JudgingByThePound

By Sandy Herzon

*There are numbered footnotes throughout the article, you may click on these numbers to go to the footnotes, click back from the footnote to come back to the same spot of the article that you left off with.

*Bold type is wording extracted word for word from the official Labrador Retriever breed standard

GENERAL APPEARANCE – The Labrador Retriever is a strongly built, medium-sized, short-coupled dog possessing a sound, athletic, well-balanced conformation that enables it to function as a retrieving gun dog; the substance to hunt waterfowl or upland game for long hours under difficult conditions; [1]

Further into the official Labrador Retriever Breed Standard as dictated by the LRC to the AKC and thus to all that breed, raise, train, show or hunt with their dogs at all official AKC functions, are found the following excerpts, verbatim mind you, nothing has been changed or added!

Above all, a Labrador Retriever must be well-balanced, enabling it to move in the show ring or work in the field with little or no effort. The typical Labrador Retriever possesses style and quality without refinement, and substance without lumber or cloddiness.

Substance – Substance and bone proportionate to the overall dog. Light, “weedy” individuals are definitely incorrect; equally objectionable are cloddy, lumbering specimens. Labrador Retrievers shall be shown in working condition, well muscled and without excess fat.

Too much bone is as undesirable as is too little bone.

“So what’s your point?”[2] You may be asking if either; a) you know nothing about a breed standard, let alone that there is actually an Official Publication of THE AMERICAN KENNEL CLUB for the Labrador Retriever or; b) you happen to breed, own and exhibit dogs that are NOT described in the preceding excerpts from that very official dictum by the powers that be at the LRC & AKC.[3]

Of course we all know that “what’s your point” is a great question to ask in a debate, since it directs the entire focus of proving the point to the person posing stating the problem or theory.

Well then, I am glad you asked! Since I was going to prove the point anyways.

Assuming that we are all on the same page about what constitutes a Labrador Retriever and that there is a set of blue prints that is used to build them in the first place.

“Wow, that is a huge assumption”, I can hear many people saying right about now. To actually think that we are going to get a consensus on “what constitutes a Labrador Retriever in the first place” AND THEN “that there is an actual blue print”, wow indeed!

The answers are simple, so follow along. Close your eyes and think about the “perfect Labrador”. See it in your mind’s eye. See it standing there in all its glory…..the perfect Labrador Retriever! It doesn’t matter if you are a total neophyte to the breed or the world’s top breeder of champion Labradors, we all can make an image of what constitutes the perfect dog.[4]

I am willing to bet, that the image will not vary too much from person to person. Yes, the color might be different, given that we have 3 “official” colors to choose from.[5] Aside from color, the general outline of the imaginary dog will be very similar from person to person. I will also bet heavily that the imaginary Labrador Retriever in each of those folks doing the imagining will NOT look like a Pointer, nor a Beagle, nor a Newfoundland, nor a Golden Retriever, nor any other breed that is in existence in the planet.

So, how is it that we can have hundreds of people (I am assuming the there are that many folks that actually read what I write![6]), that will tend to agree on a general outline of what constitutes a Labrador Retriever? How in the world do the actual people doing the breeding manage to produce similar looking dogs over a long, long period of time and maintain a “general outline” that people can still identify as an individual breed?[7]

Simple, they followed the “blue prints” for each breed. If there were no blue prints, no breed standards to follow, there would be NO INDIVIDUAL BREEDS! After 10 or so generations of breeding without consensus or singular purpose, other than just producing puppies, we would arrive at a “generic-looking dog”, the Heinz 57 variety type[8]. There would be no individuality of breeds, lost would be the identifiable traits that “reminds’ us of what a particular breed looks like…..the one that you imagined in your mind’s eye as looking like a Labrador Retriever.

So, I prove my point in a few statements and since there is no one to argue, we will move on. We have proven that there is a blue print for the breed and that there is a general consensus of what the breed should look like!

Okay, so what is my point? Ah, back to the “What’s your point?” question.

My point is as simple as a dimple on a dapple[9].

Let’s go back to the opening paragraph, as extracted word for word from the official “bible” for the breed.

This is exactly the opening paragraph from the breed standard, so right from the get go there are serious discrepancies from what it SHOULD be to what we SEE in the show ring. The word athletic really jumps out at me here folks.

A-T-H-L-E-T-I-C,

that just does not describe some of the dogs being traipses around the show ring today. No way in Helvetica[10] is some of those athletic, not even by the longest stretch of our mind’s imaginary eye!

This is a beautiful word that I revere highly, for at the ripe age of 56 years, I am still ATHLETIC as I have been all my life. I love being athletic, it gives me great thrill to be able to play football with teenagers and still outplay them or to be able to play baseball with my son Ryan for hours at a time and not admit readily that he can outlast me. I can practice Karate with my daughter Jessie and still get the best out of her, even though she has the skills and youth to really whip my rear. Most of all I can show handle 20 dogs in one day of showing and still want more and remember that I don’t stroll my dog around the ring, I move my dog to show their proper movement and that is not walking them around, that is moving them around, it is called “movement”.[11]

To me, the opposite of ATHLETIC encompasses much. But using your mind’s imaginary eye, I am positive that you too will consider FAT, OVERWEIGHT, OUT OF CONDITION, as not being ATHLETIC. If any athlete were to show at training camp at the beginning of the season for any sport that was FAT, OVERWEIGHT & OUT OF CONDITION, much consternation not to mention heavy fines from the team’s coaches and owners would assuredly be bestowed upon said “athlete” regardless of stardom level.

So, lets fine those heavy, fat out of shape dogs being dragged around the show ring. While we are at it, let’s fine those judges that put up these same dogs! Let’s have them read the standard and point out to them the word ATHLETIC!

