Tuesday, September 20, 2011

Dances With Ducks

To train a Toller, you start like this, and then you put the duck in a dress, and then...

Over on her blog, Jemima Harrison is talking about "Nova Scotia Duck Tolling Retrievers."  It seems a fellow in Germany (yes, he's on the wrong continent) has decided he is going to "save" this working breed by... wait for it.... wait for it.... not working them and instead outcrossing them to an Australian Shepherd (a dog invented recently in North America, not Australia, and which is not a retriever).

All pretty amusing, and nothing more would be said about it by me except that I just posted about the "Just So" tale told about Honey Badgers and Honey Guide birds.

Is there a similar story about Tollers? There is, and to find it one need only turn to a the web site of Canada's chapter of Ducks Unlimited -- the Canadian branch of the largest organization of duck hunters in the world, which has a membership that dwarfs that of the Sierra Club, Defenders of Wildlife and the National Audubon Society combined.

And what does Ducks Unlimited, Canada say about the "Nova Scotia Duck Tolling Retriever"?

Well to start with, they note that a lot of the people writing retriever histories are pretty strange pretenders and plagiarists.  As the lead paragraph notes,

You can call them duck dogs, sporting dogs, gun dogs, water dogs or hunting dogs. As our nation’s darlings, all retrievers share highly commendable attributes including unparalleled ability in the water, unflinching loyalty and a natural instinct to serve as devoted waterfowling companions.

However their individual breed histories can be just as varied as the names they’re categorized under and much more controversial. Distinguished dog author and retriever expert Richard A. Wolters credits this in part to the many “strange men” in the dog writing profession during the nineteenth century who left a trail of misinformation and to their predecessors who neglected to do their own research.

Right. Pretty well said that. And, to put a point on it, "doing your own research" when it comes to working gun dogs is not done by simply consulting Wikipedia; it's done under a gun in the field with a string of decoys or a covey of birds in front of you. This is Working Gun Dogs 101, and it's a variation on "Working Herding Dogs 101," "Working Terriers 101," and "Working Running and Pulling Dogs 101."

So after consulting with all the experts on Canadian dogs and working retrievers in particular (the Canadian Kennel Club, the North American Hunting Retriever Association, the Canadian Association of Pet Dog Trainers, and various regional clubs and associations) what does Duck Unlimited, Canada say about the origins of the "Nova Scotia Duck Tolling Retriever"?

Well it's sounds (dare I say it?) like the typical poppycock canine origins story so often repeated by dog peddlers who "invent" a breed by crossing two or three other dogs together.  The Ducks Unlimited site says:

Bred specifically to lure ducks using a trick pioneered by foxes, the Toller’s technique was discovered in Maryland when a hunter watched a group of ducks swim toward a fox playing in the bushes. Once the ducks were close to shore, a second fox waiting in ambush claimed the unsuspecting prey.

What??! Discovered in Maryland? Really? What was discovered in Maryland? I am confused.

You see I actually hunt in Maryland, and in this state we aren't, for the most part, looking for "duck dancing dogs."

In Maryland, the land of many ducks and much duck shooting, we have Chesapeake Bay Retrievers, Curly-coated Retrievers, Labrador Retrievers of the black, golden and chocolate variety, Flat-coated Retrievers, and the wreckage known as the Golden Retriever, to say nothing of a host of working spaniels and even a few working Poodles.

But Tollers? Duck Dancers? Sure, I have no doubt there are a few working dogs of this breed about, but they are not what we are typically using in the field here in Maryland. And that is true everywhere. "Tollers" are not a breed that has taken the world by storm like Labradors have, and this despite being smaller and therefore, on the surface at least, fitting much more easily into a suburban hunter's lifestyle.

But I have other questions and observations about the Toller history. You see if someone somewhere did see a fox dancing up ducks and then pouncing on them from the shore (and I would like to see that!) how did they then teach the dog to do this trick? Did the dog read it in a manual? Was the dog shown a slow-motion video tape?

But wait, there's more! In the article on the Ducks Unlimited web site (an article taken from their magazine and mailed to their entire membership) we are told, as we are told on so many Toller web sites and in so many Toller articles, that the Toller "looks like a fox" and therefore fools ducks into approaching.

Looks like a fox? It does? Since when?

For starters, a fox has erect ears (always) and a Toller has folded over ears (always). That's a pretty basic difference, eh?

Second, a fox weighs all of 12-15 pounds, on average and I know fox, especially Maryland fox!

And how big is a Toller? Try 40 pounds (i.e. 35-50 pounds depending on the sex and the individual).

Looks like a fox? Only if your birds are very blind and very dumb.

In fact the Toller does not look like a fox at all -- the head is different, the body shape is different, the tail is different, the size is different, and the movement is different.

A Toller looks like a small field version Golden Retriever crossed to a Brittany Spaniel. And guess what? There's some reason for that!

None of this is to denigrate the working abilities of the Toller.   

In fact, I have nothing bad to say about Tollers at all, and that includes Toller health. 

What, exactly, is the problem with Toller health and the health of the dogs owned by any specific kennel that is outbreeding on its Toller line?

You see, in the world of working dogs we do not outbreed for theory.  We outbreed because we have a line of dogs we actually own and hunt, and then we look for a problem to fix or a feature to develop. If you own a line of Tollers with health problems, you would normally look for other Toller lines that did not have that problem. An outcross? Sure, if you need to. I have no hangup about doing an outcross! But do you need to? In fact, in the world of Tollers I am not sure the need has yet been demonstrated. But let's say it has. Let's say that the Toller world is in desperate need of an outcross. How would we go about doing that outcross for maximum health impact in the breed?

And the answer, of course, is that you simply do it, shut up about it, and fill out the Kennel Club registration card as if it had never been done. Is this a lie? Of course, but no more a lie than "this dog breed is really healthy and is worthy of your dollar," which has been the Kennel Club's song and dance for the last 50 years despite all empirical evidence to the contrary.

And does this kind of thing happen?

Only all the time, and it has been happening since the beginning, which is why "field" versions of so many Kennel Club dogs look so different from their "show ring" counterparts. The field people are all wink-wink, nudge-nudge, with sly matings of Flat-coats to working Black Labs, and Boykin Spaniels to Field Spaniels, to name just two obvious crosses.

So is the biggest threat to Tollers inbreeding?

No, probably not. The biggest threat to Tollers is that people are unclear on a simple concept, which is that for a dog to have working abilities, it has to be worked, and for any breed to retain working abilities it has to be bred worker-to-worker by people who actually work them.

Is that being done with Tollers? Yes, at least some of the time.

But the show ring bell beckons, and like so many hunting dogs, the Toller is being lured to the tar pit of the Kennel Club by theorists and rosette chasers.

Danger, Will Robinson, Danger!!
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