How We Play the Game
Jim Engel
The immortal words of Vince Lombardi have emerged as an enduring American mantra:
"Winning is not the most important thing, it's the only thing."
Winning at any price has evolved as a predominant paradigm in our social, commercial and political lives, has come to characterize our nation, define who we are. This is so much so that the old fashioned words of Grantland Rice ring hollow, serve in the current vernacular as little more than a lame excuse for losers:
"It's not whether you win or lose, it's how you play the game."
Yet this is not without consequence, something of inherent value in the American spirit hangs in the balance. This transition of amateurism from a focus on sportsmanship and higher values transcending profit to a matter of winners and losers and the blatant use of money for competitive advantage, as in the purchase of titled dogs for competition, reflects a coarsening of our culture, a commercialization of the soul of America. It seems so obvious that pre trained dogs as a shortcut to the podium is not the way to play the game, not at all sportsmanlike. Yet somehow rather than being seen as cheating it has come to be condoned and glorified in the spirit of win at any price.
The intersection of amateurism, professionalism and money is complex because the concepts of amateur and professional are so dependent on context; professionalism is the expectation of the physician, anything less is a quack; yet the sexual professional is a whore, despised and marginalized. It is deeply paradoxical that on one side of the coin the amateur is the unselfish seeker of excellence and quality while the professional crassly pursues money, yet flip the coin and the professional becomes the paragon of knowledge, leadership and virtue, the man who makes it work, while the amateur is the bumbling nonentity struggling even for mediocrity.
This is about Schutzhund in America, and in this context the inexorable trend toward profit based training venues and local clubs as individual business enterprises is directly counter to the European culture we are seeking to emulate. This increasingly limits participation to a narcissistic, older financial elite and severely curtails entry by much of the younger generation—struggling in a stagnant wage economy—the wellspring of future growth and particularly training helpers. This is constraining the growth and vitality of the sport and even more importantly the vigor of the American working dog movement. Elitism is becoming pervasive, we see disdain for financially limited club level trainers, where most of us started, in the $100 trial entry surcharge imposed on non USCA members as a ploy in squalid national politics, essentially a quarrel among the elite.
This is not about denigrating the professionals, for there is a legitimate place for their service. Many are honest, competent and caring, men and women of unquestionable character, while on the other hand the dishonest charlatans and incompetent, predatory self-proclaimed experts are also an ongoing fact of life doing irreparable damage to the fabric of the movement. Professionalism is not inherently evil; everybody who earns a living is a professional in that context, as for example in my case as an engineer. The purpose here is not to evaluate the merits of individuals but rather to explore the balance of amateurism and professionalism most conducive to the health and vigor of the serious American working dog community.
The historic amateur spirit in sport, of putting esthetic principles of intrinsic value above the vulgarities of personal aggrandizement and transient personal glory, has become hopelessly old fashioned in our nation, irrelevant. Instead of fostering character, existential principles such as form following function, quality and service in community life, of maintaining and passing on culture and tradition our personal aspirations have for many come to be little more than waving an empty cup while standing on a wooden box, grandly called a podium.
There was a time when amateurism denoted unselfish dedication to quality, an unrelenting pursuit of excellence for its intrinsic value rather than the compromises inherent in professionalism, the pursuit of money. Kennel advertisements in Belgian or French canine magazines it the 1930s and 40s often proclaimed their amateur status as a matter of pride and distinction, a distancing from the vulgar pursuit of money.
Somehow the amateur has today become the bungling nonentity, the vaguely inept buffoon incapable of excellence, destined to mediocrity. Only under the care of a professional, a personal coach, an elite member of this emergent commercial canine priesthood, can he hope to rise above mediocrity, bring meaning to a pedestrian life, perhaps even some day stand on a decorated wooden box.
But this ongoing domination of for profit sport training has come at a price, is by its nature exclusionary, elite, marginalizes large segments of the population, particularly the young and an increasing portion the working middle class. Training fees and the cost of travel, in terms of time and money, have taken Schutzhund training out of reach of the historical wellspring of growth, the young trainers and families. Schutzhund in America, in the early years generally amateur, open and affordable by most has become professionalized and elite, open only to those with substantial discretionary income and time.
The consequences of the club as a private business enterprise rather than a gathering of amateurs run deep. As the professional business model becomes more and more pervasive the votes of these business owners in USCA elections is gradually predominating, meaning that the individual amateur trainer will eventually have no voice at all, even indirect, in the governance of USCA. In this way Schutzhund in America will in time become totally professionalized, a national level conglomerate of business enterprises conducted solely for profit.
