Style and Opinion Sports
Jim Engel
Over the centuries men – especially herdsmen and farmers – by and large bred and trained their dogs according to the needs of their work, seeking out a stud service or a pup from a neighbor, family member or further afield as necessary. It was a simple process: breeding selections were according to the working qualities of the prospective parents, the progeny were trained and entered into work, and their proficiency in their work identified candidates for future breeding. It was an age old circle, repeated from time immemorial.
The industrial revolution brought on enormous social transformations through large scale manufacturing, burgeoning cities, uniformed police forces and other dramatic alterations to the social fabric. On a more focused scale the canine world was transformed as herding applications dwindled and police and military service opened up new venues for the age old herding lines. A consequence was the emergence of breeders, that is quasi-commercial sources of serious dogs rather than the individual breeding his own or an acquisition from family or acquaintances. Purchasing a dog from a kennel generally relied on the proprietor's knowledge, judgement and honesty rather than direct knowledge of the genetic characteristics – health, vigor, working instincts – of the parents and other ancestors and previous progeny. Breeding animals, particularly the females, more often lived out a life in the kennel rather than actually working, which meant that selection was based on reputation, informal observation or testing and perhaps knowledge of previous progeny actually at work.
As formal breeds were established and breed clubs began to record ancestry working trials evolved to provide formal, long term evaluations of working potential. A primary purpose of this was to establish the quality, to convince potential customers of the desirability and potential of a particular litter of pups. Formal trials – such as the British sheep herding trials and the German Schutzhund trials – evolved and men began to compete for the win itself rather than the validation of character, turning such events more and more into sport.
A trend with serious, perhaps unforeseeable, consequences emerged as men not using their dogs for actual work became involved and over time became judges, administrators and creators of standards, procedures and judging criteria. The circle of validity – select, breed, train, work and then select according to effectiveness in this work – tended to break down as the trial replaced work as the standard and evolved under the control of those interested in entertaining sport rather than a demonstration of raw working potential.
The criteria of tests or trials for utilitarian dog breeding should – obviously – be as much as possible about the dog: the exercises, procedures and judging criteria should be such that the quality of the training and the cleverness of the handler have minimal effect on the outcome. A sport trial has exactly the opposite set of priorities: in the ideal all of the dogs would be identical specimens of sport equipment and the outcome would depend directly on the training and handling skill of the human being and the amount and effectiveness of the effort put into training the dog.
As time goes on trials tend to become increasingly a matter of style and triviality points, as in figure skating or gymnastics. Aside from intervening in the case of a rules violation a soccer or American football game is decided by the direct action of the athlete, a goal or touch down is an obvious and immediate fact unless a penalty is called. Gymnastics not so much, after the performance there is a delay while judges make evaluations, consider social and political ramifications and then add up a score; the points are scored in the minds of the judges rather than honestly, by the athletes on the field. Working trials over time often tend to become more and more like the opinion sports, like figure skating, rather than the honest sports such as football. This makes them much less relevant as criteria for selection of actual police or military working stock.
As trial systems evolved the assessment was increasingly of the trainer in terms of style and training tricks rather than the essential potential of the dog to herd sheep in difficult circumstances or the police dog to serve and protect his leader on the street. This is obvious to any serious and knowledgeable police trainer or handler watching a present day Schutzhund trial or a French or Belgian Ring trial. In Belgium the separation between the police canine units and the Belgian ring community was historically so fraught that the German Shepherd was the primary dog of the Ghent police force in Flemish Belgium as late as the 1980s. Not only was the Ghent program, famous worldwide as the cradle of police service, dismantled and destroyed by the Germans in the 1914, more than 50 years later in a sense the German occupation continued.
The Dutch went down another road, for their national program, the KNPV or Dutch Police trials, was and is run largely by and for police officers, with higher ranking police administrators playing important leadership roles from the beginning in 1906. The key element is that civilian breeders, trainers and judges train together on the same fields with active police handlers; many police officers also in their private lives being breeders and trainers. Except when a dog competes one time in an annual national championship, for most dogs their trial career is over when they certify. Titled dogs may go into service with the trainer if he is a police officer, be sold to a police agency, become breeding stock for future generations or retire in a home. Beginning in the 1970s increasing numbers of certified dogs were sold for service in America or other lands.
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Thus there is a clear differentiation between the philosophy, practice and administration of the KNPV, primarily a police training and certification program not really a sport in the conventional sense, and the other Euro programs which have been much more sport oriented for decades. Unfortunately, under Euro social and political pressure, over many years there has been a strong tendency for these dog sports to evolve more into play sports rather than programs which seriously translate into a test of police or military service suitability. By this I mean rule changes precluding the use of the stick to test the dog, lowered heights and configurations for jumping exercises accommodate less athletic dogs and much less emphasis on courage and aggression in favor of obedience style points.
This is much more of a problem in IPO, the watered down FCI program replacing Schutzhund, than either of the major ring programs, which have on the whole held the line much better. Belgian ring since 1963 has not been under FCI auspices or control and thus much more able to maintain their integrity. While French ring comes under the French FCI national organization, they seem to have maintained control of their program much more than in the case of IPO, which has been increasingly subject to show and pet breeder tinkering and the influence of soft – that is green – political influence. Although I am not especially knowledgeable of the dynamics and politics of the French canine world, my impression is that the French in all aspects of life have an admirable tendency to pay much less attention to outside opinions and pressure and that this trickles down to the ring people to give them a lot more latitude and control, allowing them to maintain the integrity of their program.
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