Hang out with show breeders for any length of time, and you’ll hear it. “She’s so kennel-blind,” or “Classic kennel blindness.”
What this is supposed to mean is that people fall in love with their own dogs so much that they can’t see what’s wrong with them in terms of conformation. They therefore continue down a path of mediocrity and will never produce the quality that they should.
It’s usually said with great superiority and a little feigned sadness; poor Phyllis, who is so kennel-blind. I’ve never seen a good front come out of her kennel in all the fifteen years I’ve known her.
What kennel-blind has come to be is a nice neat epithet of total dismissal. “Not only are her dogs crappy, she can’t even SEE that they’re crappy. That is how DUMB she is.” It’s the perfect put-down, a combination of slashing criticism of an entire breeding program AND the person who orchestrated it.
BUT…I have never ONCE, in all the thousands of times I’ve heard this phrase, listened to somebody say “I am kennel-blind.” In fact, I have only ever heard “I am harder on my own dogs than anyone else.” And I think that’s true. We all nit-pick our dogs to death. We are all acutely aware of every hair on the dog that’s not perfect.
So – if a whole ton of people who are not ME are kennel-blind and I am never kennel blind, and that sentence is being repeated across thousands of breeders, what’s the truth?
The truth is that “kennel-blind” really means “She has different priorities than I do.” You can tell this instantly based on the breeders you personally would say are the LEAST kennel-blind. Their dogs tend to look a lot like your dogs, huh? (Or, if you’re a younger breeder, the way you wish your dogs would look.) Their dogs’ strengths just happen to mirror your dogs’ strengths, don’t they?
Here’s why we need to shut the heck up: YOU do not make decisions for people’s breeding programs, and YOU do not have any right to tell them their priorities. The standard lists scores, even – depending on the breed – hundreds, of qualities a dog should have. You as a breeder have the task of putting all of those in a list and prioritizing them. Some do so starting with the head; I may not agree with them, but they’re no less dedicated to the breed than I am. If they put a dog out there who has a gorgeous head and a bad rear, they are no less kennel-blind than I am with the perfect rears and the common heads. I have the right to not breed to their dogs, but I do not have the right to say that they’re stupid and can’t even see what’s in front of them.
Finally, where the heck do we get off implying that it’s wrong to love the FRACK out of our dogs? Of course we should be hopelessly and totally in love with our dogs! If that’s not the kind of breeder you are – if you are completely unsentimental – then fine. But it doesn’t make you a better breeder than someone who is head over heels and sloppy for every single one of their breeding prospects. More power to them, honestly.
Very well put.
Thank you.
“Not only are her dogs crappy, she can’t even SEE that they’re crappy. That is how DUMB she is.” – This made me laugh out loud!
I agree with you, but I also think there is a degree of disagreement… I think kennel A has unappealing heads on their dogs, but the breeder seems to think that’s the correct head. There is a degree of different interpretations of standards as well as different prioritising of aspects of the standard.
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That makes sense. I think it would be accurate to talk about kennel blindness only when someone *says* their priority is something they’re not actually producing.
Then again, there’s also a difference between preference/interpretation and just the range of the standard. Like, for example, the weight range for cardis in the standard is 30 to 38 for dogs. One breeder might try to keep dogs at the low end of that range to keep their hips in good shape, while another shoots for the high end because bigger dogs tend to finish faster. Not only might they both be critical of the other, but someone who tries to breed right to the middle of the standard (to keep their future generations from drifting out of it) might call them *both* kennel blind if they say “correct size” is one of their breeding priorities.
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I don’t know enough to comment on kennel blindness, but there is definitely breed blindness. I was appalled when I saw this shot, which is apparently the dog who won the herding group at Westminster 2012. That backend is horribly sad. Of all the herding dogs that night, he best exemplifies his breed. They WANT those hocks.
http://ww2.hdnux.com/photos/11/40/16/2491293/3/628×471.jpg
I did some poking around on GSD forums and apparently cow hocks are now very common in many show lines. Of course if cow-hocked dogs keep winning, then they will keep breeding them. And if top kennels keep breeding them, they’ll keep winning.