Re: [PyrNet-L] BREEDING:American verses French

[JGentzel@aol.com]

In a message dated 4/29/99 10:42:49 AM Eastern Daylight Time, 
bamb@monmouth.com writes:

<<  I am not trying to start a heated debate here, just
 voicing my opinions. Whether I agree with someone else or not, they
 are also entitled to their opinions. >>

I don't think your well crafted comments would be cause for this.  This is 
the age old discussion and I see your aim in raising awareness.  I back you 
completely on this and agree that we should and can discuss such matters in a 
healthy environment.  Those who take issue have a forum and opportunity.  All 
must remain civil and not attack or take offense from others.  It is a valid 
question you raise, i.e., size differences between dogs in France and North 
America.  

I really like our dogs here (some of them) and believe we have overall the 
best dogs in the world (some of them).  I do recognize that France and surely 
other countries have some things we should look at, especially France.  When 
you look at the head on Gardayan the dog who was Best of Breed in France last 
week, you see a dog that I doubt anyone would have problems with head wise, 
on either side of the Atlantic.  He to my minds eye is one of the most 
"American" type dogs I have seen over there, but yet he is very much admired 
there as well.  

Hopefully one of the things other than size that attracted us all to the 
breed is its beauty and elegance.  Size is relative and can be changed fairly 
easily.  I know others disagree quite strongly with me here, but size alone 
can be changed quickly.  Not sure we would like the overall result in what we 
might cause otherwise, but easy to do by itself.  I think the point is we 
need to look at the total dog and in doing so here we have lost some size.  
Is this all bad?  Not so!  Should we attempt to get some size without 
sacrificing what many people worked so long and so successfully?  Certainly!  
Our well laid back dogs with the shorter legs happened by degrees.  Getting 
them back up a little taller on their legs will happen just the same way, in 
degrees.  Gardayan by the way is not the larger Pyr.  He is about 28 or 29 
inches at the withers.  The French also have a penalty when a dog is over the 
standard height and they penalize for this as well.  So bigger is not always 
better anywhere.  

I am not so sure that the diminished size has resulted in improved 
(diminished) incidence of genetic problems anyway.  I have this fear that our 
dogs here in North America contain more genetic problems and in a larger 
percentage than exists in Europe including England.  I cannot speak for New 
Zealand, Australia or South Africa.  What I am saying is we may have a 
problem saying that we got a smaller dog and also got a more incidence free 
dog from genetic problems like Lux Patella, etc.  We probably have made great 
strides with dysplasia thought.

I enjoyed your posts and they inspired me to add my point of view.  Hopefully 
that's what we can all do and all learn from each other.

Joe