Where Working Dog = Show Dog

I just can't grasp why the show breeders are so willing to breed away from the one trait that makes a Crested a Crested, that sets them apart from all other breeds.

I'm not sure I agree with this. To me, I'd recognise a Crested whether puff, hairy hairless, or buck nekkid. It's a Chinese Crested, not a "hairless crested." Xolos are hairless too, so hairlessness is not unique to CCs.

There's a certain combination of body type (terrier X sighthound), head carriage, and gait that has always, since I first started liking this breed, appealed to me. In fact, it was the gait that really struck me and got me past the "Ick, hairless" factor.

There's the skin and the "warming" characteristic that is unique to a hairless dog, too (I understand Xolos have this also). Zhi is my self-appointed therapy dog. Both she and Teddy (my three year old BC) like to snuggle up against me at night, but it's Zhi who soothes my aching joints or head - whether she's shaved down or not. I've had BCs here that had to be shaved down for various reasons and it's definitely not the same.

I agree with Jenny that correctness should be the deciding factor, not flashy furnishings. But to keep the gene pool at least as healthy as it is, the ENTIRE range of puff to hairless would need to be maintained. Culling out the hairies that are correct otherwise, is just as bad as culling out those with less hair.

brookcove

I agree with Jenny that correctness should be the deciding factor, not flashy furnishings. But to keep the gene pool at least as healthy as it is, the ENTIRE range of puff to hairless would need to be maintained. Culling out the hairies that are correct otherwise, is just as bad as culling out those with less hair.

 I could be wrong but I am pretty sure the hairy-hairless, as we know them now are relatively new and the direct result of show breedings selecting for excessive furnishing. No doubt, there can't be just hairless Cresteds for health reasons but that the breed "needs" hairy-hairless is questionable (although they make up such a large % of the breed now that you can't remove them from the gene pool). If I had Cresteds I would be very concerned that within the next 10 years the true hairless would be totally lost.

but that the breed "needs" hairy-hairless is questionable

This goes back to the working question. The problem is that when we narrow down the gene pool for arbitrary reasons (like aesthetics and fancy versus health, temperament, and structure), we have no idea what we are cutting out, due to the connectedness of genes.

The Border Collie and the Rough/Smooth Collie were once the same breed. The division into working/show occured in the 1870s. Today, the genetics for "normal" eyes versus CEA is very low in the show collie, possibly as low as 15%. In Border Collies (the "working" branch), 93% of the breed is normal, or unaffected.

Certainly the show collie breeders cared about the health of their dogs. In fact, these lines are more "carefully" bred than the farm dogs, who basically went by the "survival of the fittest" rule and were largely random bred in all regards except function.

So when did the phenotype for abnormal eyes begin to creep in, higher and higher? No one knows, of course. There still is not a good way to tell what alleles are linked together, other than guessing based on experience.

Even more striking is the MDR1delta mutation which occured almost immediately after the show breed branched off. In spite of the 100% shared gene pool at the time (circa 1870), the genetic test available today has shown that the incidence of the mutation in Collies is around 33%. It is ZERO percent in Border Collies.

Today in the Border Collie, there is a discussion going on concerning inbreeding coefficients and their influence on the health of the breed. The BC has a very healthy overall COI, probably around 7%, but there's some concern that "pedigree breeding" is replacing careful attention to working style and the needs of the individual stock operation. This leads to concentration of "founder dogs" and unwanted traits they carry, rather than maintaining balance and continual outcrossing back and forth across lines.

 The gene pool didn't *have* hairy hairless, til recent years. Just like the GSD gene pool didn't have the ridiculous slope til recent years, and Bulldogs bred the old fashioned way til recent years, and BCs had varying degrees of coat and a ton of drive til recent years. It's something that was changed, by show breeders, because it was considered "pretty". It isn't necessary to the function of the breed, at all.

jennie_c_d

 The gene pool didn't *have* hairy hairless, til recent years. Just like the GSD gene pool didn't have the ridiculous slope til recent years, and Bulldogs bred the old fashioned way til recent years, and BCs had varying degrees of coat and a ton of drive til recent years. It's something that was changed, by show breeders, because it was considered "pretty". It isn't necessary to the function of the breed, at all.

