Okay, looks like maybe I still didn't explain it simply or succinctly enough. This is, after all, the world of 5-second sound bites, I keep forgetting that.
There are conflicts that cannot be resolved by everyone sitting down together and singing Kumbaya.
I do not doubt that as soon as Doug Willett and Jeffrey Bragg are both safely, definitively and unquestionably DEAD, someone will dutifully attempt some sort of initiative for "bringing all Seppalas together" for a "renewed sense of vigour." In my personal opinion, that will be a self-defeating enterprise.
Here's why: there is no general agreement upon what is meant by "Seppalas." I have defined the gene pool of the SSSD Project, the WCAC and Seppala Kennels quite clearly and exactly. (I had to do that to satisfy Ag Canada.) But that clear, exact definition (pure-strain McFaul/Shearer descendants plus new Siberia import stock) is not accepted by most people south of the border.
To illustrate with a recent example: one chap sent me a pedigree of his "Seppala" which I then researched to six generations. Within six generations of the dog in question there was not one single ancestor from any known Seppala kennel or breeding recognisable to me. A couple generations further back there was a handful of Sepp-Alta and Markovo animals, but very few. But this dog was nevertheless a "Seppala" in the mind of its owner.
Any attempt to include all owner-designated "Seppalas" in a single gene pool or registry will result essentially in a duplication of existing purebred Siberian Husky registries -- unless it is also opened to the Seppala/Alaskan crosses that were produced by Sepp-Lok and other western USA kennels in the past decade or so. In any case the result will be "Seppala" in name only, but not in genetic reality.
That is probably all that people want. If so, then they just need to wait for me to die first. Because I will never support any such thing, nor will I knowingly sell dogs to anyone whom I suspect might participate in any such initiative.
Mr. Willett is being rather disingenuous when he states that the split is not two-sided and that "There is nothing in the ISSSC-CKC (Continental) structure that prevents ANYBODY from melting together Seppalas from the two groups, or from the AKC group. As a matter of fact, some have been doing this. The CKC pedigree file includes the base Seppalas from all 3 groups, and can, therefore, register any qualifed combination." In actual fact, ISSSC does not want the new Siberia import lineage in its registry, Doug Willett has numerous times denigrated them as "performance-degrading Eurasian dogs" while at other times he has insisted that they were actually European Siberian Huskies taken to Russia and then re-exported. (He has no evidence, knowledge or personal experience to support either of those contentions, only his personal prejudice.)
The objectives of the three "groups" are not the same. They are widely disparate, in fact. ISSSC want to define Seppalas as heat-style mid-distance racing dogs capable of finishing races within 110% of the winners' times. The goal of the SSSD Project and Seppala Kennels was the preservation and genetic health of the Leonhard Seppala version of the original Siberian draught dog; racing was never part of that goal, although maintaining a good level of efficient versatile sleddog performance was. The emphasis of the AKC group, insofar as there was any degree of organisation or unanimity there (doubtful), is probably just breeding AKC registered Siberian Huskies with various amounts of recognisable Seppala lineage in their pedigrees.
These disparities have nothing to do with Mr. Willett or myself being hostile or unwelcoming to anyone in particular, or to Seppala newbies in general. Rather they have the nature of completely different goals and values. Nobody is trying to insult or exclude anyone. But nobody is likely to change the goals and values that have guided several decades of dedicated breeding, either.
And, with respect, I do not consider SledDogCentral to be a venue at which I would wish to discuss the future of my own Seppalas. My feeling is that there are too many folk posting there that haven't a clue in hell what they are talking about. I'm not the only person to hold that opinion; I've seen the same publicly posted by people with whom I don't get along at all.
Posted by ditkoofseppala at August 17, 2010 10:22 PM