by Randy Lawrence
(Firelight Encore Deacon)
Lynn Dee calls it the most delicate part of being a breeder: helping buyers get matched with the best possible puppy prospect for their hunting and home lives. To that end, she spends considerable time and energy and angst and technological windmill tilting doing videos of each available puppy to afford those on the waiting list a more informed perspective.
Once the materials were posted on Youtube, I was invited to have a look. The first and lasting impression was what a beautiful batch of bird doglings Annie, Nash, and Lynn Dee had produced. But when Lynn Dee asked for feedback, I had to say that I would have liked more commentary about her observations of each puppy's personality as they have gone from neonatal nubs to pointing dog prospects.
As politely and as patiently as she could speak after a maddening day of posing pups and battling backwoods internet connections, she reminded me that to do so was to suggest that as well meaning as such intel might be, to crib from mutual fund moguls, "past performance may not be indicative of future results."
Obviously, this flies in the face of the Social Media Puppy Pickers who come to the breeder's home armed with everything from tennis balls and behavioral checklists to tarot cards and Magic Eight Balls.
A long ago, seasoned birddogger friend once sat in the shade, sipping his favorite "brown water," while I puffed and preened over a weanling pointer puppy going solid on a grouse fan flicked to and fro over the lawn at the end of fly rod and line.
"You know what that proves?," he opined. "You got grouse feathers on one end of that stick and a fool on the other."
I was red-faced and justifiably deflated in the moment. Since then, I have never gone to the wing-and-string (in public) ever again.
Sigh.
But knowing better isn't always doing better. In texted conversation last night I bristled at the notion that one of the smartest, most intuitive breeders I have ever known couldn't divine something, anything from the endless hours of close attendance at the whelping box rail. Instead, her good videos of puppies in the hand and puppies at play were painstakingly narrated with pointing out color and markings. Even relative size within the litter was mostly absent from the production.
That's because Lynn Dee refuses to feed the bovine parallel to puppy poo to her buyers. For example, consider predicting potential size. She knows that the smallest male puppy in any litter might one day turn out to be a 55-lb. bruiser. The big and brash brawler who muscled the nursing line, the feed pan, and play toys, just because she was a bit bigger, may develop into the most easy-going and deferential of companions.
Likewise, Lynn Dee the former counseling psychologist, has done her research. Science has proven over and over that predicting disposition, trainability, tenacity, drive, etc. from puppy playpen markers is panning for piles of pyrite. As legendary malapropagandist Yogi Berra was wont to say, "You can look it up!"
No organized cadre of breeders has more vested in early identification of top candidates for further extensive and expensive training than the guide dog folks. And yet in study after study of generations of large test groups of puppies reared under identical conditions the results come back the same, over and over: assessment tests of very young puppies have very low predictive value for temperament or performance as adults!
That's because, according to biologist Carol Beuchat, "the tests...use(d) on a puppy aren't appropriate for an adult and vice versa." That means that whelping box play behaviors can only be what Dr. Beuchat calls "proxy traits," ones we hope will be predictive about an entirely different adult dog performance value...." but in studied practice, very seldom are.
So if what we perceive as disposition traits in puppies generally have such low reliability in predicting performance, isn't puppy picking a canine crapshoot that should discourage any thoughtful buyer?
Of course not. That's where the kind of selective breeding Lynn Dee has been doing now for eight generations of Firelight English setters kicks in. As a serious, committed breeder who has hunted widely on different species of wild game birds, Lynn Dee is objectively doing exactly what top guide dog and war dog programs do: stacking the genetic deck with what scientists call "estimated breeding values": behavioral and physical traits they value most in the field and in the home (Beuchat, 2015).
Estimated breeding values can't possibly carry much genetic clout in the slap dash practice of "breeding my good 'un to you'rn." Estimated breeding values that stick are not about isolated individuals. Their formation requires decades of hands-on hunting and living with parents, siblings, and progeny and, over and over, carefully putting elite individuals to others like them, then choosing the best and (sometimes reluctantly, even heartbreakingly) passing on the rest. That's breeding a better bird dog proven in the coverts and tied to performance, reputation, integrity - standards that thoughtful, elite breeders are continually trying to refine.
That's why, year in, year out, litter by litter, the most successful puppy pickers don't choose a puppy. They choose a breeder. More specifically, in a very real sense, they put in their candidacy for a puppy with a breeder who consistently turns out dogs that range and perform to their tastes in hunting, that are wired for how they want to live with their bird dog. Only with that background in mind do smart buyers consider the breeding pair. The ideal would be to see them in person in the field. Barring that, we can rely on video, on references, or descriptions by folks whose acumen we trust.
On the other side of the table, Lynn Dee collects deposits from potential buyers she carefully screens for being the sort of folks with whom she'd be pleased to place a puppy. The general profile of Firelight owners she seeks are experienced hunters who first of all arrange their autumns around wild bird hunting - a LOT of bird hunting. She wants people who live closely with their dogs, who insist on training their own, who use maximum savvy, patience, and woods time rather than what the late, great gun dog writer Bill Tarrant liked to call "coercive" or "friction-less" methods.
Lynn Dee forges relationships with her buyers to stay in contact throughout the dog's life, not only for cordial support, but also to court feedback about how each dog grows into its life's work, always and forever collecting information on those "estimated breeding values" she holds most dear. With Firelight producing, on average, less than two litters a year, that makes choosing her buyers as high stakes as buyers choosing a puppy...which keeps all concerned with their eyes on The Prize: companion gun dogs who hunt with intelligence, tenacity, athleticism, and style in order to produce more birds for the Gun.
Beuchat, Carol, PhD. 8/26/2015. "Genetics, Behavior, and Puppy Temperament Testing." The Institute of Canine Biology. https://www.instituteofcaninebiology.org/blog/genetics-behavior-and-puppy-temperament-testing
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