The pot continues to boil and fume as Chinook Club of America (CCA) recklessly attempts to steer the Chinook breed full steam ahead towards a looming iceberg, as convinced of their invulnerability as the masters of the Titanic. Everyone is blithely talking about "true purebred AKC Chinooks," who will have them, who will not. Some folks, to their credit, are saying, "Okay, this makes no sense at all, so I will just keep on breeding my UKC 'mutts', because I have both kinds, eligibles and non-eligibles, and to me there's no difference; dog 'A' is no more Chinook than dog 'C', they are equally Chinooks to me."
But the same folks also acknowledge that there may be trouble on the horizon. One correspondent said, "Many people don't know better and having AKC Chinooks will be a big draw for a person looking for a pet, show dog, or breeding prospect." It is certainly true that few outsiders even begin to understand the complexities and the history of this canine population. I hesitate to call it a "breed" for reasons I'll explain -- apart from the fact that with each passing day, I get a little sicker every time I hear that word.
Let's get something straight here! CCA and AKC are talking about "purebred Chinooks" as though this were something self-evident and true, beyond dispute. As an honest cynologist, I don't buy their line of hype. THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A "PUREBRED CHINOOK." Therefore, there is no earthly reason to attempt to discriminate between "purebred Chinooks" and Chinook Crosses. This is a clear case of The Emperor's New Clothes -- something that exists only as a state of mind, a fantasy belief system, impossible to demonstrate in any concrete fashion on the ground.
You cannot take a 1917 crossbred mongrel (sired by a Heinz 57 mongrel on a working expeditionary Eskimo dog), howsoever prepotent and admirable a beast he may have been, and magically transform his progeny (from a variety of bitches of other breeds, principally German Shepherd Dog and Belgian Shepherd) into "purebreds" just by inbreeding them into near-extinction over a 75-year history.
Yes, Chinooks are recognisable insofar as they bear a vague family resemblance to one another. Yes, they have been somewhat consistently bred as a population under somewhat of a pedigree barrier (but with gaps and inconsistencies aplenty). The trouble is, though, you can find "Chinookalikes" on farms and in dog pounds across the continent. The Chinook "type" is a common mongrel phenotype that pops up very easily whenever European shepherd-dog blood is mixed with other breeds. Tan, buff, and tawny dogs with dark masks and semi-erect ears are plentiful and perennial as the grass.
I know some Chinooks, and they are delightful dogs. I own two; my wife owns quite a few. They are a genuine piece of 20th-century Americana, an enjoyable relic of the days of the "gentlemen adventurers" and explorers. But it is absolute nonsense to take a small part of the population descended from the eleven dogs rescued in 1982 from the wreck of the Perry Greene kennels, proclaim them "purebred," and then turn around and say that the rest of the same population, descended from the same source, is "not purebred" because it had additional input AFTER the PG rescue from the source-breeds of the initial mongrel mix. That is not only elitism, it is utter, arrant NONSENSE.
I'm sorry to have to say these things so bluntly. It is not pleasant to be forced to do so. We all have our illusions, and we enjoy grooming them. (Human kind cannot bear very much reality, said a great 20th-century poet.) Dog breeds need their breed myths. We all like to feel that our dogs are somehow special.
But this "purebred Chinook" fantasy nonsense has gone much too far already. A relatively small part of the "breed" fancy is now prepared to make life difficult to impossible for the majority, by cuddling up to a mammoth showdog certificate-mill in order to obtain special status, preference for their own little bunch of mutts. It is unsportsmanlike. It is unfair. It is not in the best interest of the dogs. It is not even in the best interests of the fantasy "breed." It is only a cheap power play by a minority faction, aided and abetted by cynical commercial motives of a mammoth 19th-century organisation that needs to be taken down and dismantled as obsolete.
Posted by ditkoofseppala at May 22, 2008 10:56 PM