The Story of Yankeestaff - Nancy Malec
My name is Nancy Malec and I have been breeding and showing Stafforshire Bull Terriers since 1978. Fortunately my grounding in the breed came in the 'motherlode', Great Britain, where I lived for seven years while my husband was in the military. After reading in the newspaper (incidentally, there are two dog newspapers that are published weekly in Great Britain) that the first show I was to attend had a total entry of 9,000 I was sure it was a typo and that it really was 900. Wrong! Great Britain is dog show heaven with the largest supported show (while I was in the country) having a combined entry of 17,000. Then I decided that I must bring back a couple of champions. To make a long story short and impress those of you who are numbers freaks: 1. The Staffordshire Bull Terrier was the ninth most popular breed at the time. 2. Staffordshire Bull Terriers were the most popular Terrier breed in Great Britain. 3. Staffordshire Entries at general championship shows and breed club shows went from 100 to 400+ per show. 4. There is no Best Of Breed --- Open Dog and Open Bitch include all the champions being shown plus the Champion Certificate winners and wannabees. I bred my first litter in 1978 and by 1983, Tom and I were named Top Breeders of Staffordshire Bull Terriers in the United Kingdom. What came in between was lots of work, time, travel and money. I was firmly dedicated to breeding sound, healthy, athletic animals that were great fun and an extremely handsome classic type. I lived in East Anglia and eventually became treasurer of the East Anglian Staffordshire Bull Terrier Club (EASBTC), delegate to the Breed Council, Co-Editor of the EASBTC newsletter, Feature Writer for the Stafford and general slave to my Staffs! I bred two English champions and finished a third that came from a daughter of my foundation bitch, Astaff Clares Cassandra. English and American Champion Yankeestaff Bolivar (Crufts CC winner 1984) was mated to English Champion Ainsair Fancy Lass. It was a challenge to get her in the ring , all due to her great athletic abilities and intensity in which she tried to ingest other canines---incidentally she was my two toddlers' boys best friend and it was not unusual to find her in doodly boppers (alien head gear!), cowboy hats, or the children's clothing. The result of that mating produced two champions and a stud dog that precedes many of our most handsome Staffordshire Bull Terriers. He was Yankeestaff Rough Rider who used to visit with Prince Edward when the Prince used the library at Jesus College where his owner was a monitor of the rare books. Rough Rider would accompany his owner to work on a regular basis. English Champion Yankeestaff Serendipity was one of the most submissive people animals I've seen and also one of the hardest biting and devious pursuers of other canines. "Teddy" went Best In Show at the North West Championship show in an entry of over 400 Staffords. (Our Mazda wagon came home loaded with trophies including a 5 footer!) American Champion Yankeestaff Cajun Queen gave her owners many years of joy and fun. Cajun was likened on occasion to the proverbial "dumb blonde!" In later life she learned to dive into a deep pond and retrieve logs for sport. I made many friends in Great Britain and in Israel (another story for another time) and judged many Staffords at many dog shows including two breed club shows in Great Britain and the Bull Breeds Show in Israel. I came back to the U.S.A in 1986 and since then have bred or owned a total of 45 Staffordshire Bull Terrier Champions including Obedience and Confirmation. Champion Yankeestaff Dillinger was top SBT in the U.S.A. in 1995. Mexican Champion Yankeestaff Staffy Von Fraud CDX was a top obedience canine in Mexico. I along with Jo and Alan Cannon, and Sean and Marcie Holbeche have founded T.A.P.S. (Texas Association for the Preservation of the Stafford.) T.A.P.S. encourages athleticism, soundness and good temperament in our Staffords, and is dedicated to furthering fun times and educational sessions with the SBT. We have a novelty show, Staff Olympics, and SBT seminars annually for the past three years. All Staffies and Staffanatics are encouraged to come and have fun. It is a great thrill for me to meet all the Yankeestaff pet owners and Staff people everywhere and see how much they love their dogs, and to hear all the interesting antics their dogs get up to. Without a doubt the most rewarding thing I have ever done with a SBT was going with Bolivar on his rounds as a licensed hospital visitation dog at the VA hospital in San Antonio in the last 18 months of his life. I still tear up thinking of what great joy he brought to the disabled vets and how much he enjoyed going there. Breed Type Breed Type is determined by the job or purpose each breed has been designated to fulfill. Then Form follows Function! For instance, you will not find a coursing dog that is heavy and shorter legged because it's function precludes this. So it is of a type to perform with great speed and distance covering ability. Coursing dogs are lean, tall, long legged. Another example --- dogs that pull a sled in Arctic conditions will not be smooth coated and barrel-ribbed. He would freeze to death and run out of steam. Therefore we see dogs densely coated, undercoated and more slab-sided pulling sleds! The Staffordshire Bull Terrier was bred to be the ultimate fighting machine, an animal of quickness, agility, intelligence, great wrestling ability, tremendous endurance and gameness. How do we translate this type when his rough hewn, violent beginnings are no longer the proving ground for his type? We study the American Pit Bull Terrier of which the SBT is the progenitor. The APBT has more recently developed as the athlete superior in the U.S.A. Mike Homans' book, "The Staffordshire Bull Terrier in History and Sport" is a tremendous work about our breeds beginnings and the harshness of the times when he was used as the ultimate destruction vehicle. Is there a correlation between our SBT of today and his ancestor in the pit. There certainly ought to be; or perhaps we don't have the hard, strong, sound, athlete of old --- who coincidentally developed as the ultimate people temperament dog! We would never find a picture of a winning dog that is low stationed, big-boned, with an ultra short fore-face and massive skulled. Coincidentally we wouldn't find a 'people-eater' in a winner. The dog bred for endurance, agility, easy breathing and heat dissipation has leg length, medium bone, superbly angled hind quarters, powerful bite, and medium rib spring. He will also be the most dependable people dog you will find because he has had to be of such stable nature as to not inflict punishment on his master in the heat of battle as he was being handled from round to round. How did this translate for me into a SBT. He is medium sized, square, medium boned, tremendously angulated with great turning ability, endurance and the most supremely stable people temperament I could find. Dog aggression is a by product that I would never eliminate, only channel; because the game dog temperament is what makes him so wonderful with people! Remember he's tough, pain desensitized, courageous, bold and ready to go! Nancy Malec - staff breeder The 2000 Int. Exhibition
