Over the past twenty years, very little has really changed for the working Bouvier in America. There are only a handful of good dogs and a very few of us struggling to find, train and present excellent dogs. We are still telling one another, "Oh, let's be nice to the show breeders and pet owners, and help them pretend that they really have working Bouviers under the skin, perhaps they will be struck down, see the light and joint us…" But of course they never do.
In Europe things are different, but it is far from progress. Two decades ago there was an active working and breeding community in the Netherlands, based largely on the KNPV lines, one which has shrunk and become much less viable. We have come together not by our being drawn up to their level but rather their sinking toward ours. We all know the symptoms, the vain search for even one Bouvier in the KNPV journal, the declining numbers of top dogs at the Dutch IPO championships, the incessant thinning of the bloodlines.
The rational, dispassionate people have already gone on to other hobbies or other breeds. Those of us left are not bright enough to grasp the situation, have not been serious enough to look reality in the face or just plain can’t bring ourselves to change breeds, even though we know it is in the long run probably futile. Three years ago I thought seriously, very seriously, about the Malinois. But admiration and respect of that breed is not enough, try as I might I could find no passion in my soul. So I will stay with the Bouvier to the end, not because it is the sensible thing to do, but simply because I can not give up my own dogs, even if they are perhaps among the last of their kind.
NAWBA was a mistake. A serious mistake. By trying to be all things to all people and by pandering to the lowest common denominator it came to stand for little more than providing a social venue for pet owners and casual breeders. We embraced the AKC obedience events, even though that organization is devoted to the emasculation of the protective heritage breeds. We embraced carting, even though it is mostly a myth as history and irrelevant to our future.
Herding and ring sport do represent serious work. But those people in NAWBA who espouse herding and have real ambition have a Boarder Collie in the wings, know in their hearts that a handful of people can not in a lifetime recover a herding heritage abandoned a century ago. And since they are not truly serious about the Bouvier they are willing to pander for transient popularity. And the ring people just talk, are drawn to the sport mostly because you can pose as an expert without producing the III dog that is the rite of passage to adult status.
Worst of all, by pandering to the disinterested we have presented the young dog sport enthusiast, the person who could become the next Caya or Martha Sadler, with a picture of play sports, temperament tests and conformation honors to dogs with no pretense of a working soul. So much more often than not such people move on to a breed perceived as more serious.
Could you, today, honestly advise a young person seeking a future in the dog sports to embrace the Bouvier? You might hope that they will, but could you truly advocate it?
NAWBA has for all practical purposes ceased to exist as a national organization, divided into a west coast faction, also known as Pacific Gateway, and a remnant in the east, holding their event in Virginia for a second year in a row because they have support nowhere else, illegally concealing their declining membership, failing to make mandated financial reports and audits, no doubt because of what they would reveal.
Perhaps those of us who train the Bouvier for Schutzhund or IPO need a new organization in America, one with the potential to become international, one focused on mutual support and the ideals we see succeeding in the other breeds, one open to all but allowing only those who actually title dogs a vote, one with some small chance of survival.
Such an organization should stand on it's own merits. It would not be in opposition to Ring or to herding or to NAWBA or Pacific Gateway or to anything else. It would not covet the AWDF membership, at any rate increasingly irrelevant in light of political changes within Schutzhund USA, would not have fancy magazines, impressive social events or grand visions of saving the breed.
It would have modest dues and focus on providing opportunities for training, cooperation, camaraderie and low profile trials. It would bring in no foreign judges or trainers or breeders because these people, such as Fred and Carla or Caya, have been here and will continue to be here from time to time on a private basis. Europe is not going to save us, they probably can not save themselves.
I envision a very simple set of rules, but very rigid. The only sports or activities advocated or promoted would be Schutzhund and IPO. There would be no temperament tests, no conformation events, no big trophies. Above all, nothing invented for the Bouvier, because that is always an admission of defeat.
Perhaps we would not even have a president, but just a first secretary, because there would be no great new initiatives or programs, just quiet mutual support in the Schutzhund way of life. Perhaps we would see that it does not matter whether Ron Gordon or Charlie Porter served in the highest office, because there would be no new programs to promote or oppose, only the simple program of training and breeding according to the Schutzhund heritage.
Perhaps it is too late. I will even say it, it probably is too late. Perhaps we would prefer to mourn the breed in our own way, in private, in peace. There is, after all, the time to quit, to accept the inevitable, to prey only for a peaceful death.
But perhaps it would be better to return to our roots, to look to the Schutzhund field for one final effort, to be defeated if it is inevitable but to take some solace in not quitting.
Think about it.
Jim Engel, Marengo, March 2000