Poor Blues And Blacks Again

[*Mark*]

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This is most interesting topic we have had for a long time.

As it happens we have had many colours mainly brindles. We have also had our fair share of fawns aswell, it just happens that the brindles have done most of the winning for us.

We have had some very dark brindles!!

http://i52.photobucket.com/albums/g20/markburton74/brad.jpg[/img]]My Webpage://http://i52.photobucket.com/albums/g...img]]My Webpage

 

[aslan]

The 'coloured' fancy in Australia is surely enjoying a boom at present. There are more breeders now actively seeking black & blue than I have seen in my 18 year involvement in whippets. And many of these are long standing breeders that I thought had given up on colour a long time ago or that I thought wouldn't touch colour with a forty foot pole.

As jealous as I am that this 'coloured' fancy has happened before I could be one of the first to achieve it .... this can only be a good thing. As sad as it is to say, what we need are breeders/exhibitors of note promoting good quality 'coloured' dogs.

Can you imagine what it would do to the image of coloured whippets in England if people like The Newtons, Phil Moran-Healy, The Meakins, Lynn Yacoby-Wright, etc etc starting showing lovely blacks and blues (solid or parti)?

It is starting around the world I feel. Patsy Gilmore has a white, Nenne Runsten has a black & white, Bo Bengston now has a black & white. Simply by having a good dog of colour and showing it - these breeders of note will be sending a signal to all those detractors of colour (esp. all breeds judges who don't know better) that a 'coloured' whippet IS acceptable and SHOULD win if it is a good dog (same as any other whippet colour). And it will no longer only be the "little" people supporting the cause of the 'coloured' whippet.

 

[Seraphina]

I did well enough with my two black boys in their hey day, Dante won a RCC and, yes, there were days when I felt he was the 'wrong' colour but I have also had days like that with my brindles as well!
What I have noticed though, is that I have encountered more problems, health/breeding wise, with my blacks than I have with my brindles.  I find I am now left with only my two old black dogs, one of whom is in renal failure the other with Cushings disease, and I have no progeny from either of them.  I would dearly love to have more blacks/blues and do have a cunning plan but I seem to take one step forward and three steps back!!!

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Really? I am surprised. I have never noticed any problem on my blacks...

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Unfortunately, yes, I have had far more heartbreak with them. I seem doomed to failure!!

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Surely, that is just bad luck, nothing to do with the colour as such.

 

[jonesyins14]

Lana, as starter of this thread your note is music to my ears - you took the words right out of my mouth :cheers:

 

[dessie]

I did well enough with my two black boys in their hey day, Dante won a RCC and, yes, there were days when I felt he was the 'wrong' colour but I have also had days like that with my brindles as well!
What I have noticed though, is that I have encountered more problems, health/breeding wise, with my blacks than I have with my brindles.  I find I am now left with only my two old black dogs, one of whom is in renal failure the other with Cushings disease, and I have no progeny from either of them.  I would dearly love to have more blacks/blues and do have a cunning plan but I seem to take one step forward and three steps back!!!

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Really? I am surprised. I have never noticed any problem on my blacks...

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Unfortunately, yes, I have had far more heartbreak with them. I seem doomed to failure!!

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Surely, that is just bad luck, nothing to do with the colour as such.

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Some of it maybe, like my stunning young black/white trim bitch getting killed by a train but, no, most of it I believe is due to weakness of the lines. Mine were some of the last dogs from this kennel and the line has virtually died out.

 

[starswift]

I did well enough with my two black boys in their hey day, Dante won a RCC and, yes, there were days when I felt he was the 'wrong' colour but I have also had days like that with my brindles as well!
What I have noticed though, is that I have encountered more problems, health/breeding wise, with my blacks than I have with my brindles.  I find I am now left with only my two old black dogs, one of whom is in renal failure the other with Cushings disease, and I have no progeny from either of them.  I would dearly love to have more blacks/blues and do have a cunning plan but I seem to take one step forward and three steps back!!!

