Part One of a Two-Part Series
Breed background. Where did any breed come from? Most of the breed histories that you are familiar with contains more fancy than fact. There are many reasons for these flights of fancy. A couple of hundred years ago people didn’t generally think that writing about dogs was that important; Overall, they were not interested in the purity of a dog’s bloodlines.
Dog shows, as we know them today, are less than 125-year old. Current registration bodies are less than that. The vast majority of breeds that we know today did not exist 150 years ago. It is within the last Century that today’s breeds started to develop.
A breed is a dog that has been bred true to type for three generations. It’s a relatively simple requirement but not sufficient to have the breed recognized by present-day stud books. A studbook, (a male chauvinistic term) is where the breeding records are kept. They are held by those interested in maintaining the purity fo the bloodlines.
The USA’s best-known studbook is maintained by the American Kennel Club, New York, New York, which is a federation of kennel clubs. There are other studbooks in the United States, such as the United Kennel Club in Kalamazoo, Michigan, and the Field Dog Stud Book in Chicago, Illinois. Some individual breeds maintain their studbooks in this country, generally before they are accepted by one fo the larger studbook registries.
There are about 450 breeds of dogs in the world today. Some are developing and improving, and some are dying out. Some appear in a variety of sizes, colors, and coat textures.
In addition to breeds of dogs, there are “varieties” of dogs. The difference between breeds and varieties is that varieties can be bred to other varieties within their breed, but separate breeds cannot. An example of a variety is the Poodle: Toy, Miniature, and Standard. Three different sizes or varieties but one breed. The Giant Schnauzer, Standard Schnauzer, and the miniature Schnauzer are three separate breeds. They can not be cross-bred because they are distinct breeds.
Justification for the policy can be that they are descended from entirely different breeds, but sometimes a variety will become a breed. At one time the AKC recognized the Belgian Sheepdog as one breed with three varieties: The Groenendaels (the black, now knows as the Belgian Sheepdog, the Malinois, and the Tervuren. There is one other variety or breed not recognized by the AKC. A wire-coated brown brindle is knowns as the Laekenois.
Both the Groenendael and the Tervuren are long-coated. The former is black, and the latter is reddish. The Malinois has a shorter double-coat, brown with a black mask. Breeders are looking for a longer back in the Malinois to justify the fact that it is a different breed from the other. Thus, new strains are born.
Most dogs do not develop through the simple crossing of one breed with another. They generally evolve into their finished look. Fanciers are not satisfied with knowing that their breed evolved. The fancier wants to make sure that the breed is old and well-established. There has to be some romance or charisma to the history of the fancier’s favorite breed. A dog in an antique oil that resembles the breed is proof positive that their breed existed at that place and time.
All the breeds developed for dog fighting trace their history back to 1860 and James Hinks of Birmingham, England. That’s the best that these people can do in the antiquity department. In reality, towards the end of the 19th Century there were only two dogfighting breeds which bred true to type, the Bull Terrier and the Boston Terrier. Now the Bulldog certainly preceded both these dogs as well as James Hinks’ venture into dog breeding.
To the credit of the American fanciers, the Boston is, in reality, a rather old breed compared with the true histories of many breeds. American demeans themselves when they say that the Boston is one of the few breeds of dogs developed in the United States. At least 75 breeds of dogs have been developed in the United States.
At the point that the Boston Terrier started breeding true to type it was lifted out fo the dog pits. One could say this dog, the American Gentleman, bred his way out of the pits rather than fought his way out.
Reprinted from Captain Haggerty’s column, Dealing with Dogs, in Pet Dealer magazine. March 1983. Part Two will discuss the fighting breeds.