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Chapter I - The Seven Ages Just as Shakespeare divided the Ages of Man into seven parts, ranging from the 'Infant mewling and puking in the Nurse's arms' right through the senile old man 'Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything' so one can divide the ages of the Labrador breeder into seven very similar categories. First the Beginner, doing everything wrong, thinking wrong, buying wrong, feeding wrong. Next the Learner who now realises that he has started badly and while still keeping his initial mistake, often a very big unruly and untrained dog at his worst age, about two and a half to three and headstrong with it, has now learned better and is doing his best to set out on the right path. Third, the Novice, who has now rightened himself and has bought a decent bitch, has bred his first litter or two, is starting to win and is beginning to be known and recognised by other breeders and exhibitors. Fourth is the Everlasting Novice, probably the happiest category of all. They are always such nice people, with an equally charming dog, well liked by all. They have no ambition, no opportunity to keep more than the odd Labrador or two, practically never breed a litter and if they do, use the handiest dog. They go to some local shows and an occasional nearby Championship show, know and are known by everybody and never get anywhere, being perfectly happy to dabble along just a pleasant and interesting hobby. Now we come to the fifth stage, the Middle-range breeder, by far the largest section of all. This is the average Labrador breeder who is definitely 'One of us', recognised as reliable, breeding decent litters, rearing the puppies properly, with good eye for a dog and the facilities to keep the odd stud dog and a nice bitch or two. They go to most of the shows of all types, have an affix and have a chance of getting into the cards at any type of show. They are the backbone of of any breed and are indispensable because they supply the majority of the average puppies for sale, serve their own area with a decent stud-dog and form the mass of ringsiders. They are in various clubs and support all activities, being dead keen exhibitors, trying their very best to be an asset and a credit to the breed. Sixth, leading on from them is the Good Breeder, rather a rarer category because they have realised something the average middle breeder does not and that is that there is a definite thing called 'Good Dog" and that the decent dog is not quite good enough. Once the middle-range breeder realise this, he graduates into a better standard of dog and will never again be satisfied with a very slightly mediocre though typical and pleasing Labrador. He has realized that the middle ranges are not for him and probably cut his losses and generally raises his ideas. The good breeder is always ready to learn, and has taken the trouble to find out most of the more advanced points such as what constitutes a good shoulder or hock and where other virtues may be found. He has some very nice stock indeed and has learned how to use it to the best advantage. He may still depend on other people's Champions to try and improve his puppies, but has learned that the title of Champions does not automatically mean that the dog carrying it is neccessarily the best for this purpose. The good breeder is trying to improve all the time and will sell a decent dog or bitch abroad that the middle-ranger would have stuck to, the good breeder realising that either he has a better in his kennel or that the good one is not quite good enough. He supplies middle-rangers with better stock when they themselves wish to raise their standards and not only makes overseas Champions but is himself knocking at the high awards at the British Championsip shows. The good breeder has nearly always been in Labradors about ten years or more and is generally recognised as such, even by the top breeders who will contact him when they perhaps cannot supply an overseas client themselves. Lastly we come to the seventh and last category, the Top Breeder. This is a difficult category to define, although we all know them. There will only be about twenty of them at anytime, they go on seemingly for ever, always able to produce a good one, always having a decent one coming on, always with quality 'finished' stuff, these usually having failings rather than faults, and giving nothing away in type, style or make and shape. They will always have a good one in the Open classes, a decent one coming up in the middle classes and a very promising puppy to follow the decent one up in due course. Usually they have been at the top for many years and have a strain of their own, readily recognisable as being of a distict type. They never seem to disappear and very few breeders join their ranks. These are the 'names' and if we get two new top breeders in ten years who are really going to to last and have an influence of their own on the breed then we are lucky. What I am trying to do in this book is to put my finger on how the good breeder evolves from the middle-ranger, why many do not, and finally to try and decide whether the top breeder is, as I strongly suspect, born and not made. It will be noted that I have not applied my seven ages of the Labrador breed to the working and dual purpose dog, or the true out-and-out Field Trialler. This is because they have different aims and objects, although the true dual-purpose people must and do fall in the good breeder category. The working-oriented breeder is much more complex and difficult to define, the working side adding new dimension to the difficulty of breeding a good one. Indeed in the extreme case of the Field Trialler he operates on entirely different lines and separate bloodlines and really needs a chapter to himself. Because my purpose is to analyze why and how the middle-ranger graduates or very often doesn't graduate into the good breeder category, and how and when the good breeder becomes a top breeder I am not dealing with the first three grades, the Beginner, the Learner and the Novice. Each one of us has been in the categories in our time. But they have many books written to help them get started on the right lines, every book telling them how to start, what to do, when to feed and how to rear, guiding their footsteps right up to the time they become experienced middle-rangers. Once they reached that stage, books for novices become pretty useless to them, because they now know and practise these things for themselves without recourse to books. As for writing about the higher grades which is what I am attempting, the nearer I get to the top breeders the harder it is to say what they do, because top breeders vary in their methods and even in their ideas. There is one thing they have in common though, the good breeders constantly breed good dogs, and the top breeders top dogs. I can only lay out various points for you to think about for yourselves. So don't expect me to say with authority "This is how to do it" because there is no certain way to the top. I can only draw attention to ideas I have garnered in many years of thought on the matter of breeding good dogs and must then leave it to the reader to carry on from there. |
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