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Really? I am surprised. I have never noticed any problem on my blacks...

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I agree with you dessie blacks seem to be cursed by ilness and accident esp the champions :sweating:

Unfortunately, yes, I have had far more heartbreak with them. I seem doomed to failure!!

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[Morgan]

I do agree on some points of view with you Lana but I do also believe that somebody who has a REALLY GOOD dog will get noticed even if the owner is not like you say "a breeder of note". :thumbsup:

 

[dessie]

And who says that the 'breeders of note' have the best dogs all the time anyway??? :- "

 

[Morgan]

And who says that the 'breeders of note' have the best dogs all the time anyway??? :- "

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:lol: :lol: :lol:

Well said Caroline! I have to agree on that too :thumbsup: :- "

 

[aslan]

Of course they don't. But I'm talking about the real world of dog showing here and that's part of the problem.

Naturally the high profile people got their high profile because they have had (and continue to have) excellent dogs but they can trot out with one not so good and still win because some judges who are less confident in the breed will go for the 'safe' option. They will put up a well known breeder/exhibitor with whatever they've got that's fawn/brindle rather than put up "Joe Blow" with a good black/blue.

Count on your fingers the amount of times high profile breeders/exhibitors around the world have trotted out a good 'coloured' whippet compared with the times they've trotted out with a not so good fawn or brindle and got its title. I would much prefer to see them bring out a good black dog and help to dispell the coloured myth rather than perpetuate it by ignoring colour and promoting an average fawn.

All I'm saying is that when you have a high profile, and are a respected authority on the breed, people take notice of what you do and say.

If the high profile people were to start showing good quality dogs of 'colour' then it would do a lot (and a lot more quickly) to get rid of the stigma attached to these lovely whippet colours.

More people would want them, more people would be trying to breed good ones, more judges would not be so afraid to put one up.

I've been told recently that Phil Moran Healy also has a black bitch. I applaud him. And if she's beautiful I hope he gets her out in the ring and promotes her.

I live for the day when one could go to any specialty or all breeds show and see as many quality blacks and blues etc in the ring as there are quality fawns/brindles and see top name breeders exhibiting quality colour as well as the coloured stalwarts of the breed and the rest of us!

 

[Vanna]

Count on your fingers the amount of times high profile breeders/exhibitors around the world have trotted out a good 'coloured' whippet compared with the times they've trotted out with a not so good fawn or brindle and got its title.

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Yes, I can count on my fingers.... but there have been several Nimrodel champions that were black.

Incidentally, I have always wanted a green with purple spots so when you next breed one, can I have it please?

Gill,

Next time I breed a green with purple spots I promise you can have one. Would you prefer a dog or a bitch, and I presume it does have to be show quality as it will be a minority colour!

 

[Gill Andrew]

Count on your fingers the amount of times high profile breeders/exhibitors around the world have trotted out a good 'coloured' whippet compared with the times they've trotted out with a not so good fawn or brindle and got its title.

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Yes, I can count on my fingers.... but there have been several Nimrodel champions that were black.

Incidentally, I have always wanted a green with purple spots so when you next breed one, can I have it please?

Gill,

Next time I breed a green with purple spots I promise you can have one. Would you prefer a dog or a bitch, and I presume it does have to be show quality as it will be a minority colour!

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Vanna,

Definitely top show quality cos I would expect to make it up in 3 straight shows!!! Would prefer a dog please but would be happy to have pick of litter no matter what the sex was. Thinking about it though, perhaps a skyblue pink with a dash of yellow would be more appealing to all rounders - just so long as it didn't look like Mr. Blobby! :cheers:

Gill

 

[frontrun]

I :wub: Blues and blacks.. My second Whippet was a blue bitch CH. Miss Divine and I adored her. She was made up easely, and I bred one litter from her, unfortunately there were only white puppies. She died 5 years old from heartproblems, and her puppies suffered from different healthproblems.

