In view of the collapse of NAWBA, culminating in the fiasco in Denver, and commentary on Ms. Heilenman's secret web conclave currently concocting a "new NAWBA" according to their own image and likeness, a number of people, including my own daughter, have challenged me to propose a workable solution.
Very well. The truth in difficult times is never popular; but let us look to the root causes of this dilemma and proceed from experience, from the example of those breeds and organizations which have been successful in building and maintaining a working dog culture for a protective heritage breed.
Toward the end of the last century, about 1900, as the industrial revolution took firm hold in Europe and took the bulk of the population off of the farms and into the cities, a concurrent revolution in the working dog world occurred. In the Low countries especially open range sheep and cattle operations became a thing of the past and men in the various nations devised training and trial systems adapted to the new urban reality. These included the Dutch police trials (KNPV), Schutzhund, and the Ring trials of Belgium and France.
Although there was variation in breeds, emphasis and procedures, there was and is a shared set of values so universal that they are taken for granted. Within this context a working dog is fundamentally useful for his olfactory capability, the ability to search and track, and his ability to bring controllable, mobile force to play in an adversarial situation, that is, the protective and aggressive capabilities.
Those cultures which have over time remained faithful to these values, such as the Belgian Ring Malinois and the German Shepherd in the homeland, have prospered. Most other breeds with an originating protective heritage, unfortunately including the Bouvier des Flandres, are in decline because those in control of the various organizational and political mechanisms, including the national clubs in Belgium, the Netherlands, France and America, and in particular NAWBA, have had only superficial belief in the protective heritage and have at every critical moment betrayed the breed by watering down working expectations.
Within this working culture dogs are desirable and admirable according to their courage, their willingness to work at the direction of the handler, their initiative and their search capability. The various trial systems are intended both to certify the individual dog for service, as emphasized in the KNPV trial, and as eligible for breeding, as emphasized in the Schutzhund trial.
Within this heritage the German Shepherd and the Belgian Malinois have come to the forefront, prospered and become predominant. The other breeds have, on the whole, been in accelerating decline in past decades.
As noted elsewhere, the Bouvier des Flandres has been absent from the Belgian Ring for forty years, virtually absent from the French ring and declined to a handful of KNPV titles in recent years. The enforced bans on docking and cropping in some European nations, including the Netherlands and Belgium, are proving to be the final nails in the coffin. The Bouvier des Flandres has been made quite literally illegal in his homeland.
The working Bouvier is disappearing because those who believed, in Europe and America, were insufficient in courage, will and wisdom. History shows us that viable working breeds evolve and survive among founders and sustainers who act on the belief that working character, real working character demanding courage, willingness, stamina and olfactory capability, must always be the primary standard for breeding selection.
When the breeding test is applied without exception, each dog contributing to the next generation has demonstrated adequacy in all fundamental aspects of character and physique. As in any human endeavor, marginal dogs will on certain days pass, and some men will cheat to pass a trial or groups of men will conspire to falsify trial records. In the larger scheme of things, if the culture as a whole is fundamentally honest and sincere, the system will work in spite of occasional failures, just as our American democracy has survived dishonest, inept and immoral presidents, legislators and judges. Yes, we have condoned slavery, executed innocent men and tolerated predatory advantage in the name of free enterprise. But these things are in time dealt with, and it is the measure of our vitality that we can rise above our failings because of the fundamental validly of our political process. In the same way, a working trial can overcome short term failings if the system is fundamentally sound and the people are honest and diligent in it's application. In time the nature of the trial may be found wanting, either because the breeding population has advanced to the point where a more demanding test is appropriate or because means within the rules of passing inadequate dogs are discovered. This is what we call progress.
It is self evident that the breeding test must be universal in order to be effective, for long term existence of exempt segments of the population render the breed defining test meaningless.
A popular alternative to the breeding eligibility trial, such as the Schutzhund or IPO trial, has been the "temperament test" which purports to certify that, given adequate training, the dog under examination would indeed exhibit those necessary character attributes. But the reality is that obedience, working willingness and the ability to grow and mature under training are the decisive elements, and can only be proven by actual training.
