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Chapter VI - The Three Paths Although very few Labrador Breeders realize it, when Novice status is finally shed there are three paths open to them, one of which each breeder or exhibitor will follow instinctively according to his circumstances. Up to now the novice has been feeling his way, depending largely on others to shape his kennel such as the writers of various breed books, the judges and the opinions of his peers and of the more advanced breeders. That is, with the exception of the novice who is bound for the highest peak in Labradors, when he or she will most likely be a law unto himself. But whether the novice depends on others or his own guiding light, there lying before him are the three paths, and to my certain knowledge all three of them can take you as high as you are, in your own potential, capable of rising. The first path, that of buying wherever you see a good one, is often taken by the person who wants only to exhibit and have fun with a decent Labrador or two, but has neither the time nor the circumstances to be a true breeder. This is the path that is often taken by the up-and-coming all-round judge, who has heavy judging commitments and is becoming more and more busy and yet still wants to enjoy successfully showing his own breed. And such a man or woman won't want to waste their time and money being unsuccessful. The second path, is the one most usually adopted and is that with which I have already dealt in my chapter on the middle-ranger, i.e. that of using a good Champion dog and grading up slowly and steadily, generation by generation. With this method the general idea is to raise the level of the kennel, breeding good average, sound puppies and keeping the better ones to raise the plateau yet higher each time. This method breeds a good standard of puppies with perhaps an occasional 'mountain' to become a decent winner. By following this path many people eventually breed an odd Champion or RCC winner, but most of the people who get stuck just above the middle-rangers or perhaps in the lower echelon of good breeders consistently use Path Two, and this road to the top is a slow one and not too sure, it being easy to get bogged down. The third path is to go for a real flyer, and for this method one has to understand one's bitch, to know exactly at what you are aiming and to be prepared to use any dog that suits her whether a Champion or an unknown, also to have the flair to see exactly what is required to breed an outstanding Labrador and how to realize this aim. The path is the one followed by all outstanding breeders. They are aiming entirely at an Alp and will not really be interested in any of the litter except the one that stands right out from the rest like a sore thumb. Because if it doesn't stick out, then it won't when it gets into the ring either. This path consist of looks followed by leaps and if you are capable of following it, will take you right up to the heights others will never scale. But to follow it you need the courage of your convictions, and must not be deflected either by convention or outside opinions. So to put it in a nutshell the three paths to the top are: 1. To buy, 2. to grade up gradually, breeding for a level though higher plateau and 3. to try to breed one scorcher standing out above the rest. I will deal with each path in turn, starting with the Buyer. I have found throughout the ages that these people are usually rather despised by the breeder, especially those breeders who are not at the top themselves. When their homebred exhibit is beaten they say with a sneer in their voice 'But he is a buyer. He doesn't breed his own.' I can tell them from experience that a buyer who can keep at the top has to have a very good eye for a dog and not only that but has to be a better judge than the breeder, because no good breeder is going to sell his best, to be beaten by it in the future, therefore he only offers his second best to the buyer. If the breeder is right, then this is no use to the buyer who wants a top-class animal with which to win, therefore he has to be able to spot the good one the owner has missed. I know this, because although in Labradors I have from very early days been a breeder with a strain of my own and sticking closely to my own bloodlines. I was, for many years in Border Terriers, a buyer. My daughter, who was very keen on this breed, was in school and we didn't want to set up a breeding kennel of Borders. On the other hand she wanted top winners and was never content with the second best. So we had to buy. This meant keeping our eyes open when visiting Border Terrier kennels and shows, and spotting that one in the rough whose potential had not been realised by the breeder. For years we did this most successfully and made them into Champions. But these were not offered to us on a platter, we had to spot them ourselves and then bring them to fruition. With them my daughter went to the top while still a teenager, but now of course for many years she has had the Mansergh line of Border Terriers and is a recognized breeder and top exhibitor. So in Border Terriers for years we followed Path One, and only when she grew up and could take care of the whole kennel of Border Terriers herself did she go to Path Three, there to remain at the top up to the time of this writing. So if you have little or no time or inclination to breed your own Labradors you can reach the very top by buying wisely and well. Indeed you are in a way to be envied because you are not tied by any bloodline or foible, but can pick where you will. In my opinion you are as much to be admired as any other top exhibitors, because whatever else, you will have proved without a doubt that you are a very good judge indeed. Now to Path Two, that of the Grader-up, which I have already dealt with in the chapter on the Middle-Ranger. You will by now have a decent kennel of nice typical bitches with very little wrong with them but will still be looking at the leading Champion dogs to try and grade you up just that one more step. The big snag here is that you are likely to consider only the four or five Champions or even worse only those one or perhaps two leading dogs in your area of the country. You can't decide between Ch.A, who lives in Kent and Ch.B, who lives in Lancashire, so instead of going for the one that you would choose if they lived in the same kennel you go for the one that is nearest to you. In other words while you are doing a lot better than using 'the dog next door' because you are travelling 150 miles to use the decent North Country Champion (or vice versa) really of the two you should have been going 400 miles to use the other. This is a very common proceeding and partially accounts for the slow advance of many