parsons

[PBurns 9]

I cannot speak to every dog registered in every country and every registry in Europe. There are several registries and quite different selection criteria are used depending on the country, breed, and registry selected. That said, in the you.S., very few people who are serious bird hunters are looking to the American Kennel Club for a bird dog, and that is true for pig dogs as well.

 

To carry on that theme, no one at any track in the world is looking to bet on a Kennel Club greyhound, nor are the folks mushing in the Iditorod looking for Kennel Club sled-pulling dogs of any breed.

 

No sheep man in this country (or in the UK from what I gather) is using a Kennel Club border collie for real farm work upon which their bread-and-butter livelihood depends.

 

What counts in the ground, at the track, in the Arctic, and on the hill is performance not looks. And in the UK Kennel Club, and in the American Kennel Club, there is no place for performance.

 

If you tell me that in some European countries, where some places put out 4,000 birds for a single day's stocked shoot, they are using Kennel Club birds dogs ... well .... I might wonder if that is much of a test? All I can tell you is that here in America, this is not normally the way we hunt birds, and so we need dogs with a nose and a bit of brains to scare up 3 truely wild pheasant on 3,000 acres of South Dakota prairie. In short, we need a dog that is judged on performance and not just looks alone .... which means we tend to look outside of the Kennel Club roles.

 

Here's a question: Who here on this board is using a Kennel Club Welsh Terrier to hunt below ground? Who here is using a Kennel Club Lakeland or a Kennel Club Wire Haired Fox Terrier? Anyone on here with a Kennel Club Cairn or a Kennel Club Smooth Fox Terrier? How about a Kennel Club Sealyham Terrier or a Kennel Club Scottish Terrier or a Kennel Club West Highland White? Anyone on here with a Kennel Club Czesky Terrier? Finding anyone working these Kennel Club breeds today is as hard as locating Toad Hair and a Hair-lipped Chicken. There is a reason for that. The reason is that these once working breeds have been degraded by the Kennel Club show-and-registration system which values ephemeral characteristics above those of substance, and which prohibits breeding in substance found outside of the ranks of a closed, and increasingly inbred, pool of dogs. Once a gene pool has turned to mush, it remains mush forever because it cannot be easily turned around.

 

This is not to say that an individual breeder necessarily has to spin down the drain with everyone else. It is to say, however, that if a breeder is very interested in shows and winning at shows, they cannot allow too much variation in the looks of their dogs. The more outbreeding that is allowed, the greater the variability in the look of the dogs, and the less chance that the breeder will end up with a rosette. Yes, you can bash 100 losing dogs over the head and keep that one rosette winner, but that's a pretty brutal way to go about the business of getting a ribbon, isn't it? Sadly, a variation of this is how it is done by some in the show ring word -- breed 100, work none, sell off 99 to breed some more, and keep the one looker that will win a ribbon.

 

I am not going to deny that some individuals with working dogs have very tight breeding lines, but these dogs are actually pretty rare what all is said and done. In fact, there is so much variation in the world of working terriers that we could have a whole section of this board called "What the hell is it?" And, of course, there is only one answer, and it is the only important important answer: it is a rare and important animal called a working terrier.

 

As for registries, they are not all equal are they? I have been speaking of Kennel Club registries, not all of the other canine registries in the world (there are about 40 that I know of). As noted, not all countries think a breed championship should be a pure beauty contest. The Germans, for example, demand some actual performance from their performance breeds. In America and the UK, however, the Kennel Club prohibits making actual field work a requirement for their championship dogs. Both are purely cosmetic registries, and both have seen the rapid deterioration of peformance dogs pulled into their registries. No, this decline in working abilities does does not take place in 5 years or even 10 years or 20, but it does not take too much longer that that for people to see it. In 40 to 50 years, things really do go to hell in a handbasket, and this has happened again and again. It is not that people are bad or stupid; it is that the Kennel Club registration process itself is defective.

 

For the record, neither of my dogs are registered. Both of my Russells do come from JRTCA lines, but the JRTCA specifically prohibits very high coefficients of inbreeding for the very reasons noted: inbreeding, over time, results in less vitality, more neo-natal mortality, and increased genetic problems. Prohibiting high coefficients of inbreeding and elevating the status of work is how you keep a working breed a working breed, and it is one of several ways the JRTCA (the largest Jack Russell Terrier registry in the world) is different from the Kennel Club and its generally non-working "Parson Russell Terrier". Add to that the fact that the JRTCA keeps honest records of dogs that have done some minimal level of work, and the fact that the JRTCA records the size of dogs, and you have a registry that actually helps to preserve some of the essential elements of a working terrier. It is quite different, from what the Kennel Club does in almost every way, and that makes a world of difference.

