If you knew then what you know now, would things still be the same? Would you make the same choices in life? Would you walk to same path, stay the course, or make some new plan and end up at a different point? Would you do things differently?
I have always been a bit independent and alone in my methodology. I am comfortable with making my own choices and facing the consequences. The mistakes I’ve made are tools to learn from, as are the successes. Both are choices. We all have choice. We also have knowledge and we have opportunity.
The quote I used in my senior high school yearbook was from Ralph Waldo Emerson: “Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.” Today, I would paraphrase and say, “Do not follow the path where it may lead, go instead where there is no path and BLAZE a trail.” —Doug Johnson
This sentiment has gotten me to where I am today. Ultimately, we all follow a path and veer off to blaze our own trail. The early stages and direction from a mentor to a breeder, or a breeder to a buyer, are all similar. We learn the ropes, we learn our breed basics, and we move forward with skill and knowledge. In the beginning, we struggle. We fail and we grow to the next phase. As we learn, we have some success, gain skills, and begin to have free interpretations of the knowledge we have been given by those who are more successful. The success is fuel, and that fuel leads to more success and competitiveness. You become admired and hope to stay there by maintaining superior quality, all the while there are others continuing along their own paths—and likely there is someone trying to pull you back down a notch or two. I think, in a nutshell, this is the trajectory for top breeders in the sport of purebred dogs.
I believe we all start on the same foundation. We want to get a dog that we like, and we want to get a breed that we’re interested in. We try to get a good one, and we’re reliant on someone to provide that dog by selling or gifting us an animal of a certain level of quality. That’s the beginning. We all start there, and it’s the love of that first dog that takes us somewhere.
Keep in mind that we, as breeders, control the starting points of future breeders. They (new breeders and buyers) can only buy in on the level you are willing to sell. I watch in my own breed as a new, rather prolific “breeder” sells nearly every puppy as a show animal, while we place superior-quality puppies as companions. That breeder’s willingness to place inferior dogs in the show ring lowers the bar on the expectations of the breed from the judging community. The judges become used to seeing this level and will accept it as the norm. Soon, those breeders will see their new buyers breeding from these lower quality animals only to further lower the breed’s overall quality and ring exposure. I call this breeding down. The new, unknowing breeder THINKS they are breeding from quality, but rather, they are only producing more of the same. Judges can only learn from what they see, and for those never exposed to higher quality, they can run afoul by not knowing the difference.
During the initial steps along our path, exhibitors typically struggle to learn the sport and the showing aspect of purebred dogs. What does showing actually mean? How do you do it? How do you condition? How do you feed? How do you present? You’re nervous about the activity, but you get on with it. And then you have a little taste of success. You win a point or you win a major, or you complete the path to a championship or maybe even the goal of a Group placement or to be in the Top 10 of your breed. You get a taste of success and become a little competitive, and you develop the desire for success and the desire to continue to do better—to want more.
At the beginning, you were learning, but now you have become a player in the game and might be seen as scrappy or a little aggressive because, all of a sudden, you WANT success. You now have drive. It can take 10 years to make a name for yourself, to get recognized and be rewarded outside of your own region, or maybe to have someone come along who wants to buy a dog from you. These things indicate that you’re sort of on the map; that you’ve “made it.” You have found success.
Eventually, you reach a level of moderate success as an exhibitor, and you’re able to continue that level of success time and time again as a breeder. You have developed a little bit of a following and maybe have some notoriety with a superstar dog that does a little bit more winning than you’ve ever done before. That dog makes you recognizable nationally. People know you, and that notoriety sort of changes how people see you. They start to see you as competition. And although many people will admire the work you’ve done, others will betray you and even try to tear you down. Some people will question, “Is he really that good?” Others will respond, “He’s just really well known, so they’re able to do it.” There’s always that yin and yang aspect over the success of dogs.
Those critical comments from your competitors indicate that you are at the level beyond acceptance—you’re “there” and you have been able to stay there. You’ve been around a long time and your kennel is stronger because of that. You are routinely successful because of your longevity, and any negative remark that is intended to pull you down a little bit is only spoken because others see you as having advantages. But you’ve learned that “one hit wonders” come and go. It’s the superior quality of your animals, time and time and time again, that keeps you on top of your game. It’s your longevity as a breeder that matters, not your first litter. That first litter was beginner’s luck. Great kennels are few, and they are only great for their ability to last for decades. There is no more difficult task than to be a breeder of top-quality animals. The challenge to improve, advance, and maintain dogs at such a high level is a rare feat. I have always been of the opinion that ANYONE can produce a record winner, but only the most talented and tenacious can produce generations of top winners.
