tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7684843.post1182795165862018891..comments2024-03-26T22:16:26.572-04:00Comments on Terrierman's Daily Dose: The Eugenics Man and the Kennel ClubPBurnshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05781540805883519064noreply@blogger.comBlogger8125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7684843.post-68547782811156928762010-09-22T18:02:59.789-04:002010-09-22T18:02:59.789-04:00I grew up as a boy not far from Dr.Whitney's h...I grew up as a boy not far from Dr.Whitney's home in Connecticut.We both raised racing pigeons,and if you think he was tough on dogs,he was doubly tough on pigeons.His goal was to perfect three particular strains of pigeons,and he would eliminate any bird with the littlest defect.<br />As a ten year old boy,eugenics wasn't even in my vocabulary,but now,reading about Dr.Whitney's experience with the subject doesn't surprise me.<br />Dr.Whitney was one of the most respected people in the history of the homing pigeon sport.He always offered advice and helped me personally with the medical side of pigeons.<br />I'm sorry to read(and I've read it before in other sources)that the good doctor had an evil side.Having worked side by side with him for some time in the pigeon sport now makes me wonder what people would have thought about him if they knew how tough he was on perfecting the perfect homing pigeon.Vote The Bums Outhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18418165271477528924noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7684843.post-72031427164928203342008-12-14T11:13:00.000-05:002008-12-14T11:13:00.000-05:00Despite Leon Whitney's less than savory experiment...Despite Leon Whitney's less than savory experimental practices with dogs, he WAS bluntly practical--what works in animal breeding certainly will work with humans! People just don't like being reminded that they are animals, too. And Leon Whitney was also an early critic of typical AKC breeding practices--breeding for conformation shows but not practical function, temperment and health. I recommend everyone get a copy of his old book(IF you can find one! I think AKC show people burn them whenever they discover a copy!) "The Truth About Dogs"--some of the subjects and rants he goes into would fit right in the purebred dog discussions on this sight very well!....L.B.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7684843.post-57300458883215039342008-12-11T16:54:00.000-05:002008-12-11T16:54:00.000-05:00The animal rights lunatics will say what the anima...The animal rights lunatics will say what the animal right lunatics have always said; there is no stopping them and they have little sway.<BR/><BR/>The folks who DO have sway are the people who love dogs and who will stand up, and show up, and speak up on their behalf. Are you one of them? <BR/><BR/>It sounds like you are not; you are certainly timid. Let me suggest that perhaps you have not thought it out enough. Let me put it to you simple: Is it OK for dogs to be crippled, and in pain, and to say nothing about it because some nameless, faceless lunatic somewhere might try to push a more extreme agenda that will be univeraslly rejected by everyone with a brain? <BR/><BR/>That sounds like what you are saying, and I reject it. And I will bet that if you think about it a little longer, you will too!<BR/><BR/>For the record, the idea of eugenics predates all of us quite a long time. Plato, as I have noted before, said that "The best men must have intercourse with the best women as frequently as possible, and the opposite is true of the very inferior." The ancient Greeks routinely left weak or sick human babies out in the weather to be killed by exposure.<BR/><BR/>As to the notion that the goal of Pedigree Dogs Exposed is to get rid of all dogs, the assertion is laughable on its face. The producer of the piece is a long time Flat-coated Retriever owner who also runs a breed rescue, and ALL of the people interviewed in the show actually own and love dogs. In fact, Pedigree Dogs Exposed is loudly and proudly supported by people like Beverely Cuddy, editor of Dogs Today, and Ryan O'Meara, editor-in-chief of K9 Magazine as well as folks like me who have had dogs for nearly as long as we have been alive. <BR/><BR/>As for the Breed clubs, some of them are beginnig to stand up and DEMAND that the Kennel Club take action, as Dog World notes in today's issue (see http://www.dogworld.co.uk/News/50-mandatory-measures) where the "dog on the docket" is the German Shepherd.<BR/><BR/>As for the history of the Kennel Club, is is exactly as I stated it. I have not overstated or shaded a thing; I have simply responded to the nonsense statements of the Kennel Club that their intellectual roots and current breeding methods have nothing in common with eugenics. That is clearly a lie!<BR/><BR/>PatrickPBurnshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05781540805883519064noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7684843.post-84265660295593564812008-12-11T16:17:00.000-05:002008-12-11T16:17:00.000-05:00When most people hear the word "eugenics" they thi...When most people hear the word "eugenics" they think "Nazi". HSUS and PETA are busily linking "dog breeder" to (Nazi) eugenics in the mind of the American public, and groups in Europe are similarly working there. Although I completely agree with you about the general downward spiral of breeding for show and the inability/unwillingness of the kennel clubs to provide leadership for their breed clubs, I am aware that this current "stuff" about Crufts and Pekinese and all is being used by groups whose goals include the eradication of all dog breeding and the eventual elimination of dogs living with people. The same people who successfully eliminating much of hunting in the UK. Their goal is stopping all dog breeders, not just the easy-to-attack show breeders. Someone who breeds terriers for a maximum of a 14 inch chest span is, to them, just as much a eugenicist as someone breeding a wheezing Pekinese. Or a nice healthy Pekinese, for that matter.