In the last 15 years where I have been judging Whippets around the world, I can only recal a couple of shows where I gave the class to a black ( and white ), simply because I never see dogs in those colours with quality enough to put them up.

To Morgan:

You bred a lovely black dog to a lovely brindle bitch, and produced a stunning litter with stunning blacks and brindle puppies in it. I think thats a very important point. Often I get the impression that people breed blacks and blues to blacks and blues, just to get sure to get puppies in that colour, but if more breeders took their best black dog or bitch and bred it to a high quality specimen, I am sure the quality would improve. I have seen this done not only in France, but also in Poland at kennel Lazarus, whoes foundation bitch was a black and white danish bred bitch ( going back to English bloodlines ) and they continued to keep a black bitch from all litters and bred them to a top winning dogs somewhere in Europe, kept again a black bitch and bred her to a top winning dog ( but never a black or blue ). In every single litter they had a black bitch, and for the last 5 generation those black bitches were sired by brindle or parti top winning Scandinavian or European dog, in some ocations with heavely American influence in the pedigree. The result speaks for it self, and so does your litter Morgan. I would be a very proud man if I had or ever get the possibility to show a black puppie like the ones you had in your last litter.

Rudi

 

[Avalonia]

You bred a lovely black dog to a lovely brindle bitch, and produced a stunning litter with stunning blacks and brindle puppies in it. I think thats a very important point. Often I get the impression that people breed blacks and blues to blacks and blues, just to get sure to get puppies in that colour, but if more breeders took their best black dog or bitch and bred it to a high quality specimen, I am sure the quality would improve.

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I positively agree with Rudi, not just about the quality of that outstanding litter as seen from the photos of the pups -- I would personally give my eye teeth to own any of those pups but especially the female pup being kept by Tamara -- , but to the wisdom of using the very best dogs you have without regard to limiting them to a particular colour (or mind) set.

We know enough about dog genetics today to know that the genes for solids can be passed down even when one parent is a brindle, and I am inclined to think that the brindles give something that cannot be found in a lot of the solids -- be they fawn, blue or black -- bone and substance. I think the future health of a breed like the whippet depends on capturing the diversity that the breed standard allows by treating coat colour as immaterial.

I have to confess I am fed up/bored to tears/appalled at seeing endless champ shows crowded with nothing but sixteen shades of fawn whippets paraded out for judges selected because they are known to favour fawns, and who cannot see beyond that single colour -- just as if the breed standard was written for a single colour and single style of whippet (often frighteningly reminiscent of the look of a few whippets exhibited and popular decades ago).

I just want to scream -- move on please, these are whippets folks, not Irish Setters folks where a single coat colour is acceptable! Lucky us!

Instead, when I go to England I find I have to carefully pick the shows I can attend so I don't get lulled into lala land watching nothing but 200 plus fawn dogs, few of which are distinguishable from each other, and so that I can attend the limited number of shows that are left where the judges are known to accept brindles or whippets of other colours and you get to see the real diversity of whippets bred in England. It sure would be really nice to see breeders without any myopic vision of whippetdom mix it up and pay attention not to colour but to fixing the real problems in the breed: appalling, increasingly way too frequent, too short upper arms and restricted front movement, too little bone and substance and poor quality amongst males, with hordes of bitchy dogs far more the rule than the exception now, along with short boxy toplines and croups, instead of proceeding with mindless breeding of the same to the same to the same forever and ever and ever. Time to get off that soap box obviously, but I can always live in hope.

Lanny in Canada, where we live and breed with a heady mix of brindles from blue masked blue fawns to mahogany and black, fawns, red and whites, and whites, but sadly, no blacks.

 

[aslan]

but if more breeders took their best black dog or bitch and bred it to a high quality specimen, I am sure the quality would improve.

Rudi
This was another point I was wanting to make (but stopped for fear of writing too much for a single post) however I would like to add a slightly different slant on it - if more owners of top quality stud dogs of 'more popular' colours allowed their dogs to be bred to 'coloured' bitches we would be better off as well. This is starting to happen here.

