A One's Cocker Spaniels
"A good red is a dead red."
In the summer of 1999 one of the world's best-known cocker spaniel judges
uttered the words "A good red is a dead red." when witnessing how my red boy
attacked my blue roan boy Hansi in their box at ringside. I got the point, all
right. And
it was not the first time I had seen a red blow a fuse.
The quotation originates from the time when white settlers forced Indian tribes off the North American plains, often simply by killing them. Actually it was when Tosawi, or Silver Knife, chief of the Comanches, in late 1868, brought in the first band of Comanches to surrender to General Sheridan at Fort Cobb, who claimed to have wiped out old Black Kettle. Tosawi spoke his own name and added two words of broken English. "Tosawi, good Indian," he said. It was then that General Sheridan uttered the immortal words: "The only good Indians I ever saw were dead." Lieutenant Charles Nordstrom, who was present, remembered the words and passed them on, until in time they were honed into an American aphorism: The only good Indian is a dead Indian. I highly recommend you to read Dee Brown's Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, an account of the systematic destruction of the American Indian by the Anglo-Americans. The settlers came not only from England but from all over Europe, Germany, Italy, Sweden, our ancestors. (Nordstrom sounds very Swedish to me.) Very different from the glorious myth of the "winning" of the West, delivered from Hollywood. Why the indigenous peoples on the American continent were, and sometimes still are, called RED was always a mystery to me. They are not a nuance redder than I am. I have seen much redder American faces, some like tomatoes about to burst, on holiday all over the world. OK, they were called RED because the The Beothuk used RED ochre to paint their bodies with but, gee, that was back in the 15th century. And we KNOW Columbus thought he came to India but why insist on calling the native American population "Indians" for another 500 years? They were Massachuset, Illinois, Sioux, Comanche, Kansa, Cheyenne, Ute and Cochiti and hundreds of others, just like you and I like to call ourselves Swedes, Greeks, Dutch, Italians, French and what not. Hey, I met some MULTICOLOURED Europeans the other day, you know, they seem to hate the bodies that they were born with, because they smear them oily brown, paint their cheeks and nails red, eylids blue, dye their hair, spray some liquid on their necks, carve strange patterns onto their skins, inject botox into their muscles, implant thousands of little hairs on their heads but shave it off all other parts of their bodies, eat pills to get bigger muscles, even suck fat out of their bellies once in a while, how about that? K, back to red cockers.
An other time I called a very experienced vet to ask if he could vaccinate my cocker spaniel. He: "It's not RED, is it?"
Last year a Swedish breeder colleague showed me the scars on her arms and legs, caused by a red she had bought from an other Swedish breeder. Sitting chatting at her kitchen table I strongly felt the tension in the air when King Bee came into the kitchen. Once he was there the other dogs did not step over the threshold.
I could fill a book with examples.
Today, February 24, 2010, I spent ten minutes in the vet's waiting-room, for my 5-month-old blue roan boy to have blood samples drawn for the testing of ehrlichiosis, brucellosis, leishmaniosis and leptospirosis (diseases that we don't have in this country) and at the same time have a tick treatment (-22 degree-centigrade February not really ticks' busiest time of the year) for his Oz departure.
Anyway, in came a sweet darling Golden Retriever girl of five years, bleeding heavily from the side of her head and ear, looking really miserable. Her owner was very upset, blood all over her, face all red after the ordeal she had been through, telling everyone who was willing to lend an ear what had happened. Probably to relieve the high-voltage shock she had just had.
She and a doggy friend of hers had been out walking as usual, beautiful sunny winter day for the first time in weeks. They had stopped at the bank, where the golden retriever owner had asked her mate to hold her girl while she dashed in to the bank to sort out some payment. A municipal worker was busy shovelling snow and had a break and bent down to have a little chat with the two dogs. The golden retriever's (a Dainty's, bought from the last litter Mr Filip Johnsson had bred before moving south, she said), companion, without any warning whatsoever, jumped the worker and bit him in the nose. Then the amuckrunning boy turned to his buddy, the golden retriever girl, and ripped up her head.
I interrupted the distressed owner and asked kindly what breed the attacking dog was and, well, you know as well as I do what breed it was. I asked her may I guess the colour of the dog, was it perhaps RED, why, yes, how did you know? Guess I am the Wise Wizard of the West again. She: you know, this was not the first time something like this happened. Nalle, as his name is, bought from a breeder in the Stockholm area, the second dog of the same breed she had purchased from that breeder, actually, five years old, had bitten a child too. Nalle's owner had huge problems with him, e g he "could not stand" other males. And now Nalle's owner was despairing, of course, after what Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, aka Nalle, had done to her friend's girl.
