Going for the Blue (10 page)

There is a simple, commonsense process of elimination that can be helpful when deciding on a breed of dog. Three questions
have to be answered by anyone seriously interested in having a dog, for show or not.

First, the practical consideration of size: (1) giant, (2) large, (3) medium, (4) small, or (5) wee. A 2- to 5-pound Chihuahua
and a 110-pound Scottish Deerhound may just be breeds within a single species (it could be hazardous or at least awkward,
but they could be crossbred, perish the thought), but they do have their somewhat obvious differences.

Then, second, is coat care: (1) a great deal, (2) a minimal and reasonable amount, or (3) almost none at all. If the dog is
going to be shown, his coat can be a huge consideration because of the attention a judge will pay to it in the ring. In some
of the heavily coated breeds, few details matter as much.

A quick check of the standards shows the degree to which coat quality varies in importance. A Brussels Griffon’s coat is worth
twenty-five points of the one hundred points needed for perfection. A Lakeland Terrier’s coat counts for fifteen points, a
Sealyham Terrier’s for ten. A Boston Terrier’s and a Bulldog’s coat are worth just two points. If you are battling to get
your competitive partner as near to one hundred points as possible, it is of some considerable significance that, if you are
showing a Brussels Griffon, the little guy’s coat is mathematically worth twelve and a half times as much as it would be if
you were showing a Boston Terrier.

Some people love all the primping and fussing that inevitably go with a beautifully coated dog, while others hate it. Taking
care of a show coat requires a lot of time, infinite patience, space (many coated-dog owners allocate a special room, including
a raised bathtub with a hand shower, to this single task; frequently a family room or garage has to do), some equipment (probably
including a portable grooming table that can go to shows with you), and lots of cleaning up once the gussying up is done.

Dogs like the Poodles (Toy and Nonsporting Groups), Keeshond and Norwegian Elkhound (the former a Non-sporting, the latter
a Hound—don’t ask me why!), and herding dogs like the Bearded Collie don’t require, they downright demand, constant care.
That is a world unto itself. You love it or you hate it, but one way or another you have to provide it or your friend is going
to look like a hoopoe’s nest in no time flat. (The hoopoe,
Upupa epops
, has the dirtiest, messiest nest in just about all of birdom. From the point of view of style, that is easier to accept with
U. epops
than it is with His Worship the Poodle.) There is no place in the show ring for a bad-hair day. Clearly, coat has to be a
factor in picking your breed.

The third factor in this preliminary elimination (and that is all this is) concerns exercise requirements. If the dog is to
be kept in top condition and be happy, exercise is a requirement as critical as feeding. It is not just a small adjunct to
daily maintenance. Either your dog is going to adjust his lifestyle to suit yours or you will have to do the same thing to
suit his. An active dog is not going to be at his best in an inactive household. It is not easy to keep an Australian Shepherd
or a Chesapeake Bay Retriever—or its owner—happy with his Frisbee when he has to pass underneath a grand piano and dodge several
Spode jardinieres in order to make his catch.

Think of how wrong a new owner can go. Let us posit that the owner-to-be has a tendency to be sedentary and thinks of a quick
trip to the nearest hydrant as high-impact aerobics. He owns a Jane Fonda workout tape to show him how he can get his dog
and himself there and back. Nothing daunted, he gets a Border Collie, a breed that looks on twelve miles of running as a warm-up
and likes to be extremely active from dawn until he falls off his legs long after dusk. Also, the owner has no land to speak
of. He is a dedicated urban creature. His backpack comes from Gucci and so do his low-cut, laceless “hiking” boots. He doesn’t
even own a car. He has no means of getting his dog out into the countryside. It is probably a disaster in the making for man
and dog alike. It is highly unlikely that this dog owner will have a flock of sheep. Border Collies are shepherds, and shepherd
they will, one way or another. No sheep, they’ll take grandchildren. No grandchildren available, they’ll herd the washbasin,
the bathtub, the hamper, and the commode. One Border Collie we heard about regularly puts all of the houseplants in the middle
of the living room rug whenever he is left alone. He has to make things orderly and neat. What he herds doesn’t matter very
much. Not to suggest such dogs are not wonderful, but emotionally, they are anal as hell.