 

[Seraphina]

We know enough about dog genetics today to know that the genes for solids can be passed down even when one parent is a brindle, and I am inclined to think that the brindles give something that cannot be found in a lot of the solids -- be they fawn, blue or black -- bone and substance.  I think the future health of a breed like the whippet depends on capturing the diversity that the breed standard allows by treating coat colour as immaterial. 

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Unfortunately there has been the myth that breeding blacks and blues is extremely difficult. I hope that people do understand colour genetics enough to know that is not so. Here at least we have several people who are doing just that, getting the best black or blue they can and then breeding to the best quality dog/bitch regardless of colour.

I have a special love of the blue and blacks- used to have blue and black Danes. Just wish I was 10 years younger to seriously campaign these colours in Whippet. Well i have my Genevieve, so I hope to do my little bit towards improving the status of these colours.

 

[Vanna]

Vanna, Definitely top show quality cos I would expect to make it up in 3 straight shows!!!  Would prefer a dog please but would be happy to have pick of litter no matter what the sex was.    Thinking about it though, perhaps a skyblue pink with a dash of yellow would be more appealing to all rounders - just so long as it didn't look like Mr. Blobby!    :cheers:

Gill

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Now that would turn a few heads!!

 

[beaker]

i've heard from several people that putting black to black will be risking quality and bone, others say this is simply an old wives tale but i have to admit that i have never seen a black dog i liked that came from such a pairing, it's something i have never done and have turned bitches away from using my black boy simply because they were black as well.

the best blacks that i have seen have been from lines that carry both black and brindle.

... so if anyone wants to use my black lad on their champion brindle bitches :lol: :thumbsup: :clown:

 

[~JO~]

I just had to respond to this post...

just as if the breed standard was written for a single colour and single style of whippet  (often frighteningly reminiscent of the look of a few whippets exhibited and popular decades ago).

This comment I find very worrying - why should whippets 'move on' - a breed standard is there to keep the breed consistent - and quite rightly so that the breed should look quite reminiscent of the breed 20 years ago!!! When breeds change so they are only sliver of what they were... for example the good old bulldog... the breed then is so far removed it often cannot even do the job it was intended for. I am aware that changes to occur over time and whippets have changed from what they were - but is this is a good thing?

Instead, when I go to England I find I have to carefully pick the shows I can attend so I don't get lulled into lala land watching nothing but 200 plus fawn dogs, few of which are distinguishable from each other,

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' indistinguishable from each other'!!!!!!! (w00t) (w00t) there are many different 'types' of fawns around - I think you need to looka little closer and not just assume because a whippet is fawn they are 'all the same'

Also for your information there were quite a few shows this summer where the fawns definitely did not get a look in (I was showing a brindle not a fawn in case you were wondering) and it was quite obvious to me.

So in England or the UK - colour prejudice can run both ways

 

[oakmoorehill]

My first 2 whippets were one white with black markings and one all black .Both of which we showed although neither were show dogs. If we did get placed the judges usually managed to find something nice to say about them.

Then we went under a well known judge (he has judged at Crufts recently) and he couldn't even look at my boys he gave them a quick going over and didn't even watch them move. Well I was ready to pack up and go home but Ben was entered in junior handler so we stayed and had a bit of success in the variety classes. When the judges critiques appeared in the dog papers he made a point of saying 2 dogs were not worthy of being called whippets .Isaid I would never show my black boy again.

A couple of months later I did etery boy under a very old judge Helovemyboy ave him 2nd inJunior out of 4. One of which was Bandit before we had him. The judge thanked me for showing him and said he was a lovely old fashioned type that he liked and full of muscle and that it was only his movement that lost him 1st

.Gues who was in the next ring judging and gave us such a disgusted look

The experience with the first judge nearly put me of showing I wa new to it anyway But not long after we had Owen and I swear never show under the first judge again even if I had the best dog in the world