THIS PAGE IS A SOAPBOX, basically: a place where opinions can be aired on dog driving and Seppala matters. I'll be more than happy to consider pieces from anyone who would like to submit them, 750 to 2500 words preferred size. I'll consider anything, but I won't necessarily post everything. Those of you who were around in the "Seppala Network" days may recall that I always printed submissions as I received them without censorship; I can't promise to post everything uncut and unaltered, but I don't like to edit people's work too much. (If I think it's too hot to handle I'll just say so, rather than rewriting it to suit my own opinions.) So here's your chance to sound off!
(Looking for an earlier article? Scroll down -- links at the bottom of this page.)
"Piranhas" -- A Look Into the Future of ISSSC
ACCORDING TO DR. DOUGLAS W. WILLET, retired professor, what is now wrong with the population of sleddogs generated by the breeding of his kennel and its satellites over the past thirty years (i.e., with "Seppalas" as he defines them) is this: the ISSSC breeding ideal consists of "always breeding best-to-best" -- and there are "not enough bests in the current population." One can't help but wonder why that would be so! One man, who supposedly knew exactly what it was he was trying to do, chose the breeding stock, race-tested them and selected them, closely advised the breeding of his satellites, and finally in 2002 took the resulting stock out of AKC and into a tailor-made new registry in which everything would be done exactly according to his own handwritten specifications. One man had complete autocratic control for thirty years, and still has, for ISSSC has repeatedly demonstrated that it is a my-way-or-the-highway organisation. Now, in consultation with his Norwegian brain-trust, Chris Rose-Anderssen (a retired breeder and racer of Euroberians who has never bred Seppalas), apparently Doug feels forced to conclude that the results of his thirty years of controlled breeding just aren't good enough. He writes:
"The best sled dogs in the world are some of the so-called racing Alaskan Huskies, many of whom have all the characteristics of Seppalas [an astonishing and questionable assumption!] and are a known quantity when it comes to performance. Therefore, it makes sense to recruit some bestsfrom that population to eventually incorporate descendents into the purebred population through the 15/16th open registration policy adopted by the ISSSC and Continental Kennel Club."
These observations prefaced the presentation of a series of around forty
photos of a litter of pups chasing a snowmobile. The pups were sired, we
are told, by a dog, apparently with a registered Sepp-name and even a
title: "Arctic Sepp's Rasberry Xsd", described only as "an old line 'Indian
Dog'" and a star performer on the Seppalta racing team. Their dam is a
female, Riverdance's Frankie, from the breeding of Lanette Kimball,
Sepp-Lok kennels; Frankie is supposed to be 97.5% Seppala by ISSSC
reckoning (her pedigree shows a 29/32 Markovo-Seppala background).
I own one of Frankie's daughters, Hartum's Evita;
Evita's appearance, voice, behaviour and attitude are unlike those of any
Markovo-Seppalas in my experience, to such an extent that I am forced to
wonder whether her written pedigree accurately reflects her actual ancestry.
I do not think Evita herself is the result of a mismating; I know her breeder
to be a responsible person, and he is as distressed as I am over the way
Evita turned out. But there appears to be some question about Frankie.
I would like for those of you who read this to access the "Piranhas" slideshow on the ISSSC website, examine the series of photos (which show the litter of pups very well in a variety of close views as they chase the machine), and decide for yourselves just what it is we are seeing in this photo series. The preface describes a "probable" ancestry for Arctic-Sepp's Rasberry Xsd, so one must assume that this is a dog without a pedigree; at least, I cannot find one for him on the ISSSC pedigrees page, nor on his page on the Willett 2005 Team series. Funny; he has a registered name and even a title.
What I wonder is this: are we looking, when we view the "Piranhas" series, at the future of the ISSSC-dog? (They insist on calling it a "Seppala Siberian Sleddog" although it has nothing whatever to do with the legitimate Seppala Siberian Sleddog breed as it was chartered in 1997 in Canada by Agriculture Canada. They have no right to call it that; the name is hijacked from the project that antedated ISSSC by many years.) Let me explain what I mean.
First we must recall what happened in 2002, when ISSSC was created, along with its Continental Kennel Club sleddog registry. Two years before the creation of ISSSC, in an article in the first issue of the short-lived "Seppala News" entitled "What is a Good Definition for a Seppala?" Doug Willett stated firmly that his definition of a Seppala "requires only 95% of the lines be Seppala" and that "I would never favor lowering the cut off from 95%, because the cut off number becomes the limiting number for the population over a long period of time." Yet in setting up eligibility requirements for ISSSC/ConKC's "Seppala" registry, the cut-off point was immediately lowered to 93%; moreover, in a clear reversal of the restrictions outlined in Willett's 1992 booklet "The Sepp-Alta Siberian" the Anadyr bloodline (and other Racing Siberian Husky bloodlines) was given percentage-Seppala status, so that instead of the 0% rating of the 1992 system, ten years later Anadyr, Igloo Pak, etc., suddenly became 78-80% Seppalas.
