The Fourth Estate
Jim Engel 2016
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Over the years I have played many roles in the canine world – trainer, breeder, office holder in various national organizations – but am perhaps best known as an author of numerous magazine articles and a book, that is as an historian and commentator. Fortune was by my side in this endeavor, both early on through the emergence of the working movement and then a decade later as the internet came out of nowhere to provide an even wider readership and even more importantly complete independence, freedom from ever again worrying about what an editor would be willing to print. The emergence of the American working dog movement, providing the opportunity of getting in on the ground floor. A decade or so later the internet came into existence, greatly extending my reach, opening up whole new worlds for contribution and commentary, especially in Europe.
In the beginning, the early 1980s, there was an enormous pent up demand for strong writing, and my commentaries found resonance, struck a deep chord. But writing is one thing; being read by a wide and diverse audience quite another. The American canine establishment – the AKC, the breed clubs and the independent press – had always been deeply conservative and controlling; those not supporting and endorsing the conventional wisdom, the way things were done, were effectively marginalized, denied access to any sort of a general audience.
A free and vocal press has always been an American foundation, with diverse points of view from socialist on the left to rigid conservatism on the right. But the AKC was and is anything but a democratic institution, ordinary dog owners, breeders and trainers have no voice or vote and are isolated from any real power, which is closely held by a small, inbred elite. All AKC related publications were under the tight control of this establishment; existed primarily to promote its events, policy and mythology. The independent press, that is the book publishers and specialty magazines, dependent on advertising dollars and subscriptions, had a little more latitude and needed to be a bit more open and interesting. But they essentially bought into the purebred dog mythology, had blind faith in the validity of the conformation show process, and needed or perceived the need for establishment good will and acceptance.
But life sometimes hinges precariously on fate, and the winds of change were arising. There was a growing dissent and dissatisfaction with the increasingly controlling establishment, as exemplified by the movement of the hunting dog community, those with pointers and retrievers, which was increasingly taking control of their own affairs, seeking to move beyond the reach of the AKC. The Schutzhund movement, at first condoned and cautiously encouraged by the American German Shepherd community, had been struck down hard by the AKC establishment, leading to the founding of other, dissident organizations, often with links to Germany for guidance, assistance and particularly trainers and judges. Although there were a number of organizations, some false starts, by the early 1980s the newly formed United Schutzhund Clubs of America was emerging as a predominant and powerful base in support of the protective heritage breeds. New and revolutionary movements require strong advocates, create new publishing venues and especially need effective and innovative writers, willing to reach out beyond conventional thinking. Fate had stepped in and provided the opportunity, a vital outlet for my work.
The word revolution is bandied about casually, applied to things which in retrospect are no more than incremental, evolutionary change. Real revolution is by its nature a perfect storm: diverse, seemingly unrelated dissatisfactions fester and grow with little overt effect to the established order, and then cause rapid change, seemingly out of nowhere. The American Schutzhund movement was evolving in this way, was in the process of creating and controlling a new facet of the American canine community, complete with its own organizations, establishment, publications and mythology. But this was, in and of itself, more akin to evolution, increasing access to European influence, such as affordably priced air travel, would inevitably bring change to American shores sooner or later. This is of course nothing new, human existence is always evolving new belief systems, political structures; shifting some portion of power and control to evolving new elites. The working movement was creating new venues for the written word, opportunities for new ideas, but this was evolutionary as much as revolutionary.
But real revolution was on the horizon.
The introduction of the printing press by Guttenberg in the fifteenth century had created the process of publication, making possible preparation and printing a large number of books in place of tedious hand copies, affordable by only a minute literate elite. The printing press made the written word available to the masses, encouraging literacy and thus involvement from the lower strata of society in public affairs. It contributed mightily to the Protestant Reformation and altered the social landscape forever.
