The above is a quote from Deborah Simmons in a recent discussion on Facebook, started by a new Silken owner having to deal with nasty remarks from a Whippet breeder who questioned why new breeds are created.

That sentence is such a wonderful statement! A breed that did not exist, and then it was created and now it does! It is not more complicated than that!

So why are people getting upset and nasty about something so natural in human history as changing animals through breeding choices? We have been doing it for millennia!

It reminded me of something I wrote on a much earlier version of my site, May 18, 2000, to be exact. Somehow my thinking has not changed since then, although the situation for the Silken Windhound — which was of course the basis for my reaction that day in May 2000, is considerably better now.

But there are still people being nasty about a new breed, a non recognized breed and a breed that is probably not really a breed at all. And all that jazz that comes with it when people are on a rant…

Written May 18, 2000

Why we make new breeds

Exploration, invention and change is inevitably in every field Humankind is taking an interest in.We have a history of husbandry that goes back thousands of years.There have always been Change, sometimes improvements, sometimes the opposite. But it is a very human thing, to want to change, make better or just see what happens.

This very fact is what enables us to sit by our computers and talk to each other over the Internet.

And few things in this universe are so good they can’t be better.

I have never understood why dogs should fall under a very special universial law apart from practically every other aspect of human life and behaviour. The law of Eternal Stagnation.

Life is Change. A society in stagnation is a society in death-throes.
The Dog community is a small society in itself. Why should we condemn it to stagnation, and what right do we have to forbid the breeders of today as well as the future, to follow the natural instincts of our own species? Can you honestly say our generation and the generation just before us, are so superior that no one else can make anything better than us?

Humankind is not perfect. The World is not a perfect place.
I can’t see anything “perfect” with the current number of dog breeds.

But I know my soul will wither and die in a world that has come to a standstill. And it is my belief that people who are trying to stifle change and development, will simply be run over in the end.

By the torrents of Life.