Why such reversals of long-standing policy, that Dr. Willett had gone on record to state he "would never favor," were undertaken, is not known. A public explanation has never been offered. But at that time, the Willett team was led by two brothers, Sepp-Alta's Zeus at Windy Ridge and Sepp-Alta's Griffen at Windy Ridge, whose maternal grandam was an Anadyr-strain bitch from the Tolley kennel in Alberta. Zeus and Griffen were just 5/8 (62.5%) Markovo-Seppala in pedigree ancestry. At that time many people acquired progeny of Zeus and Griffen. Obviously the new owners, supporters of the ISSSC to a man no doubt, would want to be able to "register" those progeny with the ISSSC/ConKC registry. Under the original Willett system that would have taken another generation or two of upgrade breeding. Under the new revision of the old Willett percentage-system, Zeus and Griffen are considered 92% Seppala, close enough for their progeny out of high-percentage bitchs to be eligible for immediate registration. It's as good an explanation as any, in the absence of an official one.
If long-standing policy and practice could be so easily and lightly reversed in order to confer eligibility upon the progeny of the latest "white hope" of Sepp-Alta Kennels, what then are the implications of that? Let us recall the long succession of such "white hope" outcross bloodlines. Sno-Sepp's Elvira. Goosak's Uulov. Rocky of Alta. Griffen and Zeus. Each in its way was a manifestation of the long-standing Willett "search for an outcross" that began with the first Sepp-Alta litter in 1976, sired by a Natomah male out of Rosie of Markovo. Now almost thirty years later, we have "old-line Indian dog" Rasberry, the latest "white hope" -- a recruited "best." If Dr. Willett likes the performance of this litter, what can we expect?
One possible result might well be yet another re-definition of what is meant by "Seppala." There has been more and more anxious discussion in ISSSC of the subject of "best-to-best" and of ways and means of determining "best." Apparently some folks are not entirely satisfied with race records as an absolute determinant. I wonder whether we may not see, sooner or later, a new format of speed/endurance trials along the lines of the Siberian Evaluation Performance Project (SEPP) of the 1980s, a test in which dogs, hooked behind a high-powered Alaskan front end, that can successfully last at "X" miles an hour for "Y" miles will then be declared "Seppalas?" Such a tendency has been obvious for some time now -- more and more the talk in ISSSC circles has been about linking the Seppala name with a specific level of performance. DW's brain-trust has indicated in more than one article that he has very little regard for the McFaul/Shearer bloodline itself.
Under the present ISSSC eligibility rules, it would take a minimum of four generations for Rasberry descendants to upgrade to the 93% eligibility point; that would presuppose backcrossing to 100% mates at each successive generation, which is not altogether probable. The "Piranhas" themselves rate 48.75% (Frankie being rated at 97.5%). If subsequent generations of mates in this upgrade lineage were similar in percentage to Frankie, then the fourth generation would rate ~91.4% and it would actually take FIVE generations for the upgrade lineage to achieve full registered status. If a couple of lower-percentage, but still ConKC registered, sleddogs participated as mates (say 93-94%), then it could take the entire line SIX generations to reach the 93% eligibility mark.
That's a long time; longer, in fact, than the careers of many doglsed racers last. Are ISSSC members likely to be content to upgrade for five generations before they can call the dogs in their own tailor-made, my-way-or-the-highway registry, "registered"? I doubt it. It is much more likely that we shall see yet another revision of the system, and that it will be in the direction of conferring eligibility by a speed/endurance test, with little or no reference to actual ancestry.
So, yes then. In all probability we ARE looking at the future of the ISSSC-dog when we look at the Piranhas. I'm sorry, but when I look at these pups, all I see is a litter of Alaskan Huskies just like other litters of Alaskan Huskies that I could see in almost any racing dogyard in the Yukon, Alaska or the States. What is different or distinctive here? An "old-line Indian dog" bred to a Siberian of indeterminate pedigree who already produces progeny that look like Border Collies -- the question here, in my humble opinion, is this: what on earth does THIS have to do with Seppala Siberian Sleddogs?
Is the ISSSC really in process of becoming an Alaskan Husky registry? It looks very much as though that's a strong possibility. If that IS the case then it will soon become obvious to all that Seppala preservation forms no part of ISSSC's actual agenda. And then the entire responsibility for stewardship of the McFaul Shearer unique-Seppala bloodline will rest with the SSSD Project, the Working Canine Association of Canada, and the International Seppala Association. Well, perhaps that's not very much of a change, after all.
Previous Articles:
- Can't Get No Satisfaction? (How to get the most fun out of dogsledding...)
- "Breed the Best to the Best" (Getting a good start in sleddog sport...)
- "Breed Purity and the Seppala Siberian Sleddog" (Breed purity, landraces, and outcrossing...)
SEND COMMENTS AND SUBMISSIONS TO:
J. Jeffrey Bragg
P.O. Box 21162
Whitehorse, YT
Canada Y1A 6R1
email: jjeffrey@seppalasleddogs.com