In both Belgium and France such tests have been conducted by the Bouvier clubs for at least forty years, during which time the Bouvier disappeared from the ring trials of the respective nations. The simple truth is that these organizations are under control of the conformation oriented breeders who appoint each other as judge, evaluate each others dogs and continually lower expectations to include their declining breeding stock. This process has gone hand in hand with the emasculation of the breed. There has been no reason for the Belgian and French breeders to incorporate working lines or take work seriously in any way, and they have not. Temperament aptitude tests, disingenuously portrayed as evolving into real working tests at some future time, have inevitably been the precursors of mediocrity and the abandonment of the good intentions in a never ending delay of focus on character.
In seeking a model for success, we have before us the German Shepherd Dog, which must be recognized as over all the best working dog in the world today. He is so because of a century of breeding selection according to the Schutzhund trial as the defining standard of working character and thus breeding eligibility.
It is true that in recent years German conformation breeders have, through their internal political process, weakened the trial system in Germany, created a reservoir of lax judges and decoys which will allow marginal dogs the Schutzhund title and thus access to show ring glory. This does not negate the validly of the system, but demonstrates that selection according to proven character is a never ending task. Complacency, greed and laziness are human characteristics that creep into the most successful human enterprises, demanding eternal vigilance least the legacy of the fore founders be squandered.
The thrust of the evolution of the modern German Shepherd has been measurement against the gauge of the Schutzhund trial. In addition, a small number of dogs qualify by means of a very demanding herding test, so demanding that in practice only full time, active herdsman verify their working dogs in this way.
Where actual herding work remains, as in Germany, this is wise policy, for the maintenance of a reservoir of true herding stock is a benefit for any breed. Such opportunities do not exist in Belgium and the Netherlands, and for a century the herding potential has lain dormant in the Bouvier and the Malinois. Those who advocate a herding role for the Bouvier, mostly suburban American hobbyists, need to produce practical working stock, actually purchased and put into service by real herdsmen, and then propose a working test based on this newfound herding heritage.
The Bouvier des Flandres, as a formal registry based breed, came into existence after the herding functionality had ceased to exist in the homelands. The founders said nothing about herding because there was no herding to do, and emphasized police and military service as the working role. The working requirements were in the Belgian Ring, primarily and fundamentally a protection sport, or the Dutch police trials. Throughout the past century, I am aware of no extensive or systematic participation of Bouviers in any sort of herding trials and no activity or mention within the literature and records of any of the national clubs.
Even the Belgian and French show breeders pretend to produce dogs with the protective potential, for their temperament tests are pretend protection tests just as their dogs are pretend working dogs. They have never had any reason to pretend a herding functionality, and they have not. Indeed, the herding functionality exists primarily in the minds of imaginative American dilatants.
There are of course Bouviers who can function at the lower levels in the herding trials, just as many sporting and other breeds produce occasional dogs capable of a protection title and many dogs can serve in the hunting role at some level. But these dogs are not herding dogs in the sense that real herdsmen would seek them out and not a herding line or gene pool in the sense of selection for real effectiveness in the recent past.
On occasion the argument is made that service as search and rescue, guide dog or even a faithful family companion is noble work, and that dogs excelling in such service also merit breeding consideration.
But noble as such service is the functional testing is incomplete; individual dogs can render commendable service even though seriously deficient in specific areas, and thus inappropriate as breeding candidates. The German Shepherd breed evolved because each dog was required to be sufficient in all three phases, tracking obedience and protection.
The short coated variety of the Belgian Sheep Dog, the Malinois, evolved in a parallel path. The fact that he evolved with separate centers of activity in the Dutch police trials, the Belgian ring and later in the French ring may prove to be an advantage which will ultimately see this breed become predominant if the Germans are foolish enough to squander their century old heritage. May those most faithful to the working character of their own chosen breed predominate.