Another family lives in an urban apartment without any real likelihood of improving on the acreage situation in the near future.
Despite that, the family gets a Mastiff or Bull-mastiff, ideal estate dogs, and everyone goes quietly insane together. Well,
sometimes quietly and sometimes quite noisily. They are forever tripping over each other, becoming more bruised and claustrophobic
by the minute. Sometimes guests have actually been injured. In these thundering encounters, the dog is innocent, just too
big for the space allotted to it.

The underexercised dog is likely to become obese and increase its propensity to break wind. Breaking wind under such circumstances
can tarnish your silver and stop your watch. You can always tell when it has happened—you get a vertigo attack, including
double vision, or a migraine. Either way, the dog smiles. A bored dog, even if he is smiling, is likely to create an unsatisfactory
condition in the home.

Another family has little spare time; both adults work, and they have limited discretionary funds for even routine professional
grooming. They get a Bearded Collie or a Keeshond and gradually stop playing tennis and going to wine tastings. There is no
longer any time for things like that. And eventually other outside activities involving extra funds are eroded.

The subject of conditioning can’t be stressed too much. Snickers lives in a town house but gets constant work and play routines.
She has plenty of time with a tennis ball and a Frisbee. That is not only healthy but also gives the dog quality time with
members of her human family. Judges often comment on her solid body and excellent tone.

There are a number of different ways people take an interest in (fall in love with) a breed of dog. Rhonda, an incipient dog
lover, came to the farm, fell in love with my Whippet, Topi (how could she not?), and decided that she had to have one, too.
And along came Snickers. There is that way. People also fall in love with an exciting performance in a motion picture or on
a television show: a Border Collie in
Down and Out in Beverly Hills
(that dog, Mike, was the sire of my Border Collie, Duncan); a Dalmatian, obviously, in
101 Dalmatians
; a Saint Bernard in
Beethoven
. There have been scores of others. Surely King and Rin Rin Tin had a great deal to do with the popularity of the German Shepherd,
and Lassie helped elevate the Collie to tremendous heights. Publicity works for animals as well as it does for people.

And, too, there are fads, the
in
breeds, the-thing-to-do breeds—get a Komondor, for example. But be warned: Fads are not the way to go. They never have been.
The dogs representing these breeds may be wonderful, generally, but when one comes to live with you, it is necessary for the
two of you to suit each other in a number of different and often special ways. The relationship between you and your pet is
not unlike a human friendship. You have other people in your life; your friend does, too. Yet, together, you two have something
that is unlike any other combination on earth, something that is yours alone.

Avoid fads; they can lead to heartbreak. If everyone on the block has a particular breed of dog, surely you shouldn’t get
one, too. It is just plain common sense. If a breed is a fad, it is almost certainly being overbred, with the inevitable puppy-mill
carelessness that entails disaster. It is quite possible to locate dangerous Labradors, stupid Goldens, and nasty examples
of just about every breed. All you have to do is find some puppy-mill puppies in a pet shop and learn firsthand just how much
bad breeding can do to fine dogs. Labradors, incidentally, are not dangerous, nor are Goldens witless, not unless they are
bred that way.

So there we have some unavoidable considerations. If you have a hankering for a Saint Bernard, you may have to choose between
that breed and a Porsche convertible. A Lotus would just not work out with a Newfoundland. A Rhodesian Ridgeback half crazed
for the want of exercise can be a real downer in an apartment-house elevator when an elderly couple tries to join you in your
descent. Here is where you must bring your powers of analysis into play. You all want to be supremely happy together, but
the structure of the arrangement that will make that possible is the human partner’s responsibility. The dog doesn’t buy you.
You are asking the dog to join your family. Whether you actually show your dog or not is not an issue here. Compatibility
and comfort are. And you should never lose sight of that fact. Give the initial relationship a chance. The details of showing
your dog, if such is your desire, will reveal themselves as you and your dog move along together. But before you move you
have to bond.

