Quote:
Jack was an import from England (I believe that's where he's from but don't quote me),
Yes, Jack (Findjan's Outrage) was an English import--and you can quote me.
Quote:
I'm not going to lie I personally don't like to see uncropped dogs get a CH. and I wish they would make it a disqualifying fault. I believe if Nancy knew then what she knows today she probably wouldn't have done it on the off chance she could lose her rights to crop and dock future dogs. Just my opinion she's never come out and said that.
Well G-R the possiblity of the AKC allowing any standard to be opened and rewritten to make something like uncropped ears a disqualification is slim to none Other breeds have approached the subject and the Doberman Standard Committee has raised the question (sort of...not directly but via back doors so to speak). AKC has made it very clear that they will not allow for a standard which disqualifies a dog for a natural part of it's anatomy.
In all probability the AKC would insist on a rewrite of the Doberman standard if the club opened the standard (as has been suggested) to clarify that sentence that reads "Ears normally cropped" That came up a few years back when DPCA was about to open the standard to change some things--it did not sit well with the membership and the changes were not approved and the standard was not opened. But later it became apparant from what the AKC had done with other cropped breeds who opened the standard to make changs that they also had to include a disciption of an uncropped ears if the standard did not already do this.
The changes in attitude about cropping were already in the wind when Nancy imported Jack--England had never allowed cropping, Scandanavia didn't allow cropping but did allow cropped imports to be shown. Most of Australia did not allow cropping but at least one of the states did (and no longer does). Germany was soon to change its standard so that cropped dogs couldn't be shown in Germany. You should ask her if she would choose to show and finish an uncropped dog again. That first and for some time only uncropped AKC champion did not create the begining of the no crop movement in this country. In the 1960's there were people who thought that cropping puppies was just awful. I definitly know--talked to (or got screamed at by) a whole lot of them over the years
I have never had anything except cropped dogs (and docked dogs and dogs whose dew-claws were removed). And that's what I would always choose to have BUT--I personally don't think natural ears or an undocked tail make a Doberman any less of a Dobeman. So if my best friend or the guy down the street wants to have an uncropped dog--it's fine with me. And if they want to show them in the conformation ring against my cropped dogs--thats OK with me too--and if their dogs are better than mine--they should win.
The standard, as it was when I brought home my first Dobe had a description of both the cropped and uncropped ear--as shocking as that may be.
I'm for choice! So I think (as Rosemary does) that the UKC policy is perfectly reasonable and I suspect that it's not far from what the AKC will ultimately make their policy as well.
In the meantime AKC isn't going to approve any standard with an out and out DQ for uncropped ears and the DPCA isn't going to try to buck that by opening the standard to try to make a DQ for uncropped ears.