Versatility vs Specialization

This conversation started off as a response to a friend's facebook post, but I thought it was worth discussing in it's own right. My friend D. (who I have the most respect for, and who breeds great versatile dogs) made the following post:

Breeding only for flash in the show ring leads to losing correct form and functionality

Breeding only for style in herding trials leads to losing the capable ranch dog

Breeding only for speed and high drive in certain sports leads to sacrificing other things like stable temperament Now, I don't disagree with that per se, but I do think it brings up an important conversation about "specialization". Here was my response to this. "To me, this is the same classic argument we have in quarter horses.

Some people want a jack of all trades horse/dog. Some want a specialist.

A world champion cutting horse doesn't need to be a kid safe trail horse and a top race horse doesn't need cow sense. But the ranch family that want to do a little bit of everything will want a horse with a little bit of skill in many different areas. They don't need a world champion in anything.

I actually don't think either mindset is inherently wrong. It depends on what your goals are.

I like my MAS to have enough stock sense to help with the goats and still be nice sport dogs, that do a little bit of everything because I dabble in a lot of different sports. I LIKE my versatile dogs that can dabble in everything.

But when you breed for versatility, to some extent you breed for mediocrity. Very few animals are EXCELLENT at many different things. You may have a dog that can qualify in 5 different sports but is he a world team agility dog AND a top ranked herder AND a grand champion in conformation?Probably not. If you want to hit that level, you have to sacrifice certain traits in other areas usually. There's a reason we don't see straight working line aussies on the world team.

My straight working line dog is the fastest dog I own on an agility course but she will never be a top level dog because she wasn't bred to handle trial environments and the stress that goes with that. My dog that actually comes from a bloodline that WAS bred to be environmentally resilient will never have the balls to the wall speed of my working dog. The dog I bred myself who appears to be BOTH super fast and super comfortable with strange environments isn't super social with people and she'll never be able to seriously show in obedience, conformation or any event where strangers touch her. I think she will be a better agility dog than anything else I own, but much less versatile. The dog I have with the most stock sense can't focus on an outdoor agility field because he watches everything that moves on the edge of the ring and is a much more instinct driven dog. Something always "gives".

I see a lot of conformation breeders trying to claim "my dog is a grand champion AND a great sport dog" when in reality the dog is an average versatile dog that's never going to do anything truly spectacular in the sport world like win the EO.

If I were 20 yrs younger and a better agility handler, I'd be breeding to a much narrower ideal than I currently am. I KNOW I don't have the ability to handle a world team dog so I'll stay here in the middle with my dogs that are decent at a lot of stuff and not spectacular at anything at all.

I think a breed can be big enough for everyone and their goals.I'll add that when I was 20 and seriously barrel racing quarter horses, I didn't care about anything other than what numbers were on the clock, so I totally understand the obsessive sport mindset. I didn't care if a horse was bad in the trailer, hated to be tied, acted like a nutbar in the alley, couldn't be turned out with other horses, needed custom fit gear etc etc. He didn't need to be easy to live with. He needed to be fast. I was willing to sacrifice all that other stuff. Now I'm fat and middle aged and I want a safe horse that's easy to live with that I can go out and hit a few local events on. My priorities changed. Do I think people need to stop breeding psycho, high strung barrel horses? Nah. There's a whole new generation of 20yr old girls who WANT those creatures, who want the best of the best no matter how difficult they are.

The same goes for dog sports. If you're trying to win the EO, you may not care as much about a lot of temperament things that are important to weekend warriors. D. and I are both "hobby herders" and as such it's easy to forget that some REAL working herders are more quirky than any sport dog ever dreamed of being. If we want to talk about unstable temperament, that's where the worst ones are, not the sport world.

There's a huge mindset difference between someone who both herds AND shows/trials their dog (someone who herds an hour a week and has a dog with lots of other training) versus Farmer Brown with 500 acres whose dog never leaves the ranch and whose dog lives strictly outside herding cattle full time and also serving as a guard dog.

I grew up in the country and I met a lot of real herding dogs. They were sometimes flat out MEAN and had to be penned up when company came over cause those MFers hated people and would BITE for real.

The hard core working dogs have far more unstable temperaments than the hard core sport dogs ever dreamed of having.

A sport dog has to be able to function around strangers and other dogs he doesn't know. A working dog doesn't.

None of my dog have BAD temperaments but I'd say the one that's the most shady is the working line dog. She's solid as a rock at home but take her off the farm and you see the cracks in the foundation sometimes. So all of this is to say that yes, specializing for one avenue will often ruin your dogs for others. But is this inherently a bad thing? Maybe not. I don't LIKE what show breeders are doing to this breed. I really don't. Yet, they do fill a niche for the pet market. I have to respect that because I'm tweaking the breed myself to some extent by selecting for sporting ability over other traits. My dogs are versatile, but I'd like to move towards stronger sport dogs in my future and as such, that does mean breeding away from certain traits that help with versatility. We have to decide if that's a path we feel ok about.