because they thought it was abandoned.

So there are a lot of issues here and not all of them can be resolved in a short time. It is important I think, that we cooperate, that people who have experience go and educate others, that people are willing to listen and discuss without personal attacks. That people try to make clubs and try to understand and believe themselves that there are many things important for breeding and that even if they want to make money, they should follow some rules. But this can also be helped by us, by going and letting know people that for the same money they can get pups from bonitated and X-rayed parents and that they can buy with some guarantee and not a "cat in a sack".

Well sorry for terribly long post, hope I have not bored anyone to death ;o)

[Mikael]

Originally Posted by saschia

So there are a lot of issues here and not all of them can be resolved in a short time. It is important I think, that we cooperate, that people who have experience go and educate others, that people are willing to listen and discuss without personal attacks. That people try to make clubs and try to understand and believe themselves that there are many things important for breeding and that even if they want to make money, they should follow some rules. But this can also be helped by us, by going and letting know people that for the same money they can get pups from bonitated and X-rayed parents and that they can buy with some guarantee and not a "cat in a sack".

Tanks fore the ansers Saschia, and I definitely agree whit the above !!!

Regards / Mikael

[Rona]

Originally Posted by saschia

Well sorry for terribly long post, hope I have not bored anyone to death ;o)

Saschia, you're a very wise person. Thanks for the balanced, reasonable post. I wish more people would think about the breed in such a manner as you do...

[of_Mercedes_Dream]

Hello,
CSW Belgium is one of the west european club trying to convince breeders and owners to follow some rules before breeding. (bonitations, trainings,meetings,...)
Look at our breedingrules www.cswbelgium.com
Sachia, you know it already.
But the club can only ask the people, not command.

We still need support from Czech Rep.and Slowakia but therefor it's necessary that :
a/ both countries work together for the same rules
b/every decission made by those coutries must be translated in English. And I hope the problems with numbers of judges for bonitations will be solved also.

Last year Sona told me that Slowakia was bizzy to arrange some meeting for judges from other countries to show and explain how a csw really must be. Do you know if this is going to happen ?
That is really necessary because some strange judges still think that a csw must be shy.....!!!!!! (heard myself on a show)

greatings
Patrick

[Mikael]

Originally Posted by of_Mercedes_Dream

Hello,
CSW Belgium is one of the west european club trying to convince breeders and owners to follow some rules before breeding. (bonitations, trainings,meetings,...)
Look at our breedingrules www.cswbelgium.com
Sachia, you know it already.
But the club can only ask the people, not command.

We still need support from Czech Rep.and Slowakia but therefor it's necessary that :
a/ both countries work together for the same rules
b/every decission made by those coutries must be translated in English. And I hope the problems with numbers of judges for bonitations will be solved also.

Last year Sona told me that Slowakia was bizzy to arrange some meeting for judges from other countries to show and explain how a csw really must be. Do you know if this is going to happen ?
That is really necessary because some strange judges still think that a csw must be shy.....!!!!!! (heard myself on a show)

greatings
Patrick

Tanks fore the info link Patrick

I did not know you wonted ALL dog to come, even the bad ones. That´s good to know !

But I ges 90% of the ones that comes go there whit good dogs or good hope ?

Regards / Mikael

[saschia]

Originally Posted by of_Mercedes_Dream

CSW Belgium is one of the west european club trying to convince breeders and owners to follow some rules before breeding. (bonitations, trainings,meetings,...)

Yes, I know and I am very glad. Also German clubs makes bonitations with experienced judges, so everybody can see that it can be done. I must say that it was a very good idea of the Belgian club to make bonitation training and it is very unfortunate that only two people came. But both of them could see that it is actually not much, that good socialization and upbringing is enough with most dogs and that the most important thing to do is to let the dog experience different situations. For both of the dogs the worst problem was that they were not used to being left somewhere alone, but that is so easy thing to train! It's not training actually, it is just making the dog used to such situation.

I do not know details about the meeting of judges, but I hope it will be pursued. On the other hand, judge for bonitations should have extensive knowledge of CSW, because he (or she) does not compare the dogs in the ring, he has to evaluate every dog separately, should know exactly what to expect (and for youth presentation also how the things might evolve) and spot instantly any fault which the dog has. You cannot expect anybody who was not around wolfdogs for many years to be a good bonitation judge and to be accepted as such internationally.

Anyway, the Slovak and Czech club are trying to unite the bonitations and as soon as we reach conclusions, we will publish the results in other languages too.

[of_Mercedes_Dream]

Hello Saschia,
Thanks for your answer.
I had planned to come to the training bonitation but my car was broken. Next time I'll come.
Perhaps we can discuss more about this issue the 4 october in Samorin.
Patrick