Okay, let’s read the last part of that same paragraph.

The substance to hunt waterfowl or upland game for long hours under difficult conditions.

Oh yea and the week has 8 days!!!!! Those fat, over-weight, out of conditions dogs doing anything but sleeping for long hours under difficult conditions, will surely bring about their demise in less time than you could order a double cheese burger at Burger King. Give me a serious break here; 15 minutes in the Florida heat and we have heat prostration and imminent death.

“But we are talking about show dogs and not working dogs, right?” there might be a few out there posing something along these lines.[12]

Read the following:

Read that last line from above….

Labrador Retrievers shall be shown in working condition, well muscled and without excess fat.

Let’s go over that last little ditty

LABRADOR RETRIEVERS SHALL BE SHOWN IN WORKING CONDITION.

That last phrase should answer the questions about showing and what condition they should be in![13]

Shown in working condition, not in fat, not overweight, not out of shape, simple as a dimple on a dapple!

While we are at it, let's consider some more verbiage from the Breed Standard.

Too much bone is as undesirable as too little bone.[14]

Okay, last but not least, let’s go back to our image of the perfect Labrador to understand this last phrase from the official dictum. Let’s look at some of the dogs being exhibited in the ring. Have they moved away from the middle of the road image of proper bone? Are some of the breeders heading back to the Rottweiler-headed look of a decade ago with the “overdone bone” that we are starting to see in the ring today? The standard reads, without lumber or cloddiness, bit isn’t that where the super-heavy boned dogs are headed? Read further and the blue print states equally objectionable are cloddy, lumbering specimens.

“If the dog reminds you of another breed, then it is not a good specimen of either breed.”[15] Great words to live and breed by, for if when looking at a Labrador Retriever we think of an elephant, then we are not longer even thinking the same species here. Too much bone reminds me of an elephant-type of dog. Of a dog that will lumber and be cloddy as it works its way in the field AND the show ring.

Read the blue print for the breed! Go online at www.akc.org and search there for the breed standard. Don’t take my word for it; educate yourself from the source. Look at the dogs in the ring and compare which ones are the most indicative of the official dictum. How far have some gone from the manuscript’s intended parameters?

My advise here is to not change the breed, let’s keep it as the one that we think of when we close our eyes and see it in our mind’s eye. Let the pendulum swing back and forth in political circles, not in breeding/showing Labradors. Keep the breed in the middle of the “mind’s eye” spectrum. Let’s keep the Labrador Retrievers as Labrador Retrievers, not Goldens, not Rottweilers, not Pointers nor Elephants!

[1] Plagiarized from The Complete DOG BOOK 19^th Edition Revised Official Publication of THE AMERICAN KENNEL CLUB. It states that no part my be copied or whatever else they say in those official threatening statements made by books and other copy-righted things. Well, if we have a working blue print and we need to have a dialogue about it, how are we not going to be able to re-print it for reference sake?

(remember that you can click on the number next to the footnote to go back to the spot where you left off on the article)

[2] This is called a “disarming question”; it puts you on the defensive and at a distinct disadvantage to prove your thesis. All those that were in a debate team were taught the art of disarmament. No problem, we just hit them with facts!

[3] Trust me on this one; there are many that will take the opposing side to my way of thinking on this subject.

[4] Markwell of Lockerbie comes to mind, more recently Ch Aquarius Centercourt Delight could serve as a poster boy also.

[5] Oh boy, this subject could end up in another long-winded dissertation by your host, stay tuned since there are many breeders out there breeding "silvers" and other off-colors!

[6] This is a very mind-bogging situation; there are actually people that want to hear what I have to say! They abound at dog shows, for there are many a times that I will be sitting/standing having a private conversation with someone and assuredly someone else will interject their ears into the matter. Inconspicuous, incognito and sometimes even blatant!

[7] I can attest that the majority of those breeding dogs have no clue whatsoever that there is a breed standard. Yet they tend to produce dogs that generally look like the breed. They do this because they can see what the better breeders are producing and they try to emulate them. So, even though many of these co-called "breeders" have no clue as to the dictums of their individual Breed Standard, they will form a mental picture of what is considered right and eventually, albeit over a long period of time, end up producing reasonable facsimiles.

[8] For those “youngsters” out there, “Heinz 57 Variety” was a very favorite ditty back in my youth circa the 50’s

[9] I just love that phrase, I use it very freely on a lot of my writings, I think that I will coin it as being mine, sue me if you first came up with it, but I used it back in 1972 is a poem that I wrote for Readers Guide.

[10] This is a font type, not a destination.

[11] To evaluate movement, the dog must be moving at a speed where front reach and rear drive will converge at the dog’s midsection where the ribs cage ends. There are many judges that request for the dogs to be walked around the ring. There is no way that any evaluation for movement can be made at this slow, piddling pace no matter who the judge is! Especially with sidegait, where the front legs have to demonstrate reach and the rear legs have to show drive and then converge underneath the end of the last rib. No way that this can be accomplished in a slow walk!

[12] Remember that in building a house, the entire blue print is used, likewise with the “blue print” for Labradors, the entire standard must be adhered to! Show dogs, field dogs ALL LABRADORS are included in the official breed standard. So for those with fat, overweight, NON-ATHLETIC, NOT IN WORKING CONDITION dogs, then they are not following the intent of the breed standard.

[13] No mistaking the intent here. WORKING CONDITION means working condition, if the dog tires with just one run around the ring, then it is NOT in working condition. There is absolutely no defense for anything else.

[14] We see some Labradors with huge bone, more like little elephants, lumbering around the ring, plodding along with more effort at SHOW GAIT!!!

[15] Lately, I have seen more and more Labradors look like Golden Retrievers with thick, long bushy coats.