A multitude of lives and stories are represented
by these ordered lines and names; lives of people and dogs, stories
of happiness and heartbreak, triumph and defeat, euphoria and tragedy,
outrageous fortune and unbelievably bad luck. This is a field thick with
plots and subplots, rich viens to be mined. Among the human protagonists
there are good guys and bad guys, heros and villains, the halt and the
lame as well as the rich, the beautiful, the fortunate. There are friendships
made and friendships broken; occassional trust and harmony, but often,
bitterness and an embattled state of existance that wears and drains. This
is a construction of myriad parts, the accretions of years and generations,
parallel to the structure of cities and societies. These ancestors,
canine and human, with their joys and troubles, are the ones we have
to thank for whatever we have today; somehow, they kept alive, despite
the hazards inherent in living; somehow, they reproduced, despite the odds
against it; somehow, a part of them lived on.
Traveling back into the pedigree, patterns
are emerging, telling the story of those who built these dogs and showing
the impact of individual people here and there. The pedigree is a
witness to the form and quality of thought of all those who played
a part in it, it's sum and result the accumulated impression of minds.
You can hold it and look directly at a person's intellectual ability or
lack thereof, seeing even an expression of their personality and
what they held dear. Breeding methods and strategies are like a signature,
a trademark, bearing the imprint of the mind that used them.
The patterns of their choices are clearly
readable; whether they were frivolous, leaping at every new and shiny thing,
flitting from one fashion to the next by breeding first to one thing and
then to another willy-nilly as every passing fancy came and went; or if
they were steadfast, sticking it out with the one true thing they believed
in through the ups and downs of changing styles and popular trends. If
they did that, they would have been embattled for a certainty; but they
might also have achieved a more meaningful contribution in the genes they
held together despite everything against them. Their thought made flesh
is more likely to live on a bit longer before being diluted in the waves
of succeeding generations. You can see whether an individual valued surfaces
with all the bells and whistles; or if they felt that bells
and whistles alone make for a tinny and annoying sound, and were rather
of the meat-and-potatoes inclination; or perhaps they strove to blend the
two. There are tales of carefulness, breedings few and far between with
carefully kept and cherished generations each spreading over a wide span
of years; and tales of waste, one litter born right after another so close
in time that ancestors born 5 years ago have already vanished off the right
edge of the page and out of mind. There are the conformists, going with
whatever wins at the time; contrasting with the few who identify and follow
their own distictive idea.
The pedigree tells whether it's participants
were flexible or rigid; had foresight or doomed themselves by lack of it;
rolled with the punches or folded. Did they leave enough variablity so
that if things went awry with one effort, there was room for Plan B, and
Plan C, without all being lost? Or did they put everything they had, hook,
line and sinker, into one option? Was that because of an ego allowing room
for no one else---or because they only had resources enough to support
one focus of effort? Financial as well as intellectual ability plays a
role, though one will never replace the other. Was there a sudden change
in their strategy? That means they rolled with the punches; if they hadn't,
the descendents wouldn't be here today.
Any one person's part may
represent anything; it could have been a passing fancy, an act of complete
indifference or possibly even venal greed; or it might have been the work
of a lifetime and representing great sacrifice. Looking here,
we see someone who clearly bred for profit or overwhelming ego, shown by
the careless multiplicity of litters. Individual lives were not important
to them. And over here is a dog who was sold to marginal obscurity as a
puppy, then later rescued by a midnight ride across several state lines;
look how he has become the foundation of an entire lineage! Oh, and here
is a bitch bred for the first time at the brink of old age; someone remembered
the value of her genes even when the rest of the world had forgotten her;
and look how her children go on, specialty winners and top performers.
She is a fine example of an unknown dog whose impeccable pedigree made
her a producer of the future. That breeder was a person of patience and
persistence and knowledge, who recognized what she had to offer. I admire
them, though they were long gone by the time I arrived on the scene.
Over here is a dog with many titles
and a large financial backing, yet his progeny are mediocre and fading
quickly from memory and pedigrees. His pedigree was not designed to produce;
you can never ignore the pedigree, it will always have the final word.
Among the dogs in the pedigree, there are the superstars and the ordinary;
you might think it would be different, but in real life, even man-made
real life, not all superstars fulfill the destiny of parenthood; and when
they do, not all superstars reproduce themselves. It is sometimes left
to the more ordinary to step in, fill in the blanks, and keep the ball
rolling.
Here is a bitch who was gotten pregnant
only with great effort and many tries. And here, a youngster who was bred
once by accident, and through lucky happenstance her genes are still going
on. That's worth a smile, at least; life will have it's way. She is a reminder
that there is always some level of chaos in anything as complex as a pedigree,
no matter how much we think we control it. There will always be an irreducible
amount of unpredictablity and gambling inherent in the nature of breeding.
There, a dog who was last choice, but by bad luck for every other one of
his relatives, they went unbred until he was the only one left to carry
on for them. Ah--an area of tight breeding, doubling on the same ancestor
multiple times--that shows the confidence this person had in those dogs,
and his strong belief in their worth. It also indicates that this
was a personality not averse to taking high risks, in hopes of high gains.
Hmm; here is a stretch with no phenotypic or genotypic consistency, carelessly
done, yet contributing it's bit to the life of the future just the same.
Either the breeder was afraid the genes they held were flawed in some way
and was attempting to dilute them, or they were simply thoughtless. Oh--and
back here are a few, very few, beautiful, well bred dogs, then the effort
comming disappointingly to an almost complete stop; that was a young breeder
who went overseas to be killed in World War II, his potential contribution
abruptly cut short.
Usually there will be multiple people's
efforts represented in the pedigree; if there is only one for even a few
generations, that means they bred a significant amount and for a very long
time; it tells a tale of persistence, dedication, longevity, and hardship.
Inevitably, hardship. The average lifetime for an enthusiast in dogs from
start to fold is five years, which is indicative of the difficulty of the
endeavor. There is a movie about a women's baseball legue, A League of
Their Own, in which the best woman player is about to give up and go home
because it's just too hard. The coach tells her that of course it's hard;
"It's the hard that makes it great." Of course it's hard; if it was easy,
anybody could do it. And he's right. Most people with even a modicum of
success have been at it a surprisingly long time; and even for those with
unusually good beginner's luck, the story inevitably unfolds as one of
blood, sweat and tears. And money---lots of money. Serious breeding has
historically taken lifetimes, several consecutive ones; and fortunes, large
ones. One person's breeding on the entire page represents a lifetime, but
to have only one person represented on the page is rare. Seldom can one
person or one bloodline sustain the pressure breeding exerts, on people,
on fortunes, on genetic material itself. Usually there are several, resulting
in windows into several different people's thoughts. If there are very
many, a quite different approach to breeding will have taken place then
if there is only one. If there are very many, accumulated experience and
long term planning will not be much in evidence, though genetic diversity
may be, and this might be put to good use in the right circumstance. There
is no one way and no one answer. Good breeding depends on an understanding
of the different tools available, in the form of breeding strategies, and
how to apply them to the breeding materials available, which are the individual
phenotypic dogs and the genotypic information to be found about them in
their pedigrees.
Copyright Yvonne McGehee 2005