There have been a lot of conversations in the Poodle community lately that have made me think about what we really mean when we use the word “preservation”.
We spend so much time thinking about the breeding decisions in front of us that sometimes I think it’s worth looking much further ahead. What will the decisions we’re making today mean for Poodles and the people behind them 20 or 30 years from now?
Breeding isn’t black and white. We each bring different dogs and lines, experiences, and lessons with us. What looks like the right path forward for one breeder may look different for another. What should bring us together is that we’re all working toward a better future for our breed.
We’ve seen what can happen when breeders decide something is worth improving. Reds, browns and apricots have come a long way because breeders saw where improvement was needed and kept working at it generation after generation. We’re seeing that beginning to happen with parti, phantom and other naturally occurring colors too. Better dogs are being used, breeders are being more critical of what they produce, and the gap is getting smaller. To me, part of preservation is seeing where the breed can be better and doing the work to get it there.
That’s also why I think our clubs and mentorship are so important. The knowledge experienced breeders have doesn’t get passed along automatically. It happens through discussions, at shows, club meetings, friendships, disagreements, shared health information and someone taking the time to speak up.
Sometimes that person is a brand-new breeder, a Junior showing their first dog, someone who is wanting to get started, or will later on. Twenty years from now, those may be the people making decisions for a breed we are no longer here to influence.
Preservation isn’t only about what we produce in our next litter. It’s also about leaving the people who come after us with good dogs to work with, reliable information about the dogs behind them, strong clubs, knowledgeable mentors and a community where people can continue learning.
I hope 20 or 30 years from now we can look back and say we left Poodles better than we found them, and that we gave the next generation more good dogs and knowledge to work with.
That’s what preservation means to me.
-Dani Qualheim
Kvali Standard Poodles 