Exclusivity, elite sport, has of course always existed, for what is the point of being rich if not to have access to privilege and exclusion, to be above the common folk? Polo is an example, by its nature a game for the very rich able to support an elaborate stable and staff of grooms and trainers to support a string of polo ponies. Golf emerged as a game for professionals—doctors, lawyers and upwardly mobile business men—creating the country club as an exclusive retreat, leisure time separation from the common man, for the deserving well to do.
Indeed, amateurism was in its origins elitist, a construct of and by the upper classes, for throughout history the bulk of the population struggled to put bread on the table, had little time for elaborate sport involving a rigorous training regimen, elaborate equipment or dedicated grounds and organized competition. The lot of the working man was historically informal games among neighbors and acquaintances. In nineteenth century British society, reflected also in the elite American universities, the amateur was a young man on elite athletic fields whose social position was so secure that money was never a limiting factor in his life style and opportunity for an ongoing professional career was irrelevant, amateur sport being mostly a passing diversion for the young and the rich.
The working man on the other hand might engage in casual games as a diversion, but did not have the resources to support long term training regimens, full time coaches, elaborate equipment and specialized sporting infrastructure. Amateurism in this original, exclusive sense has been marginalized by the quasi professionalization of big time collegiate sports such as football and basketball but persists even today in our elite universities—as in Harvard or Yale.
In the nineteenth century the Industrial Revolution created a much larger and more prosperous working and middle class with discretionary income and increasing free time. This emerging prosperity, driven in many instances by union activism, led to new amateur activities such as baseball, softball and bowling requiring more elaborate equipment and venues, such as bowling alleys, which became common among the population at large even in relatively small towns. One consequence of this relevant to our discussion was the emergence in the later 1800s the purebred dog concept, leading to kennel clubs, formal breeding records and dog shows.
Thus in many venues the Industrial Revolution, by bringing much more of the population into the cities where they came to enjoy a higher level of life, more discretionary income and free time, brought amateurism, the engagement in sport and other activities, within reach of the common man. This was a good thing, marked an emergence of a much more egalitarian society, a step forward for mankind.
These developments were primary driving forces in the emergence of the police dog both by creating demand and facilitating supply. Burgeoning industrial districts created the need for uniformed police patrol and canine assistance and also an expanding working class with the leisure and inclination for an amateur training infrastructure. This new egalitarianism, this melding of amateur based training and trialing with professional police service, was the Euro foundation of the working dog culture. Our inability to recreate this in America is in fact the root cause of our dependence on Europe for working stock and trained dogs, the direct cause of our current failure to flourish. The ongoing professionalization of American dog sport activity, the pursuit of money, increasing the distance from the successful Euro model, is the primary obstacle to our movement, a stride in the wrong direction.
These issues impact American life far beyond our dog sports. The spirit of amateurism has become so out of fashion today that even the Olympics, once the defining venue, the very pinnacle of the amateur paradigm, have been openly professionalized. There are of course rationalizations and justifications; the vast expense of high level competition meant increasingly that prosperous or despotic nations willing to subsidize a sporting infrastructure with full time athletes, such as the former Soviet Union and East Germany, came to predominate.
But there is also an enormous down side. Our national Olympic infrastructure has tolerated—aided and abated—the molestation of hundreds of young female gymnasts at Michigan State and NCAA training camps, psychologically scaring them for life. Denial, protection of an establishment pervert with a medical license, went on for years for the overriding cause of sport field glory, of gold and silver. This winning at any price culture is the direct cause of this enormous, ongoing, establishment condoned and supported sexual predation. This is not some sort of outlier, but rather an inherent consequence of a win at any price culture, and efforts to put superficial safeguards in place without fundamental change will not eliminate inevitable reoccurrence.
This crass disregard for the long term welfare of the competitor is emergent in diverse areas of national life. The Lombardi spirit has led directly to hundreds of NFL veterans living out shortened lives in pain and impact caused dementia, the result of concussions, of the expectation that the player should prove his manhood, his worthiness, by playing through pain, aided by a drug regimen focused on short term competition rather than long term health and wellbeing. For the individual, typically a young man of modest background mentored by coaches under enormous pressure to win, incapable of the mature prospective that should be provided by coaches and league officials, gridiron victory at any price is the basis of his entire life, the prevailing culture. Hypocrisy is endemic; collegiate coaches receive huge salaries and immense amounts of cash for endorsements of things such as athletic shoes which are forced on the players, yet these "student athletes" receive essentially nothing, are subject to discipline for even such mundane things as taking ten dollars for signing an autograph.
In most of Europe and in older American venues such as AKC obedience this amateur paradigm persists in the sense that working class people in general have ample, affordable training and competitive opportunities. There are of course elite competitors on both sides of the Atlantic willing and able to expend the time and money necessary for elite competition, but this is not in Europe by and large a hindrance to the person of ordinary means interested in a casual social outlet and local trial participation, virtually any young person can go as far as his dedication, work ethic and skill will carry him. This was also generally true of American Schutzhund when we became involved in the early 1980s, but over the years the win at any price spirit has become more and more entrenched.