Thus we see that the evolution of the successful breeds is, inevitably, characterized by the steadfast use of a single trial as the gauge of breedability. True, the Malinois has evolved in several communities with different trials, specifically the KNPV and the varieties of ring, but each community was and predominantly still is focused on it's own trial system and national culture.
In the early years the Bouvier evolved along with the Malinois in the ring of Belgium, and particularly in the Dutch police trials. As recently as 1952 a Bouvier called Vuw (LOSH 135650) obtained second place in the St. Hubert Belgian Ring Championships.
But where the Malinois community remained one of trainers, with a unity of purpose, in both nations a national Bouvier club weak in the real working commitment evolved, which in the end emasculated the breed. Indeed, were it not for the emergence of the Netherlands Bouvier Club perhaps today it would be the Bouvier as well as the Malinois gaining world wide renown among serious working people, based on almost a century of evolution on the fields of the KNPV trials.
The Bouvier in Europe has failed to emerge as one of the serious working breeds because the national organizations, in France and the Netherlands as well as Belgium, were and are under the control of conformation oriented breeders willing to pay no more than lip service to the working character of the breed. Failure in America and elsewhere has been an unfortunate extension of this process.
In America all breeds suffer from the affliction of the AKC and their system which preordains hostility to the protective heritage of the European breeds. The American Doberman, German Shepherd and Bouvier clubs are all by their nature fundamentally detriments to the evolution of an American heritage in the spirit of the founders of these working breeds.
Other organizations, oriented to the work of the breeds, have also evolved. Schutzhund USA, in spite of the name of the organization, has been a German Shepherd entity from the beginning. Though far from perfect, this organization has made real strides in establishing a working Shepherd culture in America.
The French Ring sport has also struggled, less successfully, for a place in the American sun. Unfortunately, for a variety of reasons, it has never had more than a fringe presence. Even after twenty years, there are only approximately a hundred and fifty members nationwide in America and a mere handful of training clubs. Ring is a most worthy sport and trial system, but is simply not in any realistic way available to more than a minute fraction of Americans. Although one Bouvier, of undocumented origin, achieved the Ring III title some fifteen to twenty years ago, the owner of this dog went on to the Malinois and Bouvier participation has been mostly pretense and propaganda ever since.
The most vocal Bouvier Ring proponents tend not to title dogs, but rather pontificate, denigrate Schutzhund and other sports and represent Ring is so difficult and sophisticated, and in particular so superior to Schutzhund, that there are few dogs attaining titles.
This is simple nonsense. French Ring sport is just another variation on the European protection sport theme, with its positive and negative aspects just like all of the others. As a "point of honor" the French did, after all, have to invent something novel to differentiate themselves from what the Germans were already doing.
Ring is floundering in America because of a lack of organization, a lack of real interest in France in dogs as a commercial enterprise and because it is fundamentally a Malinois sport of interest to relatively few American training enthusiasts. People fail to get ring titles for the same reasons they fail in every other endeavor, because they neglect to make the effort to train a dog and go to the trial.
Let it be said that a hand full of enthusiasts, such as Gia Anderson, have in recent years seriously trained and titled a Bouvier to the first level. Perhaps these people will in the end be vindicated and see Ring training and Bouvier participation emerge and prosper like the Phoenix. I certainly hope so, but these odds are very long indeed.
In the homeland, the native trial for the Bouvier was and is the Belgian ring. The immortal Francoeur de Liege, with Edmond Moreaux, won fame for the breed on the Belgian trial field in the twenties. As recently as the late 1960s Bouviers appeared in the Belgian championships and in the French cup finals. Then the breed passed into the show breeder and temperament test era, and disappeared from the native trial fields. In an ideal world Americas would also compete in a trial system from the homelands, and thus share in the heritage. But there are no Bouviers in Belgian ring, and no realistic expectations of a return.
