Working Dogs
The breed standards for working dogs usually specify that scars, broken teeth or other damage that evidence injuries sustained during a working career (often termed ‘honourable scars and injuries') are not to be penalized in conformation showing. The Australian Cattle Dog is an example of this as are some terriers, where the breed standards specifically state that scars are not to be penalized as faults in conformation.
Details of breed standards and precise definition of faults are decided upon by breed clubs and are often hotly debated. Sometimes even minute details are argued over by fanciers and breeders to a degree that would astound the average pet owner who never plans on breeding his or her pet. Fanciers note that such irrelevant seeming qualities have the capacity to change the breed over time.
Often it is the breeders of working dogs who are the most vehement, pointing out that changes in fashion and fancy have led to what they see as a loss in working dog qualities of many breed that have show lines, through rewarding of external appearance without requirements for work. In some breed clubs, such as the Jack Russell Terrier Club of America, working ability and health are valued over conformation to the breed standard. However, even in the JRTCA breed standard only externally observed aspects of the dog are described, as working tests and genetic tests are beyond the scope of a breed standard, which exists as a description of the dog, not its DNA.
Read more about this topic: Fault (dog)
Famous quotes containing the words working and/or dogs:
“Americans have internalized the value that mothers of young children should be mothers first and foremost, and not paid workers. The result is that a substantial amount of confusion, ambivalence, guilt, and anxiety is experienced by working mothers. Our cultural expectations of mother and realities of female participation in the labor force are directly contradictory.”
—Ruth E. Zambrana, U.S. researcher, M. Hurst, and R.L. Hite. “The Working Mother in Contemporary Perspectives: A Review of Literature,” Pediatrics (December 1979)
“I came on a great house in the middle of the night
Its open lighted doorway and its windows all alight,
And all my friends were there and made me welcome too;
But I woke in an old ruin that the winds howled through;
And when I pay attention I must out and walk
Among the dogs and horses that understand my talk.”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)