a grading-up process. However, as I say, a good dog will grade up your bitch even if the chosen mating is not as clever as it might be, and better the good Champion a hundred miles away than the dog in the next village that has nothing else to recommend him except that he is a registered Labrador. The more you think and the further you are prepared to go if necessary to get the right dog, the faster you will reach the top. But I do have to point out that if you do use the top Champion dogs you are not getting ahead of the rest of the field but are just keeping your place with the other breeders according to the goodness of your bitch. You are all using the same dogs, they produce their norm of puppies and only the excellence of the bitch or the 'nick' in the pedigrees in the nick can raise your puppies out of the ruck. Only when you get some outstanding sire such as Ch, Sandylands Mark can you avoid this sameness with an average bitch, because he was a dog that whatever the bitch, could give it something extra. In other words Mark was what I would call an 'improver'. I had such a dog myself in my old Ch. Midnight of Mansergh. No matter what the bitch, even the worst looking of the Field Triallers (and he mated a lot of them) he could improve the resulting puppies straight up into show class, with lasting attributes that bred on down the line. There are dogs like this and of course everyone rushes to use them and the immediate effect is a grading-up-everywhere. But what happens when such as dog as Mark passes on? Then we run into a difficulty at once, because everything everywhere is by Mark or closely descended from him and where do we go next? Thus there is a diffusion, with everyone using different dogs and strains and the rot sets in with mediocrity reigning for several years or even a decade until the next 'improver' comes into being. This is a very great difficulty met by the breeder following Path Two. He has used the leading dog. Where does he go next? And if the answer is to the next leading dog, then everyone else will do the same and the result will be everyone at the same stage of grading and little or no advancement. So although I see the point of the second path, I cannot see that it can be anything but slow and probably steady, travelling along with the rest of the rest of the breeders of the day, breeding a good norm, but actually only keeping level with the rest, with the nice one heading your litter of eight puppies, a decent one in second place, several run-of-the-mill puppies to sell as pets, and perhaps a bit of a dud. And all I can hope for you is that your good one by Ch.C out of a daughter of Ch.D is better than the next breeder's good one by Ch.C out of a daughter by Ch.D because otherwise you won't beat it. But why it should be any better I can't imagine, except that it will depend on which of you is breeding from the better bitch, I am sadly afraid that this is what happens in the case of the vast majority of Labrador breeders and why, although the general standard of the breed is pretty high, there is an enormous ruck of good middle-class animals, all very nice, nothing much wrong, cramming the middle classes at the Championship shows with nothing much to choose between them. Only by breeding from a better bitch than the rest and by choosing your dog more wisely can Path Two take you to the top and even then you will be up and down depending on the merits of the leading Champions, which in turn depends on whether the judging of the day is good, mediocre or bad. The really good top breeders may start by using Path Two, but they very soon show their mettle by traversing to Path Three. And as soon as they do that they have abandoned all lifelines and are entirely on their own. They must have a very good picture in their mind of their own idea of a Labrador and be prepared to stick to this whatever the fashion, whatever the judges say, and whatever happens. Nothing must turn them from their steep and lonely path to the top. They must cull and cull the bottom out of their kennel to keep their eye in to something of the highest standard and they must not excuse their own failures. Then setting their sights on their ideal type they scan the present-day dogs to choose their own pick, whether the judges like it or not. They must know their own stock backwards so they realise exactly where it is failing in what they want, and must then look at the current dogs to choose the one that is right for their bitch. This needs flair and rigorous self-discipline. You can call it dedication, but this is what it means. It is because you are entirely dependent on yourself that I feel strongly that the top breeder is born and not made. You have to be able to see exactly what you want, which dog will put it on to your bitch and where she fails. besides this you have to be able to see those elusive attributes, quality, balance and 'finish', and must only retain for your own breeding stock those that show these difficult things to describe. If you cannot see balance and symmetry, quality and beauty then you will never make a really top-class breeder or exhibitor, not to mention a top-class judge. It is the lack of knowledge of these elusive qualities that accounts for the fact that there are probably only twenty top breeders or exhibitors, and even fewer, perhaps half a dozen top judges at any one time. These are harsh words, I know, but when you reach the top in a breed one thing you must not be frightened of is harsh words. The way to Path Three is stony and steep, but when you reach the top and have some beautiful stuff to look at every day of your life even though like any other artist you will never be satisfied, it is well worth all the toil and heartbreak. I am talking now of what is virtually Never Never Land, but the nearer you get to it the more exciting it is and the closer you get to your ideal the easier it becomes. That is because by the time you reach the top you will have the makings of a strain of your own, and once you get a strain then by concentrating your bloodlines and using your own stock correctly you can almost automatically get your lofty plateau which will be set higher than a lesser breeder's mountain and your strain will every few years throw up that much desired Alp. This is the opposite of a vicious circle, it is an ascending spiral. The better the bitch the better the 'lift', and the better the strain the higher the Alp. I am quite sure that only by line-breeding to your own stock and bloodlines can you produce Labradors to satisfy your own ideals. Even then you will forever reaching for the stars, and a good thing too, because if ever one of us were to breed the perfect Labrador there would be no profit in going on. |
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