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GUESTBOOK
The two worst strategic mistakes to make are acting prematurely and letting an opportunity slip; to avoid this, the warrior treats each situation as if it were unique and never resorts to formulae, recipes or other people's opinions.
~Paulo Coelho~
...Some of my thoughts...
I
have collected
here some of my thoughts about Lowchens and Lowchen breeding.
Please notice that these are only MY opinions and please consider them
not to have any scientificic background.
Please note as well that English is not my mother tongue. All I hope is that you see my point, if not you can contact me, maybe I can try to explane you what I did try to mean. These are not articles, just my thoughts.
Please note as well that English is not my mother tongue. All I hope is that you see my point, if not you can contact me, maybe I can try to explane you what I did try to mean. These are not articles, just my thoughts.
But for the very beginning you get this gorgeous rock painting of Swan from Carelia ~ 4000-1000 BC
Often is said that it's
most important to have consistent type in one's breeding and people are
really focusing on getting it, no matter what the price.
Newcomers are impatient to get that big winner out of their own
breeding so they start with tight line- or inbreeding to see the
results faster.
Of course I have to
agree that doing close inbreeding is more sure to get more consistent
offspring, YES. But big question is: Is that the best way to get that
consistent type... Doing close inbreeding, we are narrowing
the already narrow gene pool we have, by doubling up on already strong
representatives in breed (dogs which are normally used a lot
in breeding themselves). It's like taking a short cut leading to
a dead end.
Worshipped idea
about tight line breeding... I personally do not believe that this
would be the only way to get nice dogs. Actually at the moment I think
it's totally opposite! It's great that people are
thinking about combinations, comparing the dogs and
pedigrees and trusting their gut feelings & common sense
instead of getting that popular sire 6th time to your 5
generation pedigree.
I did try to talk about
this in congress 2006 and caused some kind of minor GRR
there. My purpose was not to be mean, but to try to plant new ideas
& different thoughts. This has been mostly my thinking and You
have all rights to disagree, and please do while that creates
conversation and that leads to thinking which is always good.
The first thing we
nearly all agreed, at the Congress, was that it's good that we have
somewhat different idea about the breed and how it should look like. If
we all would have that similar dog in our mind and most of all, would
use the same methods to reach that idea, it would be a disaster. What
if there is some troubles popping up in that line? Where could we go
without doubling on that fault, answer would be nowhere...
But what really was not
accepted when we talked was that, in a way, it's very nice
that a litter is not all even, because that means that they
are carrying different genes. By my common sense that would mean that
breed has different genes to continue for the future! You can pick the
ones you want to continue and leave the ones you do not want to do
that. Not all
dogs need to be bred, but we need more individuals in breeding YES!
To me it's very
important that there are different kinds of Lowchens! At the
moment we need all the variation we have, that's my opinion. And please
notice I'm not talking about extreme types, but good old basic Lowchen
with different faults!
Actually we can not
really use word outbreeding in Lowchens .If the pedigrees
would be right as they are written all Lowchens come from
same. For in fact we know that far behind in pedigrees there are
Poodle, Bichon, Havanese, TT, maybe some Yorkie & Papillon
& Lhasa (and how much more) blood in our lions . This
is done to save our breed (and thank you for that) and that's
it, we just continue with the dogs we have.
I hope I can state this well enough to be understood right… As we know the Löwchen gene pool has started from these few individuals (again when we have to believe the pedigrees how they are written), so this means that more or less all Löwchens are linebred (excluding these new arrivals to breed which can not be denied to happened). So outbreeding in our breed is actually in a way impossible to do. When you do a breeding, you are linebreeding in some direction no matter what. So pushing this one step further: On paper that would mean that in principle we could use no matter which (HEALTHY) dogs in breeding and still maintaining that ”best” way to get good dogs: Line breeding. Dogs are so tight bred in very beginning of recreating the breed.
SO should we focus more on using dogs which match on TYPE even if their pedigrees do not go into line you are so looking after? Just making sure that these dogs in pedigree would have the type you want to maintain, and of course you should look that you would not double close to dogs that you do not want. In my opinion we need more basic dogs in breeding avoiding extreme types. Extreme types could be used in breeding only when we truly need something from them.
I hope I can state this well enough to be understood right… As we know the Löwchen gene pool has started from these few individuals (again when we have to believe the pedigrees how they are written), so this means that more or less all Löwchens are linebred (excluding these new arrivals to breed which can not be denied to happened). So outbreeding in our breed is actually in a way impossible to do. When you do a breeding, you are linebreeding in some direction no matter what. So pushing this one step further: On paper that would mean that in principle we could use no matter which (HEALTHY) dogs in breeding and still maintaining that ”best” way to get good dogs: Line breeding. Dogs are so tight bred in very beginning of recreating the breed.
SO should we focus more on using dogs which match on TYPE even if their pedigrees do not go into line you are so looking after? Just making sure that these dogs in pedigree would have the type you want to maintain, and of course you should look that you would not double close to dogs that you do not want. In my opinion we need more basic dogs in breeding avoiding extreme types. Extreme types could be used in breeding only when we truly need something from them.
I personally have very
sure idea what I want from my breeding, but at the same time I try to
keep my mind open and not to think that this would be the one and ONLY
Löwchen. Of course I could use one same male to all my bitches
find a new one and let that one mate the circle again. Do
this over and over again and say I have very consistent
breeding, but I personally do not want to do that. I rather have my
different looking girls coming from little different
backgrounds/individuals.
If we do not take good
enough care of the gene pool we have and do different
combinations to other breeders soon the only way to save the breeds
(not only Lowchen) is to cross breed again in to something else. This
has already been done in some breeds with Kennel Club's approval...
