BULL TERRIER TIMES COMPILATION

IN SEARCH OF THE TRUTH – PART ONE

The basic ingredient to achieve success in the game dog game is honesty or the understanding of truth. A dogman must first research the game through books and magazines, talking to competent dog men and listening and learning. The first ten years are spent serving your apprenticeship, then when you think you have learned enough to get by, you realise that most of what you've learned is bullshit.

I have been in sporting dogs all of my life and have been around game dogs as long as anyone. When I began matching dogs in the late seventies, there were perhaps only five people who matched dogs regularly. Of these, none are still active in the game.

After being in the game for only a short while, I quickly realised that those that were matching dogs had little or no idea about conditioning. I decided that the key to success in the game, lay in the ability to put one in top shape and so I spent the next decade learning how to put a dog in top shape.

This was a trial and error period, where I was corresponding on a daily basis with many of the top conditioners around the world. However, after a while it dawned on me that some of these people knew less than I did and I decided to put together my own keeps, using different methods for different dogs.

This was a real interesting learning experience and I won the first ten matches that I had. I was at the time, experimenting with using shots in my conditioning. But after giving it much thought I decided that I could put my dogs in much better condition without using shots.

The next ten years saw me take my conditioning to a level that was giving me quite a bit of success. Every day would be spent studying conditioning, feeding and working game dogs and it was a time of life that was to say the least enjoyable. I spent the eighties conditioning dogs constantly and it was match after match. We would match one dog and be working another for a forthcoming show. This was a time when you could walk a dog in public, before the dealers and puppy peddlers got in on the game and ruined it.

These same people, who ruined the game, soon got out of it when it became too hot to own a game dog. It was during the eighties we saw a new type of dogman enter the game. They were all experts and the emergence of the "Pit Bull News" gave them an audience of fresh victims on which they could prey and sell their wares. For newcomers to the game, this magazine was their only way of learning about the dogs and also the Stratton books. However, this type of learning created false understanding for the newcomer and they had their heads filled with all kinds of bullshit. The American Pit-bull and the working type Stafford have been bred for hundreds of years for a specific trait called gameness. This can only be achieved by breeding from game dogs only. However, in the eighties we saw the emergence of the automatic experts, who after owning a bulldog for only a week, became experts. These people had never conditioned a dog or indeed matched one. They had dogs, that were to say the least, not of game breeding, but after reading a few Pit Bull News they became experts in the field.

During the course of its being printed, the Pit Bull News, had hundreds of dogs of every breed and family advertised. I used to look through the adverts and at some of the claims made for certain dogs by their owners, and was amazed at some of these adverts. The lies and bullshit was so deep, that some of them must have near swam in it to survive. Issue after issue there were adverts for dogs, that if what was printed were true, then everything I had learned was entirely incorrect. Many of these adverts made lavish claims and sang the praises of certain dogs, and then in the same issue this same person would have dogs from a completely different family for sale. They would say how they were only selling to good caring homes, when really they couldn't have cared less where they went to. Some of these people made it look like they had been around dogs all of their lives and fresh kennels did appear in every issue. Then in the very next issue there would be some person telling you how to do something they had never actually done themselves. This all created, the now English method of breeding game dogs, where you can breed a dog that has quit to a bitch that has quit and get a game dog. Well! I'm sorry to tell you all that it doesn't work that way. When you breed from curs... then you get curs.

When I look at the pedigrees to some of the dogs we have today, I do wonder if the people that are breeding them at this time are fully sane. I see pedigrees of dogs that have more curs than game dogs. Many of the dogs that are being touted in the game today have far less desirable qualities in their pedigrees, than their owners would have you believe. Some of them, quite simply don't know the truth about their dogs and others simply don't care. As long as they get the asking price, they are quite prepared to lie, cheat and steal from newcomers. These are the people who will ruin the game. They did so in the past with their unscrupulous breeding and puppy peddling and they will do so again.

Springviews Ch. "Jim"

I was recently handed a copy of the "Bull Terrier Times" and could see that a lot of what was being written was less than true. We have people who are painting themselves out to be something that they are not. These same people will usually have pups to sell at extortionate prices and to the newcomer this can create a real interesting picture. The newcomer listens with great interest and gets fed a load of bullshit and lies. This ultimately leads to disenchantment and confusion and many of the new dog men become like these so-called experts. In this way every generation creates some of these bullshit dog men, who then go out into the game trying to find someone to listen to their nonsense. The dog game has always had these people and I've seen so many come and go over the years. A few months ago, a friend of mine from the USA was reading a few Pit Bull News that I had sent him. He told me that it must be really good over here to have so many bloodlines to choose from and that some of the adverts were obviously written by dedicated dog men, who must really like to match their dogs, since most made claims about their dogs and their ancestors records. I later read the same issue and not one single person in the magazine was still involved in the game. Most of them had moved out as soon as they could no longer find a ready market for their wares. Sadly, many of these same dedicated dog men had their dogs spayed, neutered, etc. when the new laws were made. This in itself told me plenty about the true qualities of the so-called big time game dog breeders of England.

I've been lucky enough to have seen some of the great dogs and to have owned one or two that were worth feeding, and also a few that were not. In this time I was privileged to meet some real genuine honest dog men and a few that were as welcome as the plague. Over the next few issues I shall be writing a few stories about some of these dogs and their owners and will try and help newcomers to the game. What I'll write may or may not please you. However, it will be the truth and factual and will put an end to the lies and deceit that many use to sell their pups in the game today.

Some years ago, a messer by the name of Harrison published a book on game dogs and in this book he dedicated several pages to some of my own dogs. It puzzled me, how a person that had never matched a dog, owned a game dog, or had never met me or seen any of my dogs could write so much bullshit about my dogs. This is the type of person who has ruined the game, with his foolish understanding and the rubbish that he wrote giving the newcomer a false understanding. He wrote how I had euthanized my "Popeye" dog after he had quit in a roll, even though he had produced eight champions, out of a handful of bitches. This he said had shocked a lot of dog men. Well!, no-one was more shocked to learn this than myself, as the dog was taken from my yard along with my "Minstral" dog by the Police and RSPCA and killed. He also wrote how my "Josie" bitch had won three easy matches and lost her fourth when she met a proper dog. Well! "Josie" won three matches and was open to match for three years. In each of her matches she gave weight and went into winning bitches and travelled away from home. I matched her at thirty three pounds and she was matched at thirty seven for her fourth match by a friend and was dead game. In the four and a half years that she lived, she had four matches and two litters of pups, a hell of a lot in such a short time.

He also said how my Champion "Bouncer" dog won three easy matches, and then lost to "Fat and Frantic". Well once again he was wrong. "Bouncer" won three matches and was open for several years. He never lost and was a real deep game dog and a sibling to my Champion "Blackshine" who also won three. The "Oneye" dog that Harrison wrote about won three times, all against winning dogs. He won over a two-time winner on his first time out and then beat the highly regarded College Boys Champion "Sledge" a one-time winner. For his championship he stopped the four times winner College Boys Champion "Dutch", making him quit on his line.

In fact, every dog of mine that he wrote about in his book was wrong and this is explainable when you realise that he'd never owned a game bred dog, much less owned one. Its people like this that if left to go unchallenged, create so much bullshit and nonsense with their foolishness and idiotic ideas. Commonsense tells you that if you want your car mended or want to know about fishing, then you ask either a car mechanic or a fisherman. The same applies to game dogs. You should ask someone who knows about game dogs. Yours in the game -

Springview Bulldogs

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