Although printing greatly opened up the world, publication was an expensive and controllable process, the ability to determine what was rendered in print remained in the hands of the elite establishments, governments could control or destroy presses and the Catholic church maintained a list of forbidden books one possessed only at the risk of his soul, his freedom and even his life.
In the last decade of the twentieth century the internet came seemingly out of nowhere, removing the last vestiges of control over dissemination of the written word, making an author's work potentially available to a worldwide audience. Although this had been evolving out of military research and development programs behind the scenes for many years, attracting little public notice, in 1993 Moasic, the first browser really adapted to the non-technical user, was released. This was a transformative event, by 1995 the internet had come out of nowhere to change the world.
Even though this was only a few years ago, it is today difficult to recall the scale of the change, even Bill Gates at Microsoft was caught flat footed – without a browser which could compete with Netscape – when the world changed. The internet made availability of the written word virtually free and virtually instant, obliterated the need for physical printing, making the publisher an unnecessary impediment and greatly diminishing the control of ideas and thought by established authority. Books continued to be printed and sold, and a few magazines manage hang on, but they became optional, alternative venues rather than necessities. This was truly revolutionary, profoundly and permanently changing the dynamics of the written word. The relationship between writer and reader had been broken free from the control of political and social institutions and publishing establishments, open to anyone with an affordable computer and internet access.
But all of this this is getting a bit ahead of the story, for my writing began about a decade before the internet became predominant. My early access was due to several fundamental, unforeseen, even serendipitous circumstances: some of the breed club and independent canine editors were willing to print new and interesting, even groundbreaking, material and the emerging working dog publication segment, primarily Dog Sports magazine, and I were made for each other. The establishment quickly clamped down on the conventional press, but the cat was out of the bag and Dog Sports, virtually without competition, would become enormously visible and influential until faltering in the early 1990s and then succumbing to the internet juggernaut.
The power of the establishment press, particularly the specialty magazines, to influence perceptions and thus policy had rendered editors and publishers important people, and many of them were well aware of this. By and large the these people and the canine establishment supported a broad conventional wisdom, that is the validity of the purebred dog concept, the unquestioned belief that the AKC dog shows brought forward the very best dogs for breeding and the "advancement" of the breeds and the financial interests of everyone involved, that is, the bureaucrats, judges, professional handlers and commercial scale show breeders.
Beginning about 1980 the rise of the protection style canine sports, Schutzhund and to a lesser extent French Ring, had created a certain amount of strife and conflict; but this was not really of much concern to the establishment. The AKC had strong formal and informal agreements with the European countries through the FCI, so although German judges and trainers were coming over and planting Schutzhund on American soil, there was no expectation of serious difficulties.
As mentioned, publishers have power, sometimes enormous power. But they also have insatiable appetite for strong material. Magazines run by and for organizations tend to be dull and boring, adverse to controversy and under the thumb of a conservative self-interested and self-satisfied establishment. But sometimes an editor gets the bit in the mouth and actually puts out something interesting and provocative. Joyce Lak, at the time editor of the Dirty Beards, the organ of the American Bouvier club, turned out to be such a person. For a very brief time I had a lot of material in the Dirty Beards, memorably including virtually a complete issue covering the inaugural Bouvier Working Championships in the St. Louis area in the fall of 1980. This was very popular, but belatedly the displeased Bouvier establishment tightened the reigns and in time the Dirty Beards went on to new editors and reverted to perpetual bland mediocrity.
But the cat was out of the bag, interest in real Bouviers had been set loose. Although caught flat footed, the Bouvier establishment quickly regained the offensive; several years later when doing research for my Bouvier book I was denied access to the American club archives, although I was a member in good standing at the time. I had become the great devil in the eyes of people such as Ralph and Sandy Goldman, emblematic of the Bouvier establishment, and a source of great frustration. This was actually little more than a teapot tempest; there was nothing of any real importance in the American club archives – or any of these people for that matter. Many individuals – such as Annie Verheyen, Justin Chastel, Felix Grulois and particularly Edmee Bowles – had been most generous in providing documents, photos and particularly personal, verbal recollections. Bowles in particular provided a wealth of information, including her decades of correspondence with Felix Verbanck in Belgium. The Goldmans were emblematic of everything wrong with the American establishment of the day: self-important, grasping, manipulative, ignorant and vain. Interestingly enough I was for a brief time quite well received by the regional clubs, in fact went to California and Michigan to judge conformation matches, no doubt raising the eyebrows and ire of the self-styled national elite.