Beginning in the late seventies, and taking real root in the eighties, the original American working Bouvier enthusiasts were all participants in the Schutzhund trail, not necessarily by philosophical preference, but because it was there. From many points of view, Schutzhund was not and is not ideal as a foundation for a Bouvier working culture, or any culture for a non German breed for that matter. But it has been, is today and for the foreseeable future will be the only viable alternative in America.
As this movement evolved into a formal organization in 1986, the North American Working Bouvier Association, a fatal direction was taken. Rather than emulating the success of the focused organizations, the perception of work was diluted to be inclusive and thus draw in more of the existing Bouvier people.
This was a fatal flaw. The seeds of destruction had in fact been sewn and the agents of failure, insincere in dedication to serious work, were present from the beginning. The enemy was not Clair McLean and the "show breeders" or the AKC or the American Bouvier club, but rather Marion Hubbard and so many others with only the most superficial and shallow commitment to the protective and working heritage. The failure to focus on the Schutzhund trial as the primary objective, consistent with the original American movement, preordained the organization to mediocrity and the collapse we have witnessed in the past year.
Belief in and the desire to participate in Schutzhund should have been the de facto requirement for membership and positions of influence. Only in this way could the unity of purpose necessary for success have been maintained and built upon. For the first ten years this unity did exist and NAWBA did make progress, but beginning in 1996 the enemy within, the play trainers and show breeders, took over on the issue of the "temperament test" as a demonstration of character rather than the working trial that has been fundamental for every successful breed. The collapse began in immediate internal quarreling among the victors over the spoils of politics. Within three years Marion Hubbard and Ron Gordon had split off the west coast faction is the still born Pacific Gateway club, drove it straight in the ditch and went on their merry way. The culmination was the Denver fiasco this spring.
What of the future ? The secret web conclave hatching the "New NAWBA" is by it's very nature destined to create another organization by and for pet owners, play trainers and dilatants, for that is all that they are and that is all that they can conceive.
The only practical, viable basis for a continued working Bouvier movement in America would be a focused, fundamentalist Schutzhund oriented organization with emphasis on mutual support and encouragement within this venue. If French Ring, Belgian Ring or any other venue should at some future time become a serious presence in America, and should sufficiently motivated Bouvier enthusiasts take part, they should be encouraged to build their own organizational structures according to their own dreams. But to hold NAWBA ring trials when nobody in America is seriously training senior level ring dogs holds the organization and the breed up to rightful scorn, reveals to the whole world that these people are living in a pathetic fantasy world of their own creation.
A number of our Bouvier pseudo experts denigrate Schutzhund, on various grounds:
Let us examine these issues.
It is in fact true that Schutzhund developed in Germany under the auspices and guidance of the founders of the German Shepherd, was created to be the operational definition of that breed. The corresponding trial systems in Belgium and the Netherlands were the Belgian Ring and the Dutch Police trials, both dating back to the very early years of the twentieth century. In the early years, through the 1950's in Belgium and the 1980's in the Netherlands, there was significant Bouvier participation and in fact breeding lines of working Bouviers. In a happier world the European Bouvier community would have maintained this participation and we, in America, would have seen these sports become available in our own country, would today be able to train for and trial in Belgian Ring or KNPV trials.
Bouvier Schutzhund or IPO training began in the Netherlands in the seventies as an alternative. The emergence of IPO as an international version, under FCI auspices, and it's adaptation world wide has made it the most international and breed neutral of the protective heritage working trials. For thirty years IPO has been the trial system of the Netherlands Bouvier Club, holding annual championships, usually in the fall of the year.
Twice in the twentieth century France and especially Belgium were overrun and occupied with incredible brutality by a German people seeking to fulfill their self conceived role of master race. The Bouvier people and families - Bowles, Chastel and the others - were at the epicenter of these atrocities twice within a generation. Distaste for things German was and is an understandable consequence, and this extends to German dogs, dog sports and organizations. The emergence of the Malinois as the predominant Ring breed in France, replacing the German Shepherd, was no doubt to some extent driven by these emotions.
