BETWEEN THE LINES
BO BENGTSON
The author in the 1970s with the Irish Wolfhound Ch . Mountebanks Barabbas , a top winner in Sweden , but sired by the U . S . -born Ch . Branwen Luath out of the Britishbred Ch . Driella of Eaglescrag .
Words , Words , Words
I
happened to be re-reading the AKC breed standard for Irish Wolfhounds recently . It ’ s something I do from time to time — read breed standards , that is . Without breed standards we don ’ t have anything to guide us , whether we ’ re judging or watching from ringside , except subjective opinion : “ I think this dog is better than that one … because I think so .” ( It ought to be more like , “ According to my interpretation , this dog comes closer than that one to the official breed standard requirements .”)
Do exhibitors read the standards for their breeds ? Do the breeders ? Do the professional handlers ? Sometimes you suspect that even some of the judges haven ’ t actually read , word for word and as objectively as possible , the breed standards prior to their assignments . It seems to me there is altogether too much purely subjective “ I like …” out there and far too little concern about what the standard is actually asking for in each particular breed .
I have judged Irish Wolfhounds for many years , and shown a few in the distant past , too . It ’ s a breed I like a lot and believe I can judge with some pretension to knowing what I ’ m doing … yet I came across a word I had not noticed before in the breed standard , and it ’ s an important word . In the General Appearance paragraph , the Wolfhound is described as , famously , “ Of great size and commanding appearance … combining power and swiftness …” The standard continues : “… in general type he is a rough-coated , Greyhound-like breed …” ( References to another breed in a standard are always unfortunate , I think , because they assume the reader knows about that breed , and that this breed looks now as it did when the standard was written , usually decades ago . However , that ’ s a different subject for another day .)
You can , of course , ask yourself how many Irish Wolfhounds today look like Greyhounds typewise , but that ’ s nothing compared to what follows : “… very muscular , strong though gracefully built …” ( Italics mine .) An Irish Wolfhound should be
The fact is that whenever you replace , add or delete a single word in any breed standard you are , in fact , changing it .
“ gracefully ” built ! I ’ m sure that ’ s news to anyone who has not read the Irish Wolfhound standard much more carefully than most . In some ways , of course , it simply underlines the general Sighthound character that ’ s desirable in the breed ; but is “ graceful ” a word you would think was used in an official description of one of the tallest and heaviest of all breeds ? ( And it ’ s not just AKC ; the Kennel Club in the U . K . and the FCI both include the term “ gracefully built ” in their standards . No excuse for me , in other words . I don ’ t currently judge AKC shows but on occasion I do in the U . K . and in FCI countries .)
This brings up a question that seemingly has nothing to do with dogs , yet affects everything we do when we judge dogs ( officially or from ringside ). Do we know what every word in a breed standard actually means ? It may sound like a stupid question , but it really isn ’ t . When I hear the word “ graceful ” I think of a ballet dancer , perhaps one of the big cats , in dogs maybe a Saluki or an Italian Greyhound — in other words , hardly an Irish Wolfhound . Referring to the Merriam- Webster internet dictionary , however , one finds that “ graceful ” is defined simply as “ pleasing or attractive in line , proportion , or movement .” In other words , nothing dainty or un-Wolfhound-like about that .
You wouldn ’ t think , if you are interested in knowing what a breed is officially supposed to look like , that you would need to go to the trouble of learning verbatim what a breed standard says , and then also what the words in that breed standard actually mean . But wouldn ’ t it be nice if all of us — judges , exhibitors and ringside spectators alike — could agree to do just that before expressing the opinion that such-and-such a dog shouldn ’ t win , that Dog X is much “ better ” than Dog Y , or that the judge who ’ s officiating in the ring that day is a complete ignoramus ?
While we ’ re on the subject of Irish Wolfhounds , I want to address a different problem with the language that ’ s used in breed standards . Club officials often feel that these standards need to be “ clarified ” and “ revised ,” and it is generally stated that there is no desire to actually change that breed standard . However , the fact is that whenever you replace , add or delete a single word in any breed standard you are , in fact , changing it .
Most recently this has been exemplified by none other than the Irish Wolfhound ’ s breed club in its native country .
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PHOTO COURTESY OF BO BENGTSON
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