 

The working Jack Russell owners (and Patterdale owners too, I think I can safely says) are not the only folks that have opposed pulling their dogs into the Kennel Club. So too have those with working Border Collies and Working Coon dogs. See >> http://www.terrierman.com/AKCindex.htm for more history here.

 

As for Eddie Chapman, I do not know the man personally, and I but think very highly of his books (both are quite excellent), and I do not consider it a negative thing in the slightest to have a little Fox Warren blood in the pedigree of a dog. The most important question, of course, is not the pedigree of the dog, but whether the owner will take it out and hunt it. On that point, I suspect all hands would agree.

 

Patrick

[Guest It's Me!]

the JRTCA (the largest Jack Russell Terrier registry in the world)

So your new Russell is registrated. I read the site of Thornbush kennel. In fact it's listed in my favorites for years.

Our terriers are bred for working ability, temperament and Conformation. We want all our terriers to be part of the family. They are born and raised in our very active home, where they get lots of handling and love.

The above quote from their website says they want the same thing out of their terriers as I do.

 

Our Kennel Club is different than yours and they also prohibit inbreeding.

In 2000 our breeding club the JRTCN was devided in the NVJRT for the Jack Russell Terrier - following the FCI standard that says "country of origin is Great Brittain but the breed is developed in Australia" - and the PRTCN for the Parson Russell.

The PRTCN has become a group of people that ruins the breed! They have dumb rules and regulations. Some of the members and boardmembers must have cramp in their fingers, typing letters to the Kennel Club complaining about what we do with our terriers.

 

Okay I show my dogs and I like to win, but I don't expect to win unless the judge knows what he/she is doing. I show my dogs because people can see there are other Parsons than the ones standing flufed up and drugged because they are scared of the carpet they walk on because that is something new in their lives. I'm proud to have shown our Rachel at Crufts. She didn't get a second look from the judge, but at least the public saw a bitch of the proper size in her class.

 

Jolanda

Edited October 27, 2006 by It's Me!

[valerio 32]

In my view the problem are breeders not registration,it's down to them to use only good dogs.here in Italy if you want to show hunting breeds you need to have excellent resoult in field trials,I know its not hunting but is still a good thing italian breed birddogs are recognised as some of the best,dominating field trials all over Europe and being exported in a lot of countries included USA.as for German JagdTerrier the club make it impossible to breed from not workers,I work registered jagdterriers and a registered Parson and they are good workers.

 

You have said it,you dont know an hell of a thing about what we do here so talk only for the things you know

Edited October 27, 2006 by valerio

[Guest It's Me!]

I supose that is what a forum is for to talk about what we do and don't know and learn from eachother?

 

Jolanda

[Guest grubygrafter]

you are not right mr Burns,most of the hunting dogs used around the world are from registered breeds,I'll give you an exemple,here in Italy every year the kennell club register more than 20.000 English Setters and I think 95% are used for hunting,more than 7.000 Italian Shenthounds and 99% are used for hunting hares.I ve used for years Kc BRIQUET GRIFFON VANDEEN as boarshounds and they served me well as the Xbreeds I've now.

can you think all this dogs are shit?Or are all their owners stupid?I dont think so

 

good post.

[fellman 116]

russells are not coloured terriers ........bred for different things

seen more than my fair share of quitters of all colours ,,,,,,,

as for the rest of the kennel club bollox who cares ....

worker to worker regardless of looks ...............thats the way forward !

Edited October 27, 2006 by fellman

[chris hickling 14]

fellman, your spot on mate.

[Guest Haggler]

worker to worker regardless of looks ...............thats the way forward !

 

How much work does a worker make? Some folks breed a pair after each has accounted for just one or two quarry. Others wait until age 4 or 5 and several hundred quarry worked WITH OUT COMING OUT. Just saying worker to worker doesn't fine tune it enough. Proven work to proven worker sounds like the real deal. And then you have those that won't work anything but dogs, where do the bitches to breed to come from? Somebody has to work the bitches? When you get a terrier that kicks ass and works steady year after year then it really doesn't matter where you got it from does it?

 

Haggler

Edited October 27, 2006 by Haggler

[Simoman 110]

I'm assuming fellman means dogs and bitch's that have seen several seasons of hard work and proved themselves..........

[fellman 116]

I'm assuming fellman means dogs and bitch's that have seen several seasons of hard work and proved themselves..........

you assume correctly

[Kane 2]

The KC cannot force anyone to breed useless malformed puppies for money, people manage to do that all by themselves.

