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Whatever happened to Baby Blue? (My apologies to the scriptwriter of "Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?")

I have just read perhaps the millionth letter from a beginning breeder that begins, "Why won't breeders sell me a top show puppy? I have the money, and I promise I will show her."

Way back in the dark ages, I could get a dog to a show only rarely. I was always going off on field expeditions to the far corners of the earth, trips lasting months at a time. It was something of a miracle if I happened to be home when I could get to a show and the beastie in question actually had some hair, wasn't still on lease (I occasionally leased dogs out while I was gone), or was old enough to be shown. So in those days I sold many of my very best show puppies -- and pointed adults as well -- to others who promised to show them. The other day I went through some of my old records and totaled up the number of these show prospects that were actually shown by their new owners, and was shocked by how very few had been shown at even ONE SINGLE SHOW after having been sold to newer breeders. This was especially disturbing when I looked at the records of the adult, POINTED Shelties I had sold to newer fanciers.

I reflected for some time on these good dogs. Most of them I had sold only to get them shown. There was the flashy small bi-blue bitch with a specialty reserve who faded from my knowledge after that win. There was perhaps the best male I had ever bred, sold at one year and in huge coat, who went 3,000 miles away to a "great show home." His new owner, who had been calling and writing several times a week trying to persuade me what a good show home she would be for this fellow, became silent as soon as the dog was shipped to her. When I finally got her on the phone a month later, I was told, "Oh, he's dead. He was killed by my husband backing over him." This male was co-owned, so he could not have been sold without my signature (unless, of course, that was forged). I sometimes wonder if this beautiful boy was, in fact, dead at all, or if instead he had been conveniently given a new identity. An elegant, proven blue male with points, melted out of sight. Three months after the sale, the breeder who bought this fellow put me off when I said I wanted to use him at stud. Finally she admitted reluctantly that she no longer had him, but she "just couldn't remember" where she had placed him. I never located him again. One of my best bitches, leased to a newly established breeder while I was out of the country, was given away while I was gone, because the woman said her program had "suddenly changed direction," and she could not remember who the people were who had taken my girl.

It doesn't take very many experiences like these to give a breeder the cold chills when a novice begins pleading for a "really, really good one."

You can bet your Mason-Pearson that I did some digging to find out why these good ones had been dumped out of sight. In many cases, I found that the answer was simple. The novice was thrilled with the new dog's quality until she showed him or her to the locals. The dog had then been criticized by local established breeders, and the novice didn't have the courage to stand up to them -- OR, the knowledge to look them right in the eyes and say, "What do you mean, he has straight shoulders? You are wrong." I guess these novices expected the locals to be wowed by the new dogs, and that they would all fall at her feet in rapture. If you expect this to happen, new breeder, think again. This is SHOW BIZ, folks. Showing activity is a RIVALRY thing, not a family picnic. Unfortunately, most people cannot rise above their own feelings of "I am here in her own club, working in the same bloodline, and yet this stupid person bought from someone else, not from me." Sour grapes are almost universal. And most novices aren't equipped with enough knowledge and enough moxie to say, "I can evaluate this dog myself, thank you." Many novices will buy dog after dog after dog, and in five or even ten years, will be just about where they began, having discarded some very, very good ones -- unless they go with the flow and buy locally so the dog -- and the ego -- will get some positive feedback from the locals.

A word to the wise: if you are buying a show prospect and you are so shaky on knowing what is good quality that you are going to break under criticism, you aren't ready for a show prospect. If you do buy a show prospect and the dog isn't satisfactory, send the dog back to the breeder at once.

This brings me to Baby Blue. One of a litter of six sired by Am/Can Ch. Banchory Formal Notice, "Bunny" was sold to someone who had been in Shelties a little more than two years, who had visited my kennel often during the past year, had vast financial resources, a stunning brand-new kennel, and seeming boundless dedication to the breed and enthusiasm for showing. When I took the photograph above, Bunny was eleven months old, dripping in coat. She was elegant, with the smoothest lean skull, lovely eye and expression, natural ears, good bite, correct tail carriage, and nonstop showmanship. A little one, just under 14", she was as you see her here: not perfect, but a really, really good one. After the day of this photograph, Bunny vanished into thin air. Her owners left town suddenly, and though I tried for a long time to find them so I could offer to buy Bunny back, I never saw or heard of them -- or her -- again.

Of course, things over which people have no control often happen. A person's life may fall apart because of divorce, health problems, legal problems, work overload, financial reverses, the need to provide care and support for others, or any of a number of events of higher priority than showing a dog. The dog may creep oversize or develop some other problem. A person may lose interest in the dog fancy. These are realities, not crimes.

The heartbreak comes when the new owner simply discards that really, really good Sheltie, a dog much loved by her breeder, the embodiment of many hard-dreamed dreams. It's a black thing when the novice does not even bother to offer the dog back to the breeder who raised her with love and sold her with great reluctance and after much persuasion. What chills me is that the novice may deliberately prevent the breeder from being reunited with the dog -- perhaps out of shame that she no longer wants the dog she begged the breeder to sell to her.

So, I ask you all quite seriously: Whatever happened to Clan Duncan Baby Blue? I don't know, and probably will never know. As I re-enter the fancy with puppies of my own breeding, I ask myself: Will the occasional really, really good one be available to a "show" home with someone starting out in the breed? I remember Bunny and the others, and I simply do not know.

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