I’d like to talk to you about something that I read that I found very interesting, and it’s related to the old breeders (by that I mean experienced and long careers jajaja) and the new generation of breeders in the current economic context.
I believe that this is an extremely interesting career but on the other hand is one of the more complex one as there is no formal education such an University of the Breeder nor we have any mandatory practices that we need to comply with as some other people have like aspiring vets or doctors.
Then in a lot of cases, people begin buying a dog, son of a Sire and Dam Champion and then when the dog grows up they mate it with another Champion expecting to have a litter of little Champions. Or as one breeder joke about one time: BIS with BIS = BISSS.
Therefore I believe that it would be useful if I share with you something that I think is key when talking about old breeding techniques, experience breeders and the bridge with the new generation.
Most of the time we need to learn at home on our own and we might feel lonely at the beginning. Where do we start? What is it that I need to learn? What is it that I don’t know about?
There is when I believe it is essential to be able to find a Mentor, someone who could share her wisdom and is loyal enough to walk along the way with you, guiding you and helping you learn from her experience that in the long run will become her legacy that that breeder is leaving behind in the breed.
We could spend hours analyzing pedigrees, studying bloodlines and staring at pictures of dogs, but a Mentor would have already the experience of living with some of those dogs, he would know about their movements, temperaments and other features. We would probably would not be able to see them, but our Mentor would be speaking and remembering probably more than 20 years of dogs in the ring, with their virtues and defects that we would not be able to understand by simply watching a picture.
Besides, she will also guide us when the time comes to select mates for a breeding, nobody knows better what the stud dogs can produce than our Mentor, or what did dogs a couple of years ago where able to produce or what bloodlines we should avoid to stay away from genetic disorders.
I’ve seen thousands of cases where inexperienced breeders, that believe that because they already have a couple of litters, they already have the experience to manage a breeding plan and grow their breeding staff without know the consequences that their actions might provoke in the breed as a whole.
A serious breeder will always be willing to become our mentor, to teach us what she has learned and give advice to those willing to listen and learn. A Mentor will always have anecdotes to share and in the worse moments of our careers we will remember and help us to keep walking ahead and never give up. Sometimes we might not value a piece of advise or anecdote until the moment on which we realize why she was sharing that with us, how smart.
I believe that breeding is a teamwork, that is passed by from generation to generation, as grandmothers teach their grand daughter that special recipe, the tricks and most wonderful secrets as well as all the love for the dogs is passed along with the advice. I do not believe in the new generations of “Famous” kennel business people.
I believe that the more serious you take this activity, the harder it is to begin breeding because there it is where we understand that each wrong step will be a mistake difficult to overcome and will affect what we do: breeding looking for the perfection of the breed.
