Dogs as Breed Products

The Ford Edsel - a marketing disaster.

This idea that every failed breed needs to be preserved despite lack of function, and despite lack of popularity, and despite heavy coefficients of inbreeding and disease is a common, if deeply broken, idea within the world of pedigree dogs.

It's time we started to think of dogs as breed products.

It is incontestable that some breeds have proven to be failures both as workers and as pets. Why not say it out loud? Why preserve failure within the Kennel Clubs as if it were a success?

It's time we started to think of dogs

as breed products.

Look at the dog breeds that have never been popular and that do not work, and that are NOT needed to preserve canine diversity.  In the terrier world, the Glen of Imaal terrier, the Cesky Terrier, and the Skye terrier come to mind.

These dogs have less than 100 puppies a year in any registry.

Why preserve a breed which has never been popular, which does not work, and which is an inbred genetic mess?

Do we ask Apple Computer or Ford Motors to keep producing Apple IIs and Edsels?

We do not.

We understand that some products are failures out of the box, while others have been improved upon to the point that the old model is no longer in demand.

And what is the common-sense approach of a business when that happens?

Simple: the company stops stops listing the product in their catalogue, stops making parts, and eventually stops servicing them.

Of course, no product ever quite goes away.

The 1948 Ford F100 - a model consigned to history.

If you want a 1948 Ford short-bed pickup, for example, you can still get one.  But of course, it may not be 100% factory-spec.  An old truck is likely to have been improved upon quite a lot.  A new engine may have been slipped in, and for comfort's sake a new seat may have been added. In order to pass safety inspection, modern seat belts may have been installed, and modern road-gripping tires put on.

But so what? The outside of the truck still looks nostalgic enough for the few people who want one, and isn't that what most old car enthusiasts really care about?

If you want to go fast or haul a heavy load a long distance you do not look to a 1948 Chevy short-bed to get the job done, do you?

And so it should be in the world of dogs.

No one is talking about snuffing out a breed, much less any dogs.

What we are talking about is delisting failed breeds from the Kennel Club catalogue so that they can be returned to the shop for improvement.

Improving dogs?  What a novel idea!

Believe it or not, however, that's what the Kennel Clubs were supposed to be about. Hard to to tell that today, of course!

What would "dropping a breed" from the Kennel Club catalogue mean?

It would simple mean that the AKC, Kennel Club, UKC, and FCI would stop giving ribbons and championships to breeds that that had less than 100 puppies a year.

Instead, these breeds would be "sent down to the minors" and placed in a "development" category,  (as the Cesky terrier is in the AKC)

Here the registries would be carefully reopened to fix problems related to high coefficients of inbreeding, and breed standards would be reviewed with an eye towards either improving the dogs for performance or appearance.

When the breed had at least 300 dogs within the registry with a combined COI of less than 7 percent, and when at least 100 new puppies a year were bred for three years in a row, and the dogs had morality rates on par with other dogs of their size, then the dog would be "fast tracked" back into the full Kennel Club catalogue.

Crazy talk?

Sure.

But isn't it time for a little crazy talk in the world of dogs? 

If we keep on doing what we have always done, we'll only get more of what we have always gotten -- defect, disease and deformity. 

Is that the way we really want to go?  I think not!

The Ford Pinto - a dangerous design disaster on wheels.

.