But life moves on and the generation with personal memories of the wars is passing. IPO is now the predominant Bouvier sport in Belgium as well as the Netherlands. Europeans have to a large extent shaken off the remembrance of war and are evaluating dog trial systems, and everything else, on a pragmatic analysis of individual merit. On this basis IPO or Schutzhund are in use as primary Bouvier arenas in Europe, including the Netherlands and Belgium and just as appropriate in America.
The simple fact of the matter is that the vast majority of Bouviers competing in working trials in the European homelands today compete in IPO, the international version of Schutzhund. Schutzhund as "not a Bouvier sport" is nothing more than empty rhetoric on the part of those looking for an excuse for doing nothing at all.
Furthermore, those opposed to IPO as "not a Bouvier sport" need to state explicitly exactly in what way the tracking, obedience and protection exercises are inappropriate to the Bouvier, in what fundamental way this sport is more difficult for or unfair to our breed. For many years I have commented on the need for these sports to evolve and become more demanding, in fact, to adapt some of the features of KNPV and Ring such as the call off exercise. But these things apply across the board. What the people opposed to Schutzhund are really saying is that they are unwilling to commit to the effort of training and to facing up to the inadequacies of their current Bouvier lines. They are looking for excuses, not for solutions.
Another faction would portray Schutzhund as not a true test of a dog, not demanding enough, not "real work." Pat Taylor in Texas claims to have trained extensively in Schutzhund and yet her dogs have failed to achieve a title. Rather than redoubling her efforts, or seeking out better lines, she now claims to have made the great discovery that Schutzhund is not a true test, and that she knows what her dogs are made up of because she has seen them many times face up to a thousand pound bull on her ranch. While one must certainly admit that this is a whole lot of bull, in the world at large it is just another quaint little tale from yet another person who has found wonder dogs wandering around in her own back yard.
In order to have credibility Ms. Taylor and others who do not need a trial system to evaluate their dogs need to spend a few days training for the retrieve and other exercises they seem to find meaningless and humiliate the German Shepherd winnies at their next trial by taking home all of the trophies. If Schutzhund is not demanding, is not real work like their dogs can do, this would be no big deal, right?
Perhaps the more fundamental question is why is this important, why should it be an issue? The importance is in the perception. The working dog world at large sees the Bouvier as the big talk in the famous Robert Abady Sports Illustrated article and a thousand show breeders and pet owners prattling on about the natural protectiveness of the Bouvier des Flandres. They know this for the childish nonsense that it is. When they see a group of Americans working hard to Schutzhund title their dogs, having disappointments and incremental forward steps, it builds respect and gives the serious trainer a reason to think about a Bouvier down the road. When they see such a movement fall back into the hands of little old ladies prattling on with the same tired fairy tales they perceive that they were right in the first place, that whatever the Bouvier may once have been it is today an empty shell, a breed living in the mythical past.
Another claim from the arm chair experts is that "Schutzhund is a sport, not real work" and thus in some way unworthy or inappropriate. They often go on to imply or say that the protection test is more or less just a game of tug of war, with the sleeve taking the place of the tug. This is invariably followed by anecdotal tales of their own Bouvier wonder dogs saving them from dire peril in "the real world," proving once and for all the superiority of the Bouvier. ( Robert Abady was perhaps the definitive practitioner of this particular art.)
But if this is true, why don't they trial their dogs and show how easy it is for a Bouvier?
In reality, Schutzhund has never been a certification of working readiness as a police or service dog, and it was not and is not primarily a sport. It was and is a breeding test, the minimum demonstration of working willingness and capability for breeding. Although many Schutzhund titled dogs are purchased on the basis of their titles and become excellent police dogs, some titled dogs prove to be inadequate in the service.
KNPV is in fact intended to be a test of readiness for actual police service. For many years excellent Bouvier lines were maintained under this program. Given the choice of an active breeding system based on KNPV and one based on Schutzhund powerful arguments can be and are made favoring KNPV. But we do not have a KNPV option, just as in America we do not have a near term expectation of a Ring option.
