nightflight
Well-Known Member
Found this in an older dog breed journal. With all of the big personalities in horses, well... I though you might enjoy reading this. I had to type it out, so I know there are typos, but I hope they don't distract much from the article.
The original was written by Mrs. Dorissa Barnes for the March 1963 issue of Dog News. Republished May 1963 by editor Louise Ellsworth in the Scotch Piper, and reworked and published again in the October 1978 Bagpiper by editor Marjorie Cohen.
Beware the Expert Novice
EVERYONE who has been breeding dogs for a considerable length of time had experience with the eager novice. He comes to you with questions in his eyes, on his lips and in every action he displays an apparently sincere desire to know everything possible about a breed which has caught his fancy. If he lives at some distance from you, the letters back and forth would fill several books. "I don't know a thing about them but I just LOVE them" he declares and since there are few remarks more pleasing to the dedicated breeder, you melt right there and resolve to help him in every way possible. You start him off with the standard of the breed and if he lives in your local area you use a good dog as a model, pointing out that no matter how good or how successful the dog may be there is always some flaw, no dog quite approximates the standard set forth as ideal. You have a litter of pups and he wants to buy one so you select one of the best to start him off as successfully as possible. If he lives out of town the pup is shipped and you spend the next six months or year tapping out advice on your little keyboard, trying to put into the most understandable terms the requisites for proper management of a good pup. In or out of town you give your novice help on grooming, feeding, lead training, house-breaking and a host of related subjects; knowledge which you have gathered through long and sometimes years of experience.
For our example, let's stay with the local novice although the pattern is much the same for the out of towner. You start your tyro out with his pup at a puppy match. The pup wins!...and the beginner is thrilled beyond belief with his first taste of success, as he has every right to be. Mixed with delight over the pup's achievement is admiration for you. You are so clever, you groom so well, you show one so well; you are really the one. Being human, it's easy to fall into this trap of oozy admiration but if you are really experienced you've seen all of this before and will take it with a large mental barrel of salt.
Time goes on and you continue to groom, to show and to aid the novice as required. You know that there are many proper ways to condition a dog an handle it, both in and out of the ring. You use the methods that have been successful for you and hope the same success will come to the beginner you are helping.
The puppy develops into a nice dog, is entered in regular classes and begins to gather points. The novice in enthralled with dog shows, dog people and especially grateful to you. Although he continues to insist that he really knows nothing, little phrases indicating that he has gotten the hang of the game creep into his conversation and you smile a secret smile deep inside. Eventually his dog finished and it is a gala day. But the story doesn't end there. As if by magic, once his dog becomes a champion, the erstwhile novice becomes a full fledged expert. He knows exactly how the dog should be conditioned, at which shows it should be entered, how it should be used to produce more champions, and a bewildering array of other facts and fancies which make it plain that you are now quite useless to him. In the student's opinions he has now progressed much farther than the master. Most breeders of long standing have found themselves in this position and some for this reason, refuse to help the newcomers. Luckily, for the good of the breed, most continue to assist when they can. The novice who becomes an expert overnight is not so much ungrateful as growing. Whether that growth is productive and healthy depends entirely on what sort of person is involved. Some are destined never to be more than perennial amateurs who prattle at great length about dogs, but never in this world will be able to recognize a good one, particularly is owned by someone else. Others soon learn that expertise comes hard and not with the first and only champion finished. Knowledge must have a solid basis and nothing takes the place of experience.
If you are hurt by the seeming in gratitude of the newcomers, should you vow never to help one again? A thousand times 'no'. Surely you have learned long ago that the greatest satisfaction in the dog game lies in the dogs themselves, not in the people in it. If you sincerely want your breed to prosper and make a good showing, you have to pass along the knowledge you have acquired to new people, no matter how they may turn out. From the novices of today will come the exhibitors of tomorrow and if you refuse just one, you may be refusing help to the very person who can do the breed the most good. When you help a novice, remember you are not doing it for the person involved but for the sake of better dogs.
The original was written by Mrs. Dorissa Barnes for the March 1963 issue of Dog News. Republished May 1963 by editor Louise Ellsworth in the Scotch Piper, and reworked and published again in the October 1978 Bagpiper by editor Marjorie Cohen.
Beware the Expert Novice
EVERYONE who has been breeding dogs for a considerable length of time had experience with the eager novice. He comes to you with questions in his eyes, on his lips and in every action he displays an apparently sincere desire to know everything possible about a breed which has caught his fancy. If he lives at some distance from you, the letters back and forth would fill several books. "I don't know a thing about them but I just LOVE them" he declares and since there are few remarks more pleasing to the dedicated breeder, you melt right there and resolve to help him in every way possible. You start him off with the standard of the breed and if he lives in your local area you use a good dog as a model, pointing out that no matter how good or how successful the dog may be there is always some flaw, no dog quite approximates the standard set forth as ideal. You have a litter of pups and he wants to buy one so you select one of the best to start him off as successfully as possible. If he lives out of town the pup is shipped and you spend the next six months or year tapping out advice on your little keyboard, trying to put into the most understandable terms the requisites for proper management of a good pup. In or out of town you give your novice help on grooming, feeding, lead training, house-breaking and a host of related subjects; knowledge which you have gathered through long and sometimes years of experience.
For our example, let's stay with the local novice although the pattern is much the same for the out of towner. You start your tyro out with his pup at a puppy match. The pup wins!...and the beginner is thrilled beyond belief with his first taste of success, as he has every right to be. Mixed with delight over the pup's achievement is admiration for you. You are so clever, you groom so well, you show one so well; you are really the one. Being human, it's easy to fall into this trap of oozy admiration but if you are really experienced you've seen all of this before and will take it with a large mental barrel of salt.
Time goes on and you continue to groom, to show and to aid the novice as required. You know that there are many proper ways to condition a dog an handle it, both in and out of the ring. You use the methods that have been successful for you and hope the same success will come to the beginner you are helping.
The puppy develops into a nice dog, is entered in regular classes and begins to gather points. The novice in enthralled with dog shows, dog people and especially grateful to you. Although he continues to insist that he really knows nothing, little phrases indicating that he has gotten the hang of the game creep into his conversation and you smile a secret smile deep inside. Eventually his dog finished and it is a gala day. But the story doesn't end there. As if by magic, once his dog becomes a champion, the erstwhile novice becomes a full fledged expert. He knows exactly how the dog should be conditioned, at which shows it should be entered, how it should be used to produce more champions, and a bewildering array of other facts and fancies which make it plain that you are now quite useless to him. In the student's opinions he has now progressed much farther than the master. Most breeders of long standing have found themselves in this position and some for this reason, refuse to help the newcomers. Luckily, for the good of the breed, most continue to assist when they can. The novice who becomes an expert overnight is not so much ungrateful as growing. Whether that growth is productive and healthy depends entirely on what sort of person is involved. Some are destined never to be more than perennial amateurs who prattle at great length about dogs, but never in this world will be able to recognize a good one, particularly is owned by someone else. Others soon learn that expertise comes hard and not with the first and only champion finished. Knowledge must have a solid basis and nothing takes the place of experience.
If you are hurt by the seeming in gratitude of the newcomers, should you vow never to help one again? A thousand times 'no'. Surely you have learned long ago that the greatest satisfaction in the dog game lies in the dogs themselves, not in the people in it. If you sincerely want your breed to prosper and make a good showing, you have to pass along the knowledge you have acquired to new people, no matter how they may turn out. From the novices of today will come the exhibitors of tomorrow and if you refuse just one, you may be refusing help to the very person who can do the breed the most good. When you help a novice, remember you are not doing it for the person involved but for the sake of better dogs.
