Richard G. Beauchamp - Solving the Mysteries of Breed Type

Facing page: The brothers KishnigaDalgarth and Desert Song. (Callea photo)

Copyright 2008

An Imprint of I-5 Press
A Division of I-5 Publishing, LLC

3 Burroughs, Irvine, CA 92618 USA

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of Kennel Club Books, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in an acknowledged review.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Beauchamp, Richard G.

Solving the mysteries of breed type / by Richard G. Beauchamp. --2nd ed.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN-13: 978-1-59378-663-2

ISBN-10: 1-59378-663-8

eISBN-13: 978-1-62187-000-5

1. Dog breeds. I. Title.

SF426.B44 2007

636.7'1--dc22

2007024040

Printed in Singapore

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Dedication

This book is dedicated to the memory of my two greatest mentors
Beatrice H. Godsol and Derek Rayne
without a doubt two of the most knowledgeable,
and at the same time most humble, individuals I have
ever had the good fortune of knowing and learning from.

BEATRICE H. GODSOL

(William Gilbert photo)

DEREK GLENNON RAYNE

(Photo courtesy of Derek Rayne, Ltd.)

Acknowledgments

The content of this book owes a great deal to Allan Reznik, former editor of the monthly magazine Dogs in Canada and now editor-in-chief of Dog World and Dogs in Review. It was Allan who found merit in my approach to developing a better understanding of breed type and encouraged me to first present my material as a series of articles in Dogs in Canada.

What originally appeared there is supplemented by many of the articles Ive written for Dogs in Review and the United Kennel Clubs official publication Bloodlines. Both publications have been keenly supportive of my attempts to pass along the storehouse of knowledge I have been fortunate enough to accumulate through my many years of involvement with purebred dogs.

It would have been impossible to convey my message without the use of the many excellent photographs contained herein. A special note of appreciation is due each and every one of the photographers whose work is included. Our dog-show photographers record history as it is being made.

It is my hope that seeing the work of these photographers, including the many new photographs in this second edition, will enable the reader to better appreciate the quality of these dogs and to apply the principles discussed in the book to each of these winning dogs.

Kudos and appreciation are most certainly due my editor Andrew De Prisco, who has been able to harness the wandering attention of this writer and bring the project to fruition. Not an easy task!

And I would be completely remiss if I did not acknowledge the unceasing support and encouragement I have received from that very special person who will remain known simply as she who knows allpriceless!

Richard G. Beauchamp

Contents

Chapter 1
Essentials

Chapter 2
Pictures on a Wall

Chapter 3
Eliminating Confusion

Chapter 4
Defining the Term

Chapter 5
Common Denominators

Chapter 6
Breed Character

Chapter 7
Silhouette

Chapter 8
Head

Chapter 9
Movement

Chapter 10
Coat

Chapter 11
Breed Type Workbook

Chapter 12
The Graphing Technique

Chapter 13
The Journey Taken

A LIFE LESS ORDINARY

Strange, isnt it, the way life unfolds? Youd never expect some minor childhood illness to become a turning point in your life. But as time certainly did prove, this was the case in mine.

I was introduced to purebred dogs in the most coincidental way. At about nine years old I came down with one of those childhood diseases that run rampant through boarding schools. To tell the truth, I dont recall exactly which of the non-catastrophic afflictions it was. Lets just say it was definitely one of those catchy things that if one student got, we all got. While my classmates were being banished to the infirmary on a daily basis, I somehow managed to hold off on succumbing until I got home for the Christmas holiday. This, of course, totally destroyed my chances of doing any of the things I had planned over the past months. Instead, I was forced to idle away my vacation days in bed.

There is always one moment in childhood when the door opens and lets the future in.from Graham Greenes The Power and the Glory

It was the early 1940s, the time of World War II. My stepfather, a US naval officer serving with the Pacific Fleet, was on his way back to our home in Detroit, Michigan, on leave. He was aware of my illness and probably had been advised by my mother that I was at that stage of recovery where my boredom and restlessness were making life unbearable for her and everyone else within shouting distance. Now this was before the advent of television, so parents couldnt keep their children occupied by gluing them to what would become known as the tube (and certainly not to the even more distant PlayStations and Internet).

Think of something for him to do, I can imagine her saying, before he drives us all crazy! My stepfathers remedy for boredom was a book: Albert Payson Terhunes classic Lad: A Dog. It was the story of a Colliea Collie so brave, so noble and so endowed with human qualities that one expected him to speak at any moment (truthfully I felt he could have, had he been so inclined!). Terhune, in addition to being a breeder and exhibitor of Collies, was a longtime newspaper man and a gifted teller of tales. I was spellbound.

Terhune, his wife and the dozens of Collies they owned lived in what became for me a magical, mystical kingdom called Sunnybank, New Jersey. It was there that those super-canines he wrote about performed their feats of derring-do.

An aunt came to visit just a few days after my stepfather had arrived with book in hand. She, too, came bearing gifts for her bedridden nephew. Completely unaware that I was already lost in the world of Lad, she had decided to bring a book as well. Her choice was another volume by Terhune,