When shall this be done in Lowchens... Hopefully we do love and cherish
the breed enough that we do not force ourselves to
do that too soon..
Sometimes I'm a
bit amused reading the comments of new active fanciers and
specially how strongly their opinions are stated. New people in
breed are a treasure, and please notice that I'm
not looking down at their opinions. Mainly this
amuses me just because I see my old self there, and the truth goes:
More you know, less you would like to know and quieter you become, this
is just the way it goes. Sadly the truth needs to be faced, that's the
only way to go on in long run. Unfortunately there are many people who
are not willing to face the facts.
I have stood in PRA-barricades for 10 years (oh my) and many times I have been been a bit fiery with my comments. Even though I have understood from the very beginning: I rather have that PRA affected who goes blind in age of 10, than inner organ/ ”moving organ” problem, who has to be taken over the rainbow bridge in early age. Longer you have been in dog hobby/breeding, easier you notice that PRA might not be the worst case scenario.
Even though I have never understood why we need to line breed closely to PRA affected and certain carriers, and sorry to say I still do not get the reason behind this. Then these dogs are used in breeding when they are still very young without any health checks and then these puppies are sold abroad... Sigh....
I have stood in PRA-barricades for 10 years (oh my) and many times I have been been a bit fiery with my comments. Even though I have understood from the very beginning: I rather have that PRA affected who goes blind in age of 10, than inner organ/ ”moving organ” problem, who has to be taken over the rainbow bridge in early age. Longer you have been in dog hobby/breeding, easier you notice that PRA might not be the worst case scenario.
Even though I have never understood why we need to line breed closely to PRA affected and certain carriers, and sorry to say I still do not get the reason behind this. Then these dogs are used in breeding when they are still very young without any health checks and then these puppies are sold abroad... Sigh....
No matter if PRA
situation looks good at the moment it does not mean that we would not
have the problem which we need to take seriously and most of all we
need to check the dogs which are over 5 years old!!! That one OK result
when the dog is one year old is not enough! When the pedigree is full
of checked dogs which are over 5 years of age it could be more
”acceptable” even to line breed in to these
carriers if you really need to do that, when we know that the dogs in
pedigree should not be affected themselves. But everyone does as they
think is the best.
When I did the hard
decision at that time and continue with my certain carrier girls I
decided that I will try to breed the girls first time when they are
around 3 years to try to block the early age PRA and then again in
later age when the first litter would be checked and dam herself would
have been tested few times clear trying to block the later onset PRA,
of course this is not foolproof, but the best what I can do before we
have the gene marker one day. Please notice again that I'm
not saying that this is the only way to do this, NO ! It's
just MY way.
Globalization has opened
many new wonderful doors, but at the same time it brings real threats
in dog breeding. Many males are used multiple times in breeding when
they are very young and maybe have meaningless health checks at one
year of age. So after these males have spread their genes in
their home country they are shipped abroad to be used in stud even more
and then their offspring is flying around the globe. Continuing this
way we will breed ourselves into the corner! So looking at
globalization from this point of view it can be more a threat than a
good thing IF we are not honest with other fanciers, breeders
and specially to our beloved breed.
I think that the biggest challenge for the future is to persuade breeders to use different and older dogs in breeding. Genetic variation is almost impossible to achieve in our breed, but still we have to try to ”hunt” to find different males in breeding! And NOT use that favourite sire of the season.
I think that the biggest challenge for the future is to persuade breeders to use different and older dogs in breeding. Genetic variation is almost impossible to achieve in our breed, but still we have to try to ”hunt” to find different males in breeding! And NOT use that favourite sire of the season.
And to achieve this we
need breeders who are willing and daring to do their own stud choices,
no matter what the "experts" would be saying. We have to trust our own
vision and then to achieve it, staying honest to one's work and to
yourself. Too many times other breeders might do combinations which
might be hard to understand. We can always ask what they are after, and
if they are after something
sensible, we have to learn to respect other people's decisions no
matter how hard it might be.
This brings a funny
thing in to my mind. When I imported the first American dog to Finland,
I was said to be nuts and this was said to me face to face and behind
my back many times. He was trashed to be the worst ever. When I tried
to say him to be here for breeding not for show
purposes, I was ”grinned”. Well today this dog's
relatives (which have been line bred in to very same dogs 3
times) are imported here. This makes me smile SO much :)
And now when I got
started, I will say one more thing. One thing that is starting really
to annoy me is, that we Finns over respect Finnish Lowchens. We can
honestly say to have the best groomed/handled and trained
löwchens, but unfortunately these qualities are not the ones
which are inherited. If we continue the same way, praising the
achieved(learned) qualities which are not inherited, we will go BADLY
to the forest.
Just go and see how many
Lowchens in Finland can be freely presented… Not
many… So many dogs are stacked SO well that when you see the
same dog out from the ring you can not believe them to be the same
dogs… When abroad and you see these scruffy looking fellows,
just go through them and think how they could look if they would be
trained, handled and groomed our way… We have to see the
qualities through bad grooming/presentation. And I'm saying this more
as a Lowchen breeder not a judge.
Well maybe I have been
having too much time to think about things.
As
”synopsis” I would like to say that every
combination is a compromise, you have to give up something to
achieve something, and some things you just have to
look at through your fingers. But down the line the most
important facts should be the health, character and then the looks. All
our lions are living as family members and then as show dogs.
It’s much harder to live with pissheaded dog than with the
dog who might be a bit ugly. But staring only one fact we will not
achieve anything.
Jari
