BETWEEN THE LINES
How Breeds Change
BO BENGTSON
Left : Ch . Cito von der Marktfeste , imported from Germany and the leading BIS winner in the U . S . in both 1927 and 1928 , has at least 13 BIS to his credit .
Most breeds change in appearance over time . Look at photographs from a few decades ago : Sometimes dogs from the past are barely recognizable by breed , even though they may have been big winners in their day . In other cases — a minority — there isn ’ t much visible difference , or at least not more than can be explained by unrelated factors , such as changing photography techniques , style of grooming and stacking , all of which make the dogs appear more different than they really were .
Why there should be such distinct change in most cases is not clear . If we figure 3-5 years for a “ dog generation ,” the winners of 50 years ago — in the 1960s — may be 10-15 generations removed from today ’ s winners . ( Obviously this is not an exact figure , since dogs in extreme cases can produce offspring from when they are just yearlings until past 10 years of age , but we ’ re talking about an average .) Have we human beings changed in looks in an equal number of generations ? That would take us back to the 1700s , and if you discount the funny clothes and hairstyles in portrait paintings at the time , you have to agree that our actual features are relatively unaltered . But then , of course , humans are not bred for conformation characteristics .
Whether breeds change for better or for worse is another question . On the one hand , many of us can ’ t quite take some of the supposedly “ great ” dogs of yesteryear seriously . On the
If our dogs look as different now from what they were a few decades ago , what will they look like in the future ?
other hand , we often hear from old-timers telling us that the dogs of the past were much better than those today . A certain degree of looking through rose-tinted glasses is probably unavoidable ; certainly today ’ s winning show dogs are usually much more pleasing to a contemporary eye than those pictured in black-and-white photographs from the middle of the 20th century , or even earlier .
You probably need a sense of history and a little imagination to guess what those ancient dogs actually looked like in “ real life .” I recommend that anyone interested go to the British Pathé website : www . britishpathe . com . There ’ s a collection of 85,000 historical clips from the days when every movie theater presented a short newsreel before the feature film . ( If you are of a certain age , you may remember them . There was usually something with a royal personage waving to the crowds , a big sports event in black-and-white , a little movie star gossip or — surprisingly often — something about dogs .)
Enter “ Saluki ” in the search engine , for example , and you will find a couple of reels from the 1920s and ’ 30s that show how little this particular breed has changed . There is a clip of Whippet racing from 1915 that ’ s amusing to watch , and at the end of the reel are perhaps 10 seconds showing a couple of men walking through a gate with three Whippets . One of
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Born just over 50 years after Cito ’ s win , Ch . Covy-Tucker Hill ’ s Manhattan was No . 1 All Breeds for three years in the early / mid-1980s . He is one of the very few dogs that have won more than 200 allbreed BIS in the US .
The top dog of all breeds in 2001 and 2002 , Ch . Kismet ’ s Sight For Sore Eyes , won more than 100 all-breed BIS during his specials career . He appears twice in the pedigree of the No . 1 All Breeds 2015 , GCh . Lockenhaus ’ Rumor Has It V Kenlyn .
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