I asked where was Nalle now, why was he not here at the vet's? Why, he was not injured! Of course he wasn't but that dog should come here at once and leave in an urn, if you ask my opinion.
RED is violence and warfare, the Bolsheviks used a red flag when they overthrew the Tsar, seeing red, red hot, red herring, in the red (bank), Swedish "idag röd imorgon död" (dir translation "today red tomorrow dead" = here today, gone tomorrow), flashing red lights (danger), like a red rag to a bull, be caught red-handed, the Red Menace (China during the Cold War), even red ants are extremely aggressive, red represents wrath, one of the Seven Deadly Sins. What's wrong with this colour? At the same time it is the colour of love. Red certainly stirs the blood.
According to the Swedish Board of Agriculture (Jordbruksverket):
"Certain dogs or cats are not allowed in Sweden:
Isn't it time to ban breeding of reds? Please, Mr Breed Counsellor, do something!
Ann
PS Yes, I have met nice reds, I have even owned a few. But the chance of breeding/buying a friendly red seems to be getting smaller and smaller.
Comments much appreciated, not one single constructive
suggestion to solve OUR problem so far, however. Everybody knows it IS a
problem.
And I am positive that it is one of several reasons why there is a
shrinking demand for (purebred) cocker spaniels. Coming up:
Breeders' fascism
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OK, so nobody seems to support my idea. So here is a second modified suggestion, perhaps more acceptable to
you all out there. I am dead serious about this. For 30 years I have heard cocker people
talk about breeders' responsibility, the problem will go away, because nobody
wants to breed cocker spaniels that cannot be handled by humans. This
self-healing method obviously has not worked.
So here's a different approach. Breeders are NOT to sell MALE REDS to anybody but breeders
with registered kennel affixes, never ever as pet dogs.
This would solve our problem in no time and for good. Wadayasay? And
then we can start anew, allow breeding from "certified" good-tempered lines only.
And no "non-certified" imports. I want the GOOD RED back, the Josåfin RED!
Some Germans' comments that were published here (I deleted them because they are not constructive, only defensive, no suggestions how to solve the problem), indicate that there is no temperament problem among reds in Germany. Let me tell you about one show I once visited in Dortmund. I was in the red dogs open class with my A One's Scirocco of Orinoco, I think, or was it junior, I'll look it up. Anyways, I was standing behind a red that I immediately recognised as stiff and slylooking. You just cannot misunderstand those eyes. I instinctively took a few steps back and was thinking how on earth is she going to manage that dog on the table? In two seconds the judge's hand was stuck between the dog's teeth. In came a medical team with a stretcher on wheels ready to take the judge to hospital. But he just smiled, a little pale, and after having his wounds dressed he went on with the judging. The Germans around me shook their heads. My friend Mimmi recorded it with my videocamera, I've got it somewhere and when I find the catalogue I'll give you the name and the pedigree of the dog.
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The red cocker has always been my favourite. I even went to the UK to
get one but came home with a black, simply because there were no reds available. There are breeders
of solids, I know, whose affixes are not usually associated with red maniacs, e g
Quettadene, Cardamine, Kavora, Swedish Lönnbackens and Maxi Mates. How do they
do it? Some advice, please.
My first cocker (Kavora and Finnwin bloodlines) was as sweet as golden syrup and was loved by everybody who
met her, our Josåfin. I mated her to an English gentleman (Quettadene) born and bred and their
children were just as sweet as Josåfin. I kept Boogie, nobody ever heard a
growling sound from her. Boogie was mated to a red Swedish boy and here the
troubles started, however not until some years later. Next mating of Boogie's
was to a red Finnish import and the problems worsened, even though the litter
was less than half the size of her first one. Josåfin and Boogie both lived
until they were 15 and were not ill one day in their lives.
One daughter of Boogie's, from both litters, was mated to a black UK import and the problems widened, not only temperament problems but also cryptorchism, Adison, bite and tail defects, heart, mouth, skin and eye problems and HD appeared. Not FN/PNP or PRA, though. In 2004 my solid line had to be closed down for good because all puppies in the litter turned out to have HDC-HDE. That was it.
