----- Original Message -----
Sent: Friday, April 30, 1999 7:10
PM
Subject: [PyrNet-L] Breeding
Hi Joe,
I think my old Dad and Doris probably
went to the same school!! He was famous for making such statements
too.
Interesting reading the
posts this morning (NZ time). I've just visited again the GPC site and re-read
the Breed Standard. Very little difference to the other 2 standards and one
word that is applicable to all 3 standards is the word "Balance". A dog
must be balanced back and front. This balance comes from firstly a leg in each
corner, hopefully all of the same length!! On top of that a body which is
slightly longer than the height of the dog giving plenty of heart and lung
room for a working dog. A moderate length of neck with a small amount of
dewlap permitted, head on top, tail at other end. It's what goes in between
that causes the problem and this is Breed Type. There is another type
around and that's known as Kennel type where Breeders will not go out of their
back door and search for a stud dog to compliment,maintain and enhance what
they already have.(For example) look at the number of Pyrs imported into
America by Mary Crane, into the UK by Madam Harper and even into a wee place
like this (from 1947) . It amazes me that these Pyrs all came by boat,
journeys of weeks and months yet today can be in another country in a matter
of hours. These ladies knew that to keep up the standards they had to have new
blood every so often and went to great expense to ensure this was so yet today
we are all guilty of maybe not looking hard enough at other folks' Pyrs and
seeing what their stock could do for our Breeding. They don't have to be your
best buddies but they may well have bred an outstanding dog, lovely head,
height, breed type but we seem to be hesitant to ask maybe for fear of being
knocked back and then we don't ask at all and the Breed could well be the
loser in the end.
The height factor (too
little, too much) has been around for a long time and it's just one of many
areas we've all discussed over the years along with heads, bone, structure,
coats etc and Pyrnet seems to me to be a great place to read about all these
things as a learning process as to how we can do our best for our
Breed.
Thankyou for reading!!