In the final analysis, your choice will be essentially aesthetic. It will depend in large part on what you as an individual
find beautiful, what you can’t or at least don’t want to live without. That is a very personal decision, obviously. What is
so amazing is the variety of dogs available and what appeals to whom.

With few exceptions I find just about all dogs beautiful. I love their faces, especially their eyes; I love to watch them
move and to interact with them on a one-on-one basis. There are relatively few breeds and random-bred dogs I wouldn’t enjoy.
In our forty-six years of marriage, my wife, Jill, and I have owned an awful lot of dogs, about sixty in all.

When it comes to purebred dogs, I do have a special place in my heart for a number of breeds: Whippets, West Highland White
Terriers, Greyhounds, Bloodhounds, Great Danes, Jack Russell Terriers (recently recognized by the AKC and extremely popular
with the horsy set and more and more so with urban folks in apartments; some of them can be real stinkers, but when they are
nice, they are very, very nice). I love, too, Golden and Labrador Retrievers, Toy Poodles, Mastiffs and Bullmastiffs, Doberman
Pinschers, Bassets, English Cocker Spaniels—and there are so many more. That doesn’t mean that I like Standard Poodles or
German Shepherds any the less, not really. It just means that I have owned and loved these other, special breeds myself or
have known some personally and fallen for them. It will be the same for anyone seeking a dog for loving and showing. Novices
should take their time. Let a naturally slow process unfold naturally. A bad or hasty choice or at least a careless one can
mean a lot of sadness and wasted money. Picking the dog you are going to live with for the next ten to fifteen years is one
of the few opportunities you will ever have to select a family member, besides your spouse. (Mordecai Siegal made that observation
years ago.)

Before you say “Welcome to my heart,” think it through. It really is quite an offer you have to make. One way or another the
dog is going to repay you in kind, but his opportunity to do so will be provided by you.

Although it isn’t a major factor in the world of show dogs, there is a problem that occasionally raises its ugly head. Real
dog people know that unfortunately there are breeds more inclined to resolve their frustrations with their teeth than other,
more satisfactory companions are. That becomes an important factor if you have children living in your home or visiting there.
The ultimate ostrich game is played by ignoring this problem. Oddly enough, good, dedicated breeders will usually be honest
in a heart-to-heart talk about the biting propensity of their own breed. Promise them anonymity and listen to what they have
to say with rapt attention.

There are several levels of or ways to define what are collectively and often mistakenly called dog bites. It is important
to know these differences. The bottom level, the least damaging, evolves from the technique female wolves, and dogs as well,
use to discipline their cubs or puppies. If a female is tired of the shenanigans displayed by one of her young, she may clamp
her mouth shut, roll back her lips in a terrible snarl, and then really growl from deep down inside. It can be a most impressive
display. The climax of this drama is an apparent lunge, as if to tear out the young animal’s throat, but that is not the real
intent, not at all. It is all show. The female in effect slaps or punches the youngster in a decidedly nonlethal way. Many
so-called dog bites involving human victims are nothing more than that. A female, sick, hungry, tired, or just having an off
day or week or year, punishes a pesky human kid with an incisor punch. No bite is intended, but teeth can be sharp and an
accidental cut or abrasion is possible. But if there is no upper and lower part of the injury where the teeth clamped down,
I question whether a bite was really intended or involved. A punch like that is still not desirable behavior. Damage can be
done that can leave scars. It constitutes a breach of faith even if unintended. Of our resident eleven dogs, not one would
even consider a bite or punch-bite. It is very simple; one of the earliest commands they learn here on the farm is: “No teeth!”
or “No bite,” even in play.

A word of warning: some bitchs are very nervous about young puppies they have borne. They would rather not have them handled.
If you teach her there is no danger, she should let you handle them whenever you want to. All this is done while you are praising
her. Go slow, offer no threat, recognize her sensitivities, and keep strangers, particularly kids, away from the puppies until
everything is settled.