<BR/><BR/>The eugenics ideas of the late 1800s (1883 is cited by a PBS science show as the first use), and when Mendel's genetics were rediscovered in 1900 were added to Fancis Galton's work, which started in 1865, about how human attributes were inherited. This led in the early 1900s to all sorts of weird stuff about more and less fit people, apparently based on the English idea that the English are the best of the human species. I think it is likely that the idea of selectively breeding animals for better meat and milk predated the mid to late 1800s. I know that people were breeding particular kinds of pet dogs and hunting dogs hundreds, if not thousands, of years before the 1800s. <BR/><BR/>I really think that setting up a situation where "everybody knows" that eugenics (and Naziism) are identical to dog breeding may lead to popular demand for the outlawing of dog breeding.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7684843.post-21942614362054142992008-12-09T10:20:00.000-05:002008-12-09T10:20:00.000-05:00Fabulous! A couple years ago, I spent two summers ...Fabulous! A couple years ago, I spent two summers at Yale doing a little student research project. I got to take a little time off the second summer to go through, organize, and enumerate the Whitney dog skins. There was a pretty well-known Collie in there, as I recall.<BR/><BR/>Most unsettling, though, were the specimen tags that noted that the dog had arrived quite alive, by train, to the Peabody offices, before being dispatched and skinned. The owners couldn't wait until the poor pooch achieved natural death?<BR/><BR/>Saddest of all, of course, is that these specimens really aren't of much use to anyone. They're in cold storage, like all the other vertebrate specimens, but they simply don't represent anything that is of academic interest. (You can't learn much about Collies "the way they were" from a stretched and tanned hide.)Meganhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00274491819040489378noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7684843.post-59832162648104476902008-12-09T09:46:00.000-05:002008-12-09T09:46:00.000-05:00Very good analysis. I think we ought to call what ...Very good analysis. I think we ought to call what the dog breeders are doing "malgenics," because it is resulting in nothing good at all. True eugenics would be selecting for the healthiest and most intelligent and tractable dogs, but that's not what they are doing.<BR/><BR/>It is a giant leap from a scientific inquiry into natural selection by the mechanism of survival of the fittest to selecting for novel forms in a domestic population. But these people who came up with the fancy were into conspicuous consumption and commodity fetishism (I hate to use KM's term but it describes how a "fad dog" that is entirely useless can be worth thousands of dollars). A rare and useless dog with some novel appearence could be something to show off to all of their friends.<BR/><BR/>It is the reverse of the logical process Darwin used. Darwin had observed how people selected various forms of domestic pigeons for the show, and during his trip on the Beagle, he came up with theory that all the diverse forms of life on earth were similarly selected, not by the man but by the natural world itself.<BR/><BR/>The dog show world is becoming a survival of the unfittest malgenics experiment.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7684843.post-10771875501164688852008-12-09T08:32:00.000-05:002008-12-09T08:32:00.000-05:00Good show, Patrick! Although the public has forgot...Good show, Patrick! Although the public has forgotten its embrace of the eugenics movement, vestiges remain--and nowhere more conspicuously than in the dog show ring. How else to explain the importance of “pedigrees”? How else to explain the continued emphasis on titles—even those gained in nonconformation competition. I just don’t think there’s any getting away from the fact that the notion of the “purebred” dog was born in the aftermath of the Industrial Revolution, when a certain segment of the new British middle class, newly possessed of excess time and money and—perhaps unwittingly—excited by “scientific” notions of eugenics that saturated their environment, turned its attention to aping the aristocracy. While these folks might not be heirs to titles, they could gain titles for themselves through selective breeding of their dogs. Dogs judged the purest representatives of their breeds were rewarded with Ch. and so on, and their breeders could take pride in something that was not just an artistic or scientific creation, but a creature that was a surrogate self—in effect, a child. The glory was reflected glory, to be sure, but by keeping firm control of his line, a given breeder could stake a claim to having founded canine royalty, to be a progenitor of kings. We all enjoy recognition, but I think the impulse that keeps these dogs trotting around the show ring is of another order.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7684843.post-43187030808081388922008-12-09T08:17:00.000-05:002008-12-09T08:17:00.000-05:00I bought one of Whitney's books when I was startin...I bought one of Whitney's books when I was starting out in dogs. I couldn't stomach his habit of killing the dogs in his care for curiousity's sake or to make space in his kennel or whatever other reason beyond "medically hopeless and suffering".YesBiscuit!https://www.blogger.com/profile/13827466504671715047noreply@blogger.com