Bias in Evaluating Breedworthiness - A serious problem
When evaluating breeding stock, it is important to be critical of what you have and critical of what you are looking at incorporating into the next generation. What I often find, at least publically, is that many breeders are willing to forgive what they have (or essentially never admit any faults at all) while being hyper critical of other’s dogs. Often, there are cliques of individuals with related dogs who will forgive their dogs misgivings as lack of training or experience while condemning others with the same working faults as poor genetics. The mindset is competitive and tribalist rather than cooperative and grounded in reality. That isnt to say that there arent cases where genetics are at fault on either side but there is so much more at play on a training and enviromental level that it can only be bias to say as much of a dog you do not know. Declaring a dog or line as faulty from one bad narritive is harmful to the breed. There are no perfect dogs and there are no dogs without virtue.
This is a serious problem across multiple working breeds. Many people fall into bias and choose not to evaluate the dog in front of them. Instead, they prefer to refer to one picture/event/interaction/video etc. to make their final decisions on a dog’s ability or type. One instance cannot define a dog but, for many, it does. Case in point: a 5yr old border collie with a first time herding dog owner. The dog has growled at strangers who appear threatening. The dog when taken to stock with his novice handler dives straight in and causes chaos. Not good. Same dog, exposed to sheep with an experienced handler and is an absolute wonder. He is brimming with work. The dog is quick witted and extremely biddable. With proper training and an outlet for his energy he has become a model citizen. Is he a bad dog that should be culled from the gene pool? I dont believe so. If anything, his ease of training and natural way with sheep are an asset. Would you believe that folks still whisper about his “poor genetics” despite this, because in confidence these initial training issues were confided with an unscrupulous competitor who maintains an unrelated line from this dog. Now inexplicably the dog and lineage have garnered a negative reputation by word of mouth from a questionable source. This is the issue!! But, this is also human nature.
Being new, I can look at the dogs as they are, I have no other point of reference. It gives me an interesting perspective on those that are influenced by the history and bad blood between the human elements behind the dogs. A single dog someone disliked once being in the pedigree 5 generations ago should not cause someone to throw the dog out. In the same vein, it isn’t logical to attribute all your dog’s favorable features to a dog that appears once in the pedigree 5 generations ago. It isn’t doing right by the dogs to not use a nice dog because it’s breeder did something contraversial once 10 years ago or because there was once a dog from that line with an off bite. I try to gain knowledge from the owners of the dogs that are in the pedigree and work against the biases and narritives already in play. I weigh that appropriately with what is in front of me and the genetic weight that is expressed in the dog.
History is important in balance with what is in front of you. Breeders and buyers need to LOOK at the dogs as individuals and put everything into context. This requires a great deal more work compared to falling into bias. It’s easier to just believe what you are told or to make and keep these snap judgements than to evaluate at a critical level. We all have the same goal, we need to remember that as a community.