In Year Book 2009 the Welfare Officer of The Cocker Spaniel Club (GB) writes: "the breeding and showing of pedigree dogs has received a considerable amount of criticism from the Media and Animal Organisations." Furthermore she states, that, apart from FN and PRA, the Kennel Club provides information, obtained from the Breed Health Survey conducted by the KC and Insurance Claims Data, about 20 other breed specific diseases and illnesses affecting Cocker Spaniels, among which Distichiasis, Cataracts, HD, Patellar Luxation, Dilated Cardiomyopathy, Mammary Tumours, Anal Sac Gland Carcinoma. This is the first time ever the GB parent club admits that our breed is affected by a wide range of health problems. 'Welfare Officer' is definitely much more user-friendly than the former name 'Defects Sub Committee', however not as honest (Year Book 2009 pp 27-28). A great big THANK YOU to Mrs Penny Lester for setting an immensely good example to cocker spaniel breeders all over the world, by showing the way to a truly open approach! The above extract is a reproduction of an article originally written for the weekly dog paper by Breed Health Coordinator for the CS in the UK, Mrs Sandy Platt.
I must point out that in my solid litters there were really friendly cockers too, both males and females.
In 1998 I had my first particoloured litter and my luck turned abruptly. There have been one blue eye and a couple of dominant dogs but the line just goes on and on. Even after running into a PNP carrier the line is healthy and sweet and troublefree. I remember Mrs Lindquist of Sofus once saying, "You will be in a dead-end, you just wait and see, it's just a matter of time before your problems start, you'll get PRA and FN. Breeding partis is an impossible task." Her prophecy has still not come true, knock knock. Usually hers do.
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In the latest issue of Cockertidningen (1/2010) Eva Skog, kennel Woodmores, ridicules dog owners, who do not know that dogs are relatives of the wolf and need strong pack leaders, dogs who are out walking their owners etc. Or the woman who bought her 14-year-old daughter a herddog and did she not know that this breed needs a great deal of exercise and a "job". Had to be put down since it launched attacks against everything and everybody, even fought with bitches. Skog sums her writing up by stating that most doggy problems are owner problems.
If the owners are the problem, why sell puppies to them? I say most doggy problems are breeder problems. The owners must have been accepted as buyers, mustn't they, or they would not have the dog in their custody. Every dog purchase must go through a breeder. Do breeders ask wouldbebuyers if they are strong leaders, do they know how a pack of wolves behaves? Do they know that a cocker is a very headstrong dog? I don't think so. And I think very few people are strong leaders. THAT IS WHY breeders should not sell red cockers to little ignorant and unknowing families. Only to experienced breeders who know what is expecting them. But breeders don't give a damn and that is why we have a temperament problem in the breed. People won't change just because some besserwisser ironises them in the breed magazine. They will probably never be strong leaders, no matter how many courses they attend.
All my childhood we used to have dogs of all kinds of mixed breeds. There was no strong leader in my family. The dog was just a member of the family, just like my mother or my sisters. The dogs did what we did and there was never a problem. We were never bitten, we did not have to make a mile's detour when seeing an other dog coming towards us. Neither did I hear words as 'strong leadership', not until I started comprehensive school and we learnt about WW2. Our dogs were not purebred, however. And we did not BUY them. Don't know where they came from. They were just there and we did not have to be lion-tamers or take evening courses to to be able to live with them. We just lived our lives together with our dog. I loved our Mudde. He was such a clown. Early mornings, before our neighbours woke up, he used to go pick up things on their doorsteps, such as a boot, a broom, a joint of roast meat, a half-filled bottle of brandy. Why Mudde, I don't want this! OK, he was a little naughty.
I am not a strong leader, really really not. God forbid. With me and my dogs it's simply a give and take. Bling-Bling keeps an eye on "things", I give her shelter and food. I trust her 150% and she trusts me. Yes, SHE takes ME for walks, or runs, and I am perfectly fine with that order. If it hadn't been for her, I would never go for WALKS at all. Nobody sneaks up from behind to attack her mummy a dark night around the lake, without her noticing and reacting. And nobody tries to open OUR cage to steal mum's purse at a dog show, no way. It is a perfect symbiosis. And we never went to an evening course and I have never ever thought of 'teaching' her anything. I don't need to because she is much smarter than I am. We just live our lives together.
Not even Prince Otto von Bismarck, Reichskanzler of the German Empire, aka the Iron Chancellor, this epithet thanks to his qualities of leadership, at the end of the 19th century, managed to restrain his dog, Great Dane Tyras. Read about Tyras's attack on Russian Prime Minister Gortschakoff. Or perhaps dear old Otto did not WANT his Tyras to be humble and obedient? He simply trusted his dogs' sound judgement. And so do I.
I hate obedience. Blind discipline. Me MASTER, you DOG. Power. Strong leader. Strength through DISCIPLINE ...
A strong CHARACTER is something completely different from a strong LEADER.