The real value of the working trial system for breeding is the knowledge and insight the breeder gains in the process of training his dogs. He or she quickly comes to understand that mediocre dogs can, with a great deal of effort and time, often achieve a home field ring title, Schutzhund title or even a KNPV title. In his own program such dogs, even if earning a title, take a secondary place in the breeding selection because the person quite naturally wants for himself more willing and strong dogs so that his training can go forward with more dispatch and pleasure. A number of Americans have taken marginal Bouviers and with much effort and struggle achieved advanced titles, determined to prove that their lines can do it too. Almost inevitably such people go to the working lines for future dogs, because they simply do not want to endure the pain of working so hard for so little satisfaction with a dog not bred for his work.
Purchasing and breeding titled dogs, as is so much practiced with the German Shepherd in America, while a vast improvement over indiscriminate breeding of untested stock, in reality misses the fundamental point of the working trial culture. The purchased titled dog is by definition one the owner or breeder is willing to part with. What do you think happens to the marginal dogs with a title, or the stubborn and uncooperative dogs requiring excessive training time and unpleasant compulsive methods ? Sometimes they are sold to people, very often Americans, who want to believe that money can buy anything. Not everything is wonderful in the German Shepherd world, and in America the enthusiasts are being successfully manipulated and controlled by the Germans for commercial purposes.
In America, money can indeed buy just about anything. A place on the podium is a commercial commodity and fifteen minutes of canine fame has it's price. But how is purchasing a trained and titled dog to prove that you are a trainer, or to have that moment on the podium, any different from marrying a pregnant woman to prove that you are a man ?
The real importance of training breeding stock is the process itself, the knowledge and intuitive insight to one's lines which extended over generations leads to maturity as a working dog breeder. When you buy a titled dog all you get is that dog and a piece of paper. Much of the real value of the process, the knowledge and experience, remains with the trainer.
While in one sense the title is just a piece of paper, in a more fundamental way it is essential. Without taking dogs to a senior title, training is just spinning your wheels, for the tendency is to see what one wants to see and to excuse away fundamental flaws in the dog, and the trainer, in a downward spiral. Bouvier Ring enthusiasts are prone to this, for the small number of trials provides a never ending excuse and the opportunity to posture as a trainer and authority for years on end without any real result.
The bottom line is that experience has shown that those breeds nurtured under a consistent working trial system prosper. The process works, it is as simple as that. Those "working dog" breeding systems based on conformation evaluations and superficial temperament tests emasculate the genetic pool, as proven by the national Bouvier clubs in France and Belgium.
As we face the future, it is pointless to look to European organizations for leadership or guidance. The roots of our failure are there, and they are wandering in a wilderness of their own creation. Success in America can only be possible on the basis of an independent, stand alone commitment to the IPO style trial system.
By all means we should seek out and develop relationships with the individual European working people. But they are in disarray, and many of the best working kennels have no more Bouviers, and in fact some now produce German Shepherds of world wide distinction.
From the beginning, many Bouvier Schutzhund enthusiasts, and others, favored a national association supportive of a wide variety of canine activity as a means of drawing in more people. This has proven to be a most fundamental mistake. The primary need is to bring young, serious trainers into the movement. When they go to a national event and see all of the show dogs winning big prizes without any pretense of working capability, when they see that we hold Ring trials with no entries and promote ring even though nobody produces high level trained dogs, when the see that we perform silly temperament tests in place of real work, they conclude that we are not serious, and move on to another breed, almost always a Malinois or a German Shepherd. Indeed, NAWBA has, through the years, probably done more to promote and advance the Malinois than the Bouvier.
Belief in the protection exercise as a key, but certainly not the only key, to breed worthiness is such a fundamental precept of the serious working dog world that it is taken for granted. A dog which can not pass the protection portion of the trial is simply not a Bouvier des Flandres, Malinois or German Shepherd. In a recent internet discussion, the new NAWBA's Ms. Heilenman absolutely refused to endorse this concept, to give a yes or no answer as to whether such a protection test is, in the ideal, a necessary prereqsite to breeding.
