Seppala Kennels 'SledDogBlog'

To Breed or Not to Breed

All kinds of factors influence one's decision about whether or not to breed a litter. When one has a prime female in hand, and access to suitable stud dogs for the job, what could cause one to decide not to have puppies?

Tullibardine's Howlin Yukon Janis is in heat. She is almost three years old, prime Chinook breeding material -- healthy, sound, and sane. Both her ancestry and herself as an individual are a credit to her breed. Why would anyone who likes Chinooks, owning such a bitch, NOT breed her?

Apart from the sheer bother of raising a litter (which is more than amply compensated by the joy of puppies), uncertainty about the future would probably be the main thing to give one pause for thought. A weak economy, high fuel prices, soaring food costs, and limited income opportunities are the "big picture" just now.

Yet there are also uncertainties of another kind. Chiefest of these in my mind would be the dubious future of the Chinook breed itself. A good deal of progress has, of course, been made since the nadir of the early 1980s, but at this point it now looks as though that progress is about to come to a crashing halt. If the present path towards AKC recognition is followed to its logical end, an inbred fraction of the present total Chinook population will become the main gene pool of the breed. At best there will be a permanent, deep split between AKC and UKC breeders and in the Chinook gene pool itself. More probably, the UKC Chinook will slowly die on the vine and, along with it, any faint hope for genetic renewal of the inbred, unhealthy AKC "purebreds," which can only grow yet more inbred, ever more seriously affected with genetic disease, in the hothouse atmosphere of the AKC's closed stud book.

It was recently remarked on one of the Chinook email lists that a few Chinook litters have already been foregone by the owners of breedable bitches, due largely to these very concerns. Add to that the poisonous brew of Chinook dog-politics that seethes just beneath the surface of the email lists, and the hostility of the old guard to new input -- and I'm seriously wondering whether you can't just add me to the list of non-breeders. Janis may have to wait; indeed, she may never be bred at all.

I'm a thoroughly experienced breeder of Seppala Siberian Sleddogs. It's not that I don't feel that my two bitches and I would have nothing to contribute to Chinooks; not at all. But who wants to go to great effort and expense prolonging the death-struggles of a breed that is so obviously moribund as this? Not that it needs to be that way! But from where I sit, it looks like that's the way the powers that be in the Chinook world actually want it.

If Arthur Walden were alive and breeding Chinooks today, I think I know how he would be doing it. He would not be giving himself airs about his "purebreds." He would still be crossbreeding, finding ways to improve the thin coats, the sensitive skins, the hammer-headed behavioural traits and the diffident working attitudes. At the very least, he would want his Chinooks to be healthy, honest working dogs equippped for life in cold country. And I don't think he'd be chasing ribbons and hip scores with the effete bunch that consider themselves the pillars of his breed.

I have a Tarot deck with which I play at irregular intervals. Not often, because (a) I'm not very good with it, and (b) it frightens me too much when I do make use of it. This particular deck has a way of turning up cards from the suit of Swords most of the time, at least in my clumsy hands. (Swords are the most problematic and inauspicious of the four Tarot suits.) So, after leaving the deck to gather dust for most of the winter, this evening I absent-mindedly picked it up, shuffled and cut the deck. When I turned up the top card, what do you think it was?

The Seven of Swords. "Futility."

Off to a Good Start

THE 21ST CENTURY DOG BREEDS forums are off to a good start with fifty forum members enrolled in the first week of operation. Obviously there was a need to be met here. There has been pretty good variety in the first sixty-odd posts; concerns of various sorts have been expressed. New forums have already been added in the "breeds" section -- for Alaskan huskies and for canine hybrids! Time will tell whether these new forums will grow to become a force for change in the dog world. It is, at least, a promising beginning.