Chapter 13 - Heredity And Environment

The rearing of puppies and the care of dogs after their maturity, their feeding, housing, exercising, training, grooming, and exhibition, are all outside the province of this book, which seeks to discuss only the breeding of better dogs as a creative art. It is true that the breeder of dogs usually functions also as their keeper and caretaker but it is only with the breeding aspect of his task that we are here concerned.

The comparative influences of heredity and environment and their respective importance to the organism is a question that has been debated time out of mind. It is, however, a question unworthy of debate. No living organism is without heredity, else it would not be a living organism. It is never without environment at least partly conducive to its survival, else it would die.

Of course, the dog breeder is concerned not that the puppies he produces may merely survive; he desires that they shall flourish. For this, a wholly favorable environment is necessary.

It is as rational to argue whether a man can best survive without a head or without a heart as to dispute whether heredity or environment is the greater influence in the life of a dog or man or amoeba. In the figurative sense, men may be said to live without either head or heart, but in the literal sense, both are essential.

However well or ill a dog is to be reared and cared for, a prerequisite is that he must be bred and born. So bred and born, he has a heredity. This heredity is but the configuration of the genes that form the zygote. That heredity, expressing itself in a favorable environment, determines what the organism will become.

If the complex of genes is the pattern for a Chihuahua, no possible environment can turn it into a Great Dane; if the genes are those of a Greyhound, no food, grooming, or exercise, care or medication, can cause them to produce a Bulldog.

If a dog be genetically patterned for mediocrity or less, no environment can make him excellent. The converse, however, is not true. A dog may have an excellent heredity and be bred and born to be a great dog, only to have his excellence fail of its fruition through neglect, incorrect food, disease, or some other environmental factor. He may be starved or stunted or made rachitic or crippled, deformed or even killed. There is no denying the effect environment may have upon the dog. This is no effort to belittle its influence. The care that is given him, the food he eats, the security of his housing, the very kindness or disdain with which he is treated may make him or mar him, assuming that the potentiality for excellence is in his germ plasma .

But no power on earth can make him better than his genes determine that he shall be. He must be well born before he can be well reared. The breeding comes first. The Dalmatian does not change his spots, nor the Mexican Hairless his hide.

Heredity is in the long run but the genetic environment of the variety. Only as certain genes existed in the ancestors and were transmitted through them to the organism is heredity possible; and the pre-natal environment of the fetus in the dam's uterus is quite as determining of the dog's fate as any similar period of his post-natal life. He may be starved or injured or killed before he is born. Whatever may happen to him after the gametes fuse to form the zygote is chargeable to his environment. The heredity is in the two haploid sets of chromosomes, with their attendant genes, that unite to form the zygote.

It is a waste of time and effort to rear and care for dogs so ill bred that even with an optimum environment they have no possibility of development into representative specimens of their variety. It is equally a waste of time and effort to breed fine animals only to have them ruined in the rearing. The work of producing a fine dog is only half done when the right parents are bred together to produce him. The other half is in the rearing and development of what has been well bred. If the breeding has been injudicious, the good care is futile.

The correct rearing of a dog involves very largely the exercise of that rare quality known as common sense. Only ordinary intelligence is required. Well nigh anybody should be able to rear a dog if only he does not neglect or postpone the things which are all but self-evidently needful to be done.

The rearing and care of a dog involves primarily an adequate ration of food suitable to a carnivore and a supply of fresh water. It includes fit shelter and quarters. It involves the freeing of the animal from internal and external parasites, cleaning, grooming, exercise, training, and companionship; all of which are parts of the dog's environment. The prevention of disease and suitable treatment and care of the dog, if and when he is ill, are a part of correct rearing. If available prevention is used, much treatment is seldom necessary. Even that canine scourge, distemper, can now be avoided by proper prophylaxis, which any efficient veterinarian will undertake.

Many books have been written upon the theme of the care, feeding, and management of dogs, although much of the information contained in them should not be accepted too seriously. From them can be gleaned ideas, however, which can and should be utilized as the circumstances warrant. Most of these books are replete with old-wives' tales and mistaken concepts handed from one ignorant generation of dog keepers to another. Care should be exercised to extract the grain of truth from the chaff of superstition contained in them.

The correct management of a dog depends somewhat upon the individual dog, his variety, age, temperament, upon the individual owner or keeper, upon the purpose for which the dog is used or intended, and upon the facilities available for his maintenance. The keeping of a Pekingese in a one room apartment is very different from the keeping of a pack of hounds in a kennel, and that in turn is different from the shepherd's keeping of his herding dogs upon the range. The workman's modest kennel in his back yard is perforce different from the elaborate establishment in which the millionaire may house his dogs, although the dogs in the one may be as excellent, as well cared for, and as happy as the dogs in the other.

Dogs are only inferior to men in their adaptability to their environment and are likely to thrive if given an even partial chance to do so. This book does not and does not pretend to treat of the rearing, keeping, and management of dogs, but only of their breeding. This chapter is but a warning to the reader that no amount of devotion will develop an ill-bred puppy into a good dog. And also equally to warn him that no matter how excellently bred his dog may be, that excellence requires adequate rearing, care, and management for its fruition.

The warning here given is not so discouraging as it may seem. Judicious breeding implies only the bringing together of suitable mates with full consideration of their ancestry. A dog seldom fails of adequate rearing when the owner's will is to do the best he knows or can ascertain. A good dog is at once a good deal of trouble and a vast amount of joy. He can endure some neglect, but he does not deserve negligence and there is an ultimate limit to the amount of it he can stand.

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