[Guest JOEB]

The KC cannot force anyone to breed useless malformed puppies for money, people manage to do that all by themselves.

 

[Guest Vermindog]

Sorry but it is probably my fault but I just don,t follow this argument, this is an argument that has been going on as long as I can remember, and I am 66 years old. My father kept and bred cobby little Jacks long before clubs like the F.C.I. or any other Kennel Club, got there grubby fingers on the breed, the outcome was and is that in the you.K. the real Jack Russell (the normel legged version) is not recognised, and the short legged version is recognised by the F.C.I. but is now called "The Austrailian Jack Russell", with as land of origin G.B. but developed in Australia, now anyone with any sense who has seen these dogs will be able to say, christ is that supposed to be a working terrier, they are deep chested (and barrel chested) have crooked front legs and absolutly no condition what so ever, and as for F.C.I. and Kennel Club parsons well we all know about them don,t we. But having said all this there are still no grounds to be able to say that Kannel Club Registered dogs cannot, or will not work, if you say that , I am sorry but you are just being pig headed, all my dogs work and work hard on quarry that cannot be found, or are forbidden to hunt in the you.K. and the majority of European countries. As Patrick said if a dog is going to be able to work, the first and foremost thing that it needs is an owner that will let it.

I am not arguing the ins and outs of breeding and registration, but purely the working side of things. Because of the way the Dutch Kennel club went to work (yes all my dogs are registered) I have 2 real Jacks that are classed as shortlegged ( now that does make me laugh) 1 parson bitch that is a perfect real jack, one Foxwarren Jack that is really leggy and makes him just perfect on Wild Boar, and believe it or not an 11 inch Foxwarren dog that is classed as a Parson. So when you say that these clubs are totally counterproductive I agree, but as I said workers are where you find them, and I have 5 that are all registered.

So lads ( and lassies) please don,t try to re-invent the wheel,this argument on it,s own, has said or revealed nothing, that better men than us have not discussed, argued about, got angry about, and all to no avail, this is somthing that will drag on and on untill show and working people try to understand each other, and this in my opinion will never happen. Ergo, wasted breath.

Rgds Dave.

Edited October 29, 2006 by Vermindog

[PBurns 9]

You've got it about right Dave.

 

People will do what they want to do, and in the end they will get what they have got, and that's as it should be. If they are happy, they are happy, and I am happy for them.

 

The dogs seem to survive it all, some types as pets and some types as workers and some types as dogs that do things other than work, but which are fun enough for owner and dog. No dog will be ruined for the purpose it was selected for. Now what purpose was the dog selected for?

 

Ask that of people and you will generally get a quizical look A dog? A purpose? And yet, we are told by so many folks that they are engaged in "selective breeding." Fine. What were you selecting for? And how does that relate to work?

 

The good news is that despite the 140 years of the Kennel Club, it is still not very hard today to get a decent dog that will work for you if you are willing to look in the right place (not the Kennel Club as a general rule), and if you are willing to take it out and give it experience. I know people that will travel many thousands of miles to work their dogs, and cross national borders too, and some that will not roll up the road 30 minutes, though these same people will travel 400 miles or more for a show.

 

Each to his own, but in the end, when these two groups are separate enough for long enough, the dogs you get are as alike as white lab rats and wild rats, or, to quote John Russell himself, as alike as "the wild eglantine" (Russell's description of his own dogs) and "the garden rose" (Russell's description of the Kennel Club dog). The fact that the wild eglantine (multilfora rose) is found in the wild and survives all, describes the working Jack Russell Terrier today. The fact that the garden rose is rarely found outside the garden, and struggles with health problems, describes a very large number of Kennel Club dog breeds today.

 

John Russell saw it coming for the fox terrier. And when the fox terrier was ruined they called the white working terrier something else -- a Jack Russell -- to differentiate it from those that were show dogs that were too larger to work. As Santayana said, those who do not learn history are doomed to repeat it.

 

But perhaps this time things will be different ? Yes, perhaps .... Now we have something called the Parson Russell Terrier (a few years old), so that is different. But are Parson Terrier owners rushing into the field to work their dogs? Are people that work their terriers rushing out to get Parsons because the dogs they had before were not doing the job?

 

From what I can see, the road forked at the turnoff just a little ways back, but I suspect it will widen a great deal more in time and distance. We shall see, but either way it goes, the true working terrier will be always be found in the field. The eglantine will always be found in the hedge, and the garden rose will be found in the garden -- just as John Russell suggested.

 

 

Patrick

[DEKAW 85]

swimbridge?????