10/08/2026
I'm going to say something that will probably upset a whole lot of people in the purebred dog world.
**Breeding dogs simply to meet a written breed standard is one of the stupidest things we have ever done to working breeds.**
There. I said it.
Somewhere along the way, we decided that the most important thing about a dog was whether it matched a description written by a committee of people who apparently had nothing better to do than argue about ear placement, tail carriage, toplines, and exactly how many degrees a dog's shoulder should be angled.
And somehow, we decided that these descriptions should determine which dogs are worthy of reproducing. Not whether the dog can do the job its breed was created to do. Not whether it possesses the instincts, intelligence, drive, courage, or temperament that made the breed valuable in the first place.
Nope.
Does it look like the words? Congratulations! It's breeding quality!
**What an absolutely ridiculous way to preserve a working breed.**
Imagine breeding hunting dogs for generations based primarily on how closely they resemble a written description of a hunting dog. Beautiful heads. Perfect proportions. Gorgeous movement. Exactly the right coat. Then you take that dog into the field, and it couldn't find a rabbit if you duct-taped one to its forehead. But hey, it meets the standard!
Imagine a livestock guardian that looks absolutely magnificent standing in a show ring but lacks the instincts to protect livestock.
Or a herding dog that has never demonstrated the ability to move livestock.
Or a protection breed that looks intimidating but lacks the nerve, confidence, and stability to actually protect anything.
What exactly have we preserved?
The dog? Or a decorative representation of what the dog used to be?
Because those are two very different things.
Working breeds were not originally developed because somebody wanted a particular silhouette standing in their living room. They were developed because people needed dogs to accomplish specific jobs. Hunting dogs needed to hunt. Herding dogs needed to herd. Guardians needed to guard. Retrievers needed to retrieve. Tracking dogs needed to track.
Their physical characteristics developed alongside the functional demands placed upon them. Form followed function. And that is the part I believe modern breeding has gotten backward. We have become so obsessed with preserving form that we have allowed function to become optional. Somewhere in this process, people started treating the written standard as though it were the breed itself.
It isn't.
The standard is supposed to describe the dog. The dog should not exist merely to satisfy the standard. You cannot measure courage with a ruler. You cannot evaluate intelligence by looking at a dog's topline. You cannot determine whether a dog possesses the instincts required to perform its ancestral job by examining the shape of its head. And you certainly cannot establish that a dog is genetically worthy of producing the next generation simply because somebody handed it a ribbon.
Now, before somebody has a coronary, I'm not saying structure doesn't matter. Of course it matters.
A dog needs to be physically capable of doing its job. Sound structure, appropriate movement, physical health, and functional anatomy are critically important.
But there is a tremendous difference between breeding for **functional structure** and breeding for **aesthetic perfection according to somebody else's interpretation of a written description.** A dog can be beautifully constructed and still be entirely unsuited for the work its breed was created to perform.
And a dog can have a minor cosmetic deviation from the standard while possessing extraordinary working ability, exceptional health, and precisely the temperament its breed was originally developed to have.
Yet somehow, we have convinced ourselves that the first dog is automatically the better breeding prospect.
Make that make sense.
Here is where I believe the damage becomes especially serious.
When breeders consistently select for appearance while failing to evaluate working ability, they risk losing the very traits that distinguish one working breed from another.
Drive.
Instinct.
Nerve.
Determination.
Environmental confidence.
Problem-solving ability.
The willingness and capability to perform a particular job.
These characteristics are not guaranteed simply because a dog possesses a pedigree. They are not magically preserved because its parents were champions. They have to be evaluated. They have to be selected for. They have to remain important to the people producing the next generation. Otherwise, generation after generation, they can disappear.
And once those traits have been lost from a breeding population, recovering them is not nearly as simple as breeding two pretty dogs together and hoping the instincts suddenly reappear.
We have spent generations developing extraordinary breeds for extraordinary purposes. Why on earth would we throw away the very characteristics that made them extraordinary?
I do not breed Dobermans because I am trying to produce the dog that most closely resembles a collection of words on a piece of paper. I breed Dobermans because I believe in what the Doberman was created to be. An intelligent, capable, versatile working dog.
A dog with courage, confidence, stability, athleticism, and the ability to form an extraordinary working partnership with a human being.
A dog capable of learning demanding tasks and possessing the physical and mental characteristics necessary to perform them.
That might mean protection work.
It might mean service work.
It might mean tracking, detection, or competitive dog sports.
Different jobs require different temperaments, and not every Doberman is suited to every job. That is precisely why evaluating the individual dog matters so much.
I care whether my dogs are healthy.
I care whether they are structurally sound.
I care whether their temperaments are appropriate for their intended work.
I care whether they possess the genetic potential to produce the next generation of capable, stable, functional dogs.
What I do not particularly care about is whether somebody standing in a show ring thinks my dog's head is shaped exactly the way their preferred interpretation of the standard says it should be.
That opinion does not tell me whether my dog can work.
And I refuse to pretend it does.
Let me be clear about something. I have nothing against people enjoying dog shows. If you enjoy competing to see whose dog most closely resembles a written description, have at it. Enjoy your hobby.
But stop pretending that success in that hobby automatically establishes superiority as breeding stock for a working breed. A conformation championship demonstrates success at conformation competition. It does not automatically demonstrate working ability. It does not prove stable nerves. It does not prove the presence of appropriate working drives. It does not establish that the dog can perform the purpose for which its ancestors were selectively bred.
Those things require their own evaluations.
A genuinely excellent breeding program should be able to explain WHY a dog deserves to contribute genetically to the next generation beyond the fact that it looks pretty and somebody gave it a title. And if the answer is nothing more than "because it meets the standard," I think we have a serious problem.
I am not opposed to standards.
I am opposed to standards that place cosmetic conformity above functional ability.
Give me a breed standard that begins with:
**THE DOG MUST BE CAPABLE OF PERFORMING THE JOB FOR WHICH THE BREED WAS DEVELOPED.**
Then we can discuss everything else.
For a hunting breed, start with: **The dog can hunt.**
For a herding breed: **The dog can herd.**
For a livestock guardian: **The dog can protect livestock.**
For a working protection breed: **The dog possesses the stable temperament, appropriate instincts, and physical ability necessary for protection work.**
After that, let's discuss health, structure, movement, and the physical characteristics that actually help the animal perform those jobs. Because that is what preservation breeding should mean.
Preserving the BREED.
Not simply preserving its appearance.
A working dog that cannot work is not a successful example of its breed simply because it looks the part.
And a working dog that excels at everything its breed was created to do should not be dismissed as genetically worthless because its ears, tail, proportions, or some other cosmetic characteristic fail to satisfy someone's ideal. I would rather produce a dog that can do the job without a ribbon than a dog covered in ribbons that can't do the job.
Every. Single. Time.
Because when all is said and done, I am not interested in breeding dogs to fit inside boxes created by people competing over whose dog looks the most like a bunch of words.
Unless, of course, those words begin with:
"THE DOG CAN [INSERT BREED JOB HERE]."
Then we might actually have something worth discussing.
GuardianKin Kennels
No Greater Love.