For many years, Dog World was the most prominent and influential national canine magazine. Prior to the advent of the internet it was a very important outlet for news, commentary and especially advertising, a primary way for breeders to reach a broad, national market. In this era the editor was Enid Bergstrom, willing to rock the boat, present diverse material and new ideas, and particularly to pull the sensitive AKC tail. The American canine establishment was enormously powerful, and eventually Bergstrom was pushed out, but for most of the 1980s she ran a truly provocative, interesting and useful magazine. I began to contribute brief Bouvier columns and then eventually branched out to a few more general articles. This did much to bring national attention to working Bouviers and the Schutzhund movement, and incidentally to Jim Engel.
Dog Sports magazine, created and owned by Mike McKown, former editor of the Schutzhund USA journal, was through the early 1990s a primary source and forum for Schutzhund and other protective heritage canine sports and service, particularly police applications. This was very much a shoe string operation, and there was no author compensation; but it did provide a national outlet and held out the hope of eventual paid journalism.
I began to submit Bouvier material and soon found myself the contributing editor for Bouviers, contributing denoting unpaid, as mentioned above. Mike operated on the principle that there is no such thing as bad publicity, very much enjoyed and encouraged controversy. The letters to the editor, and author response, became a major highlight of each issue, often running many pages. It was a natural for me. My Bouvier articles, having attracted wide attention beyond the breed, soon led to a role as primary commentator on all breed working dog affairs. Dog Sports – while interesting, provocative and very influential – was never financially viable. The market was too small, specialized and disjoint; and from the beginning free subscriptions were provided to law enforcement agencies, and converting a target audience to a paid subscription business model is by its nature problematic. In the middle 1990s the magazine was sold and quickly withered away. This of course was preordained by the advent of the internet, but since holding high office in two national working dog organizations greatly limited my scope of commentary, I was more or less uninvolved by this time and unaware of the exact sequence of events. But for a few formative years Dog Sports was an enormously effective platform which even today very much defines my roots in the working canine community; it did more or less put me on the map.
Journalism can be evocative and exhilarating, at times provide not only the sense of power but real power. But this is heady stuff, even precarious, for where there is power there is peril. The pen often is mightier than the sword; men such as Thomas Paine become famous and had a hand on the tiller of history. But it is precarious, for the writer must speak from the heart and break free from the constraints of tradition, mythology and the establishment; but in the end men on the whole cling to these things. Every aspiring author should take care to note that only six nondescript mourners were in attendance at Paine's modest funeral, establishments tend to reestablish themselves, and have a long memory. In the short run and the long run Thomas Paine was a hero, but short term fame is fleeting and we are all long dead before the long run comes to pass.
As my experience, knowledge base and writing were increasing, I began to assemble my existing material into a format suitable for a breed book, and as the outline took shape began to focus my writing and research on the necessary topics that had not been covered. In that era before the internet nothing could compare to a published book in terms of exposure and getting your message out, and putting your name on the map. Alpine Publications agreed to the project and we began to really focus on the book and assembling and processing the photos. Publication took place in 1991, and the book was very successful, winning the "Breed Book of the Year" award for 1991 from the Dog Writer's Association of America and remaining in print for more than twenty years.
Background and Reference:
Jim Engel ResumeWho is Jim Engel?
Glossary
Orginizations and Conflicts
Legacy Lost, the Other Breeds
The Americans
Style and Opinion Sports
Only a Game
How We Play the Game
Commercialization of Schutzhund
The Mother State