We’ve all experienced a little bit of beginner’s luck. My beginner’s luck came with the Best in Show win at The Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show from my first litter of puppies! That was huge! But with that came all of these other things quickly. The aggressiveness and the scrappiness came out of the realization that I have to live up to that initial big win. I was, thankfully, fortunate enough to win the show again with a Sussex Spaniel many years later.
For most people, it takes a decade-plus to get some individual recognition—and run with it. I think about people who’ve been in the sport a long time but have never “hit.” I think that some of that is due to a complacency about where they are. They’re just happy being that person. They don’t necessarily want more. They have a low bar of satisfaction, and they don’t have a dream. A lot of people just want to get a dog finished. They’re thrilled with what they’ve got. They’re not looking for admiration. They simply like to say, “I did it!” Their goals are low and their dream is easily obtained.
I don’t think many people breed dogs to be admired anymore. And although no one says, “I’m going to breed this litter so that people can admire me,” being admired is a biproduct of producing quality. Respect comes when you’ve proven something, and breeders are respected for what they’ve produced. They don’t care if you dislike them, but you have to respect the genetics involved. Top breeders don’t want to be liked, they want to be respected.
The growing of a following for your kennel is vitally important. The aggressive and scrappiness you experienced early on was really a fight to be recognized and to be considered valid and to be considered worthy—and maybe to be seen as an equal with others. But you also have to have the goods to make that last and to be competitive on a national level. You can have a regional favorite that is good for a particular area, but you have to have that quality to move to the next level for national recognition.
I remember going to a National Specialty and listening to a long-time breeder say, “Look at all of us old breeders. We’re all out here and the new group is in the ring.” It was a changing of the guard at that time in the breed, where long-term breeders didn’t want to evolve with the times. With complacency, however, breeders can lose their relevance in a breed because they didn’t care to improve as the breed did.
Today, we are at the pinnacle of breed improvement. Some breeds are the strongest they’ve ever been, with the genetic testing and knowledge we now have that allows us to breed superior-quality dogs. In the last five years, breeders have benefited more than what the breeders did in the 25 years prior. You have advantages today as breeders that many don’t understand. Anyone who started breeding dogs in the last 10 years does not understand the hardship of the breeders from many, many years ago. And I’m that old person now. I’m the one who says, “You don’t understand what we did to get here.” What we did was breed a lot of dogs that failed in order to make dogs that passed. And you wouldn’t have what you have today if it were not for those people who lived through the horror and the pain and the sadness of dogs that weren’t as good as they could have been because they genetically couldn’t be. There wasn’t enough strength in that genetic pool to make those animals strong.
We’ve lived this whole decade preserving breeding, and what it has been about is strengthening the weak so that our breeds don’t disappear. And the sad caveat to that is, sometimes, something might already be too far gone to be saved—and that’s going to be the next decade. We’ll find out if a breed can’t be saved. Though we’ve seen an increase in rare breed registrations, it’s not to the point of getting off the rare breed list. Nor will they ever be. It may be to the point of litter sizes having increased, and health and wellness being much improved, but they still struggle. There are setbacks that still go along with those breeds.
For example, the Otterhound is still vulnerable to extinction. They don’t have the breeder force like the Sussex Spaniel does, for some reason. Sussex continue to see people getting involved in the breeding of the breed. They have people who are willing to TRY to help keep them alive.
The next 10 years will likely be the most critical in the trajectory of today’s preservation breeders. In order to achieve and maintain success in the years to come, breeders will need to understand the pathway that lies ahead.
As a breeder, you want competition and you want to continually raise the bar. When there’s two really good examples of a breed and they’re both winning, that’s really good for a breed. One winner helps the other. It works for the strength of the breed. It works for viability, and there’s no question that it’s a good thing. Plus, in rare breeds, especially, when one starts to win, the breed starts to win. Judges get brave and use them, and this can give breeders a reason to celebrate. Our work is celebrated in show rings around the globe. After all, the only way to teach other breeders and judges is to showcase the best of the best. The correct exposure to a breed will open the eyes of both judges and fellow exhibitors.
So, breeders, blaze a trail. Be that breeder who walks your own path, and blaze a trail for others to follow.
