We had the pleasure to interview Ms. Brooks and we are happy about what she told us because this is exactly the same feeling we have.
It's all about "Form & Function" and this is our breeding philosophy, so we like to think she recognized in our Willow one of the few working show dogs that entered the ring that day.
Before we started this interview she said she's not popular in her country and was not going to be popular here either, but critics coming from a long time breeder and expert like her can only be welcome and have to be taken into consideration by even the most experienced breeders.
Some breeders were not satisfied about the results of theyr dogs especially of those in Champion class, but I think that reading this interview she explains the reasons why she decided to put up some dogs instead of others.
Some breeders complained that was not a sled dog race but a dog show, my advice is that they go and read again our breed standard, and especially the part that we chose as our motto, and that says "Important. In judging Malamutes, function as a sledge dog for heavy freighting in the Arctic must be given consideration above all else".
We wish as many handlers and judges as possible will read this interview to remember that it is fundamental to go into the ring with a well exercised and muscled dog, never too heavy and fat, because our breed standard says that it is most important that the dog can perform its function.
Many breeders and handlers prefer heavy, fat dogs, and this may also be dued to judging criteria. I have been told many times by pro handlers that my dogs are too thin and they would be much better with a few more Kilos. I think if they say so there must be a reason, and that is probably dued to the fact that a fat dog has probably got more chance to win in our rings.
So, in order to offer a good contrinbution to the breed, it is important that also our judges start looking at malamutes in the right perspective, which is of course that of a nice, strong and well built show dog, but one that can still perform its function.
This is really "Important" to cite the standard, at least so long as we want to keep on breeding the Working Alaskan Malamute and not the European Malamute Show Dog.
Which may as well be another breed.....
And now let's go on with the interview.
"Ms. Brooks what do you think about the overall quality of the dogs you judged today ?"
"My thougts about it are that most of this dogs are just bred for shows. Because there are so many of them overdone and overweight, that they can win in our breed shows but they could not function as sledge dogs.
You need a lighter footed dog that is not cumbersome or overdone. And I was very surprised how very few working dogs were in this show.
I mean the dogs were beautiful, they were lovely, they were show dogs.
But as for movement, lightness on theyr feet, good topline, the way they carried themeslves on theyr feet, that was a small majority."
"What about the conformation of the dogs. In which areas you think there's still the more work to be done ?"
"Well I think you shoud exercise them more. I liked the condition of the bitches a lot better than the condition of the dogs, and I think what you have to do is slim them down, I mean if you slim them down they're not gonna have that bulkyness, and I think that finally you're gonna have healthier dogs.
And what you have to do is you have to be more consistent, you know you can't keep breeding big to big to big to big.
And you have to work on some details, you got big dogs with short toes.
I found in the young dog class, you have a lot of bad bites, there were only three puppies that had good bites, you never had that before, I don't know where you're bringing it in, but you're getting bad bites, they were over or undershot, and I think you had more long coats than I've seen in a long while.
But I think that the soundness coming and going was good, I didn't see faulty movements, they were confortably moving with themselves, and if they were a lot lighter they would be a lot more confortably moving with themselves.
They were pounding around the ring, heating up faster, and just by the end of the show that black dog kept going and going and going, for all the time he was shown. One of the bigger dogs he would have never ended up there, he would have just you know.....warmed up, got tired."
"Were you happier about the bitches or the dogs ?"
"I saw some very pretty puppies. Different styles but I liked them.
There were two puppies that I liked they had no training. They're wasting theyr money bringing them in a ring, especially in a specialty, you know this is no training class, and you know with 80 dogs and the time that I have to spend on them, it exhasut you, to pick dogs up and try to hold them, and the people do nothing.
"I understand you were not so happy about the way most dogs were handled"
That's right, too much baiting.
You bait your dogs and you free stack them.
You have to teach them how to stack by touching each foot, that's why the dogs were leery of me when I went behind, because they're just free stacked and I'm used to touch a dog pushing on his back, touching him underneath, and if you did that yourself consistently they wouldn't care who is behind them; but they keep feeding the dog and when I go behind them they say "you're not gonna get my food" and they snap.
One dog I think he would have snapped anyway, I thought that was his character, but the black dog in champions class that I didn't put up I don't think he would have done that if he was not free stacked and shoven food into his mouth, because he really could have bit me if he wanted to, he didn't touch me.
If you're gonna have to push the dog out to punish the handler, then we're gonna have to do that, because we can't take that.
So you have to remember that you bait to reward, so please keep the bait out the dog's mouth when the judge is coming to watch theyr head, because that's the first place they're going to touch, they want to see the head, open the mouth, and the dog is gonna think "she's not gonna take my food" and will snap. So you have to learn how to use your bait.
"Anyway beside that were you satisfied about the temperaments you found ?"
"Yes, I was."
"Do you think the genetic pool we are working on is good enough or you think that it may still be useful to import new dogs from US ?"
"I think you gonna have to do some outcrosses, you know.... thicks, thins.... and if you want to improve it our standards does say dark eyes are preferred. You got a lot of light eyes.
We are supposed to have a scissor bite, I don't know where the dogs are getting this tight scissors bite, but you're gonna have to stay away from certain lines.
And you had a lot of soft coats and you gonna have to find where they're coming from and then breed away from that also.
But I think that for people that want to go out they want to talk to exporters that they can trust, because there's too much money involved and there's too many people that get greedy and they are selling dogs that they shouldn't be selling because they're selling you problems.
I will be truthful with you, I have nothing to loose and nothing to gain you know, and the thing is you don't want bring in stuff you don't have. You don't want to bring in epilepsy, you don't want to bring in coat-funk....