domingo ago 08, 2004 1:04 am
Sem querer novamente despertar, acho este texto interessante para o seguimento deste topico (de realçar, que não concordo com todos os aspectos referidos, mas não deixa de ser interessante):
Many times the old saying "show breeders ruin x and z breed" is said so repetitively that it turns into a hollow phrase in itself...and starts loosing the philosophy which supports this trend of thought.
In dog world, nobody leaves in a cristal glass...or almost nobody. Of course, there are better breeders than others but after being among "dogueros" for many, many years, I have heard so much mud-slinging that that's one of the reasons I parted with it. It is a path that leads nowhere. in my opinion, what we should try to do is stop the agression thing and try to do adopt a constructive approach. Because if not, we know where we will start, but we don't know where we will end, and one thing I do know is that nobody is free to throw the first stone. Hey, many people who knew the immortal Day De Treveling assure he was not 100% pure dogo. I tend to believe that, although I never saw the dog, because he was killed when I was 5 years old (but pictures seem to support this idea). And this dog was given to Amadeo by Agustin himself. Context? Agustin desperately trying to rebuild the breed after the disaster which followed his brother's assasination in 1955 (Day was born circa 1962, I think). Is it important whether Day was pure or not? No, I don't think so. Again, context, situation, is important to understand some facts.
Some time ago I wrote a post in which I stated that in my opinion, dogo breeders should hunt, because if not, there is no way to know whether what you are breeding is good or bad. I don't want to offend anyone, but to me, a judge telling me my dog is a conformation champion, is not enough. First, because comformation is just one part of the puzzle. Second, because the judge next door might put that same dog last in the following show, that same day. And third, because that judge has not seen my dog working, so he can't tell anything about how good he is. Many cars look great in the showroom, but when you get them out and push the pedal to the metal, they fail.
Breeding for show means many times breeding to suit the "current" trend of taste of the judges. It is widely known that many show people choose what show to go according to what judge is going to be there. They prize taller dogs, I breed taller dogs. They prize shorter dogs, I breed shorter dogs. Where does this leave the relevance of functionality? Show breeding is full of politics; we all know that. Crossed interests, egos, money. This affects all breeds: it is not something inherent to the dogo. If any of you had the chance of talking with a "real expert" who lives in a bubble and doesn't even know who Antonio or Agustin were, but just goes out EVERY SINGLE day of his life and work dogs for a living...would you neglect that chance of getting completely unbiased opinion?
Every time I go hunting, I look at my dogs and compare them to other dogs. During campfires, we talk about dogs. We NEVER talk about lines, breeders, prizes, champions. My hunting friends do not know anything about this...and I honestly think they don't care. Whan I talk with Luis (who doesn't know 1 single line of the dogo's history, and doesn't even know who Antonio was, much less Milla -El Tumi- or whomever) we always focus on how the dogs work. I have a broader intellectual formation which -paradoxically- I have to fight against, since it tends to "filter" what I see through the prism of "truths carved in stone" and read in books. Luis, on the other hand, works the dogs 8 hours a day, 7 days a week, all year round, and couldn't care less whether the affix behind a dog's name is El Tumi, La Bayanca, Calfucura, whatever. Luis is an absolutely impollute, isolated, not interest-related judge of dogs, because his judgement is based only in working ability...and working ability, including running, scenting, catching, and so forth, also depends, at least in a small part, on a correct physical phenotype. The difference is that this phenotype is attained the reverse way than in show world: By selecting the dogs who work the best...which takes us back to the another phrase that Hammer likes to bring every now and then and that also because of excessive usage has somewhat lost it's meaning: "Form follows function".
The way we hunt is a field test that only the best dogos can pass, and I can assure our criteria to give a "best of breed" is so much stricter than any international judge...in fact, since I have been hunting, I can think of only one dogo who deserved that title, and it was Allen. What do we know of him, aside of how he worked? That he was a son of Lanin, and a grandson of "Trampas Parker", a hard hunting dogo from La Pampa. Hardly a solid pedigree for international endeavours.
Watching my own-bred dogos hunt, and watching other dogos, I realize better than ever what I need to do to keep improving the dogs I have. I think my dogs are reasonably good; I also think I need to work hard to improve many things that are not so good in them. I am by no means satisfied. There is no better "laboratory" to do that than the field: The hard truth of the hunt. Boars know no politics nor do they care about pedigrees. Boars don't care whether the dog is 63 or 68 cms tall. Out in the wild, you don't find judges who are friends of x or z. The dog either performs, or nobody wants it...or gets killed.
I believe that by hunting our dogs hard we can improve the breed and go back to basics. And I think Antonio's standard was so wise (because it was written around the hunting dog), that if we hunt and hunt hard, we will go circle all the way and end-up almost without realizing it, with a dog that...guess what: Will be almost exactly what the old standard demanded.
Marcelo (aka Dogoman)
Good friend Vs true friend: A good friend will come bail you out of jail....But a true friend will be sitting next to you saying "... WE screwed up! BUT WASN'T IT FUN!!!
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