That was what my impression has always been - there hairy-hairless soley because of selecting for show ring fads. I remember seeing Cresteds at shows in 91 - those dogs had light furnishings and were not quite as elegant in looks/movement as the new, "improved" version. I suspect though, hairy-hairless is now widespread enough that even if people wanted to, it couldn't be removed from the gene pool.

 Probably not. The variety in health tested true hairless is almost none.

I find the trues, and extreme trues, the most beautiful of all. I prefer their looks and movement. I'm a weirdo, that way. I fell for the breed before they'd gone the way of the AKC.

Pwca

jennie_c_d

But for a companion breed, I think that AKC rally, obedience, etc etc are a nice point to start with. The dog should have a brain, please?

 

This is a really good point.  The issues of the BC and GSD (and to a lesser extent, the sporting breeds), are really, really different for a lot of the breeds whose primary historical purpose has always been companionship (ratting may be secondary for some of the toys, but it was never the primary reason for keeping them- people have always just liked dogs as companions, and most of our modern toys developed as pepole had the leisure (and resources) to support a 'useless' but emotionally valuable critter.)

Agreed.  I do think the GSD/BC debate is a different ball game.  The problem with the gazillions of BYB GSD breeders is that they are breeding for the "lowest common denominator" - keeping the dogs as pets.  NOTHING wrong with that, but that's not what you should breed for.  If you breed for structurally and temperamentally sound working dogs, then you get some that don't make the cut and make great pets.  If you are just breeding for pets, then you get more and more crap genetics, nervebags, dogs that couldn't sniff their way out of their own crate, etc.

Also, I'm just getting really really REALLY sick of all the BS from breeders of ANY line, type, or quality.  I call a spade a spade so if someone is breeding show dogs then say "We breed AKC show dogs", not "We breed dogs that are structurally sound AND can work" and then have big fat zero examples of their dogs actually working in the past 5 generations.  It seems like these days every GSD breeder's website insists their dogs are good at agility, obedience, Schutzhund, SAR, police work, protection....and no one can back up these claims with any examples of their dogs having done such work. 

This is not just the BYBs who are clueless or trying to make a buck, but breeders who have decent dogs from great lines of whatever type you fancy.  When people ask me what Nikon is I say he's a German show line because that's what he is.  Yep, he does Schutzhund and we train every day and work at the club twice a week but I bought a show line dog from a show line breeder.  It irks me a lot because honestly I don't really prefer show lines over working lines - there's plenty of dogs I adore on both sides of that fence - but the show line breeders are really only making themselves look more dumb by constantly insisting their dogs are as good as working lines but then not doing the training and trialing to back it up.  Most of the time, they are just as good as long as they receive the same foundation and the same training.

Hey, some of us are trying :p

It's probably going to take me a couple decades though...

Gotta start somewhere!

For me it was first hard to just find a good group of people that don't care what your dog looks like or where you got it.  Some show people will snark at Schutzhund training and some SchH clubs will snark at a show dog.  What really gets under my skin is when the "working dog" people insist on pedigrees and genetics...but when I bring up my working line with some popular, influential working dogs somehow that no longer counts.  So apparently Nikon is supposed to suck because he has a show pedigree but Kenya being a nervebag with no confidence gets brushed under the rug as far as the dogs in her pedigree.  Anyway, I was about ready to give up on doing anything with Nikon and finally found a great TD whose methods I agree with and who has the results to back them up who couldn't care less what my dog looks like or who's in his pedigree.  I went from feeling totally hopeless to now having the problem of not being able to title because of age minimums.  He'll be trialing for the FO a few weeks after he turns 1 (min. is 12 months) only b/c the BH minimum is 15 months and no one in Michigan is going to offer a SchH trial in mid-December (the FO is the same pattern and motion/recall exercises as the BH).  I was planning to take him for his ATTS test earlier this month when I realized he had to be 18 months!  Dangit!