Not only did she refuse; she dithered. She postulated diversionary questions. She produced reams of weasel words, would have done Billy Clinton proud. But she simply refused to say yes or no. And for very good reason, for she has evolved into a dog politician, and knows full well that most Bouvier people and most NAWBA members do not share our most fundamental beliefs. Her new NAWBA will further pander to this core of play trainers, pet owners in search of affirmation and the fringes of the conformation world.
By building NAWBA on the American pet owner and casual trainer we have created an organization uncommitted to the core values of the protective canine heritage, fundamentally opposed to the principles we take for granted, the principles behind the success of the Malinois and the Shepherd. This pandering, unfortunately of world wide scope, has led to the decline of the working Bouvier over the past half century, and will lead to his demise unless the working people stand up once and for all and practice what they see succeeding in the rest of the working dog world, act according to what they have always known in their hearts.
A serious working Bouvier movement would simply abandon NAWBA as the booster club for the play trainers, pet owners and show breeders interested in slumming. Let the little old ladies hang on to the NAWBA banner and hold the AWDF slot, just as the AWDF club for the Malinois is in the hands of opportunistic canine politicians while the real working Malinois people struggle for an identity. As it stands, the AWDF is floundering and irrelevant. If it straightens out, it will expel the bogus breed clubs and accept membership according to true commitment to the trial system. If it does not, it does not matter.
The crux of the NAWBA dilemma is whether or not the Bouvier is a protective heritage dog, whether a serious protection test is, by the definition of the breed, essential to breeding selection. Every serious trainer, in America as well as Europe, at the very core of his soul knows that a dog must be capable of an effective attack on a human being in order to be a Bouvier des Flandres, and that to believe less is to betray the heritage.
The creators of the New NAWBA, led by Ms. Heilenman, believe less than this, much less. Some believe that the Bouvier is still some sort of herding dog or draught dog and that protection is an incidental capability irrelevant to the "true heritage." Others believe that the Bouvier is a "natural defender" and there is thus no need for concern or testing in the breeding process. Some just want to have fun and be reassured that their poopsie woopsies are indeed the bold defenders of the Flemish plain under the fluffy coats of their show ring progenitors.
These are irreconcilable differences. Furthermore, a serious IPO style Bouvier training movement is impossible within such a structure because every newcomer, every potential trainer and contributor, is going to be exposed to working dog values in his Ring or Schutzhund club and observe that they are diametrically opposed by the watered down, play trainer oriented values projected by the NAWBA leadership and membership. If they are serious, they will eventually go to a Malinois or a German Shepherd, not primarily because of the current success of these breeds but because they will come to understand that the place of these breeds is based on the century old working culture, a culture simply beyond the comprehension of the New NAWBA leadership.
In standing alone, the Schutzhund oriented people need not disparage nor discourage those with other priorities or preferences. Let the Ringers ring out and realize their dreams, based on their own work and effort. Let the believers in uncontrolled, real man attack dogs organize, prosper and wallow in their contempt for obedience, control, search and tracking work and all of the organized trial systems.
The working Bouvier movement in America was a Schutzhund movement from the beginning, and prospered through the 1980s and into the 1990s. Call it IPO if you find the German word unpleasant or if a more international flavor seems comfortable. In order to achieve resurrection, the only viable possibility is a national level organization dedicated to the building of an American heritage through an IPO style trial system, because in reality that is all that is available. Temperament tests, phony ring trials, pet oriented activities and anything else which divert focus from the primary objective would need to be pushed aside, left to the dilatants.
It may very well be too late. The gene pool is small and scattered, European trainers are in retreat or denial and the breed is virtually illegal in his homeland. Nothing short of a miracle could reverse this. In order to achieve such a miracle in America, chains to failed European institutions and practice must be abandoned in favor of a fundamentalist, hard core American training venue demanding a strong protection performance as a prerequisite to breeding. Only in this way could a final effort on behalf of this noble breed have the slightest expectation of long term success.