Making the world team has emerged as the ultimate, indeed the only really compelling objective of the most engaged individuals and USCA as a whole. This Lombardi like spirit somehow justifies and glorifies buying European dogs in order to return as competitors, is somehow construed as representing America, which is absurd and pathetic on the face of it. Imagine if you will a hypothetical narcissistic young man, with access to copious amounts of unearned extended family cash, purchasing a German bred, trained and titled dog already a successful competitor in the homeland, bringing this dog to America to win a major championship, qualifying to "make the team." How is this not absurd, despicable and pathetic? Where is any sense of sportsmanship or fair play?
Should not American teams going to international competition represent American breeding, training and competition, the culmination of our national effort to establish our own working dog culture? When Europeans playing basketball in the NBA compete in the Olympics, they play for their homeland rather than America, represent the people and culture from which they emerged, a principle that should also apply to working dogs.
Each imported Euro competition dog potentially displaces an American doing it the honest way, training a domestically bred dog from the ground up, applying blood, sweat and tears to advance rather than family money, building and contributing rather than taking and posing. To add insult to injury these posers and commercial players travel for European competition on USCA funds confiscated from rank and file club level trainers, often struggling financially. It cannot be denied, USCA is today being run by and for the elite and the money takers rather than aspiring club level trainers.
To have meaning international competition must be limited to American bred and trained dogs, must represent the culmination of our national effort to build an American heritage, be the product of a long term community effort rather than just titled dogs purchased in Europe, must emulate the example of T Floyd. This cannot happen overnight, for when quality titled imports were brought to America in the early 1980s there was a purpose; in a era before amateur video and the Internet these dogs provided a dramatic example of what was possible, something to aspire to. This was a beginning, a starting point, and the trainers of this era have by and large moved on to train their own dogs. In a similar way, purchasing a pup or untrained young dog in Europe today serves a legitimate purpose, a practice that needs to be condoned for the time being. But ultimately our international competitors must be American bred and trained, truly represent our own culture and achievement. Any lesser aspiration is self-deception and fraud.
Reliance on imported competition dogs, even extending to a first generation born here, only farther entrenches our dependence on a faltering German heritage. Given the precarious state of the mother club in Germany, the SV, this has ramifications far beyond sport, involves the supply of dogs for American police and military service, indeed the validity of the German Shepherd as a legitimate police breed. The corruption of the SV, the absurdity of the pathetic show lines, the looming crisis of crippling back defects, lends urgency to this, renders it an imminent crises.
The overriding reality is that today the IPO title means nothing because for decades the SV has fraudulently bestowed it on grossly unworthy dogs in order to pander their pathetic show lines, betrayed the heritage of von Stephanitz for the illusion of importance and glory, for money, for thirty pieces of silver.
The truth about dogs is ultimately not in the title, the assignment of style points, but rather the visceral hands on knowledge of the willingness, social nature, stability, aggression and courage of the dog. The breeding decision properly comes not in the trial but rather emerges throughout training; the truth is in the day by day experience on the field, not the points awarded in a judge's tally based on a one time observation of a rote routine.
The debasement of Schutzhund into IPO, and now even further into IGP, which makes no mention of biting or aggression in preparation for the day when these things disappear entirely, is most serious in that the validity as a breeding qualification for police service capable dogs has been abandoned in favor of an increasingly trivial play sport. The SV has relinquished police character and potential in pursuit of the lowest common denominator, the pet market, repudiated the police role that was the original reason for the breed, leaving serious service increasingly to the Malinois. Active participation by police trainers and handlers in the larger training community, as we see for instance on Dutch police fields, should be an essential part of the heritage, yet we see the working German Shepherd advocates, those serious about police potential, increasingly estranged from the SV and the sport in general. This is a tragic debasement of the heritage.
Ultimately winning is not the only thing, it is not even an important thing, for the process is what matters, is what reveals the essence of the dog. Truth emerges in tracking alone in the early morning, becomes self-evident when the helper applies real pressure on a strange field, emerges in the response of the dog to the unexpected. What matters is training under pressure which brings forth truth available only viscerally, becomes evident without the opinion of a judge on the style of a rote exercise. The value is on the field, the persistence and tenacity to take your dog to his limits, the courage to see and accept the revealed truth.
The value is, ultimately, in how you play the game.
Orginizations and Conflicts
Legacy Lost, the Other Breeds
The Americans
Style and Opinion Sports
Has Sport Subverted the Trial?
How We Play the Game
Commercialization of Schutzhund
The Mother State