The Disney movie,”The Miracle of the White Stallions,” tells the true story of the famed Lipizzan horses of the Spanish Riding School and their escape out of Vienna during WWII. The cast of real life characters includes General George H. Patton, who helped save them from certain extinction, Colonel Alios Podhajsky, who disobeyed orders from the Nazis by fleeing with the horses, and ordinary Austrians who helped hide and feed the horses up and down the way. How you hide a bright white horse, let alone hundreds is puzzling enough, but that so many Austrians risked their lives to save them is especially incredible. In my opinion, action the important part with the story and one I’m sure I understand. To explain it, I interject here with a personal story.
I write from Littleton, Colorado where ten years ago, the Columbine College shootings grabbed the attention of the nation while touching virtually everyone in my community. Shortly after the tragedy, the wife in the place of friend I was meeting for the first time shared a story about her horse, then the oldest equine known co.
The horse was pastured near Columbine and as compared to the tragedy was unfolding in the school, the horse experienced his own crisis: he’d slipped appropriate into a pond and couldn’t remove. Local Fire and Rescue teams were called in but recent rains had made rescue operations almost impossible. Efforts lasted for several days. The men were tired. The horse was exhausted. The horse’s owner, saddened but seeing the proverbial writing across the wall, told the crew that the horse was old and maybe it was time permit go.
The crew chief wouldn’t hear pc. He explained that his men, depressed that they’d been unable that will help the students in costly school, were going to save one particular horse because needed to – for their own use. They needed to make a difference, to function towards something bigger than themselves.
Lipizzan horses were quintessentially Austrian and woven in the tapestry of the national personal identity. The Austrians may not have been able to save themselves from the horrors around them, but they also were gonna be save these horses to make sure something of themselves would survive.
It occurs to me that every purebred dog is, figuratively speaking, a Lipizzan horse in its respective country. A dog is as much associated a people’s culture will be its language, dress and art. I’ve always known what we as individual dog owners stand to get if animal rights groups have their way, but i was struck by the larger picture – the Lipizzaner parallel – while participating at of web sites event.
“SummerSet Festival,” held adjacent to Columbine College in Littleton draws many people every summer, many who bring their dogs up. Being a vendor at the fair allows me to connect with the folks in my community – a involving neighborly “gossiping over the fence” with strangers that permits you to me fulfill their dogs while gauging their degree of awareness about dog-related the law. Let me tell you about with the dogs I met that day, some of whom I did not expect to see at a decent.
I wish you could have seen “Harley,” a Dogue de Bordeaux. The breed is a distant relative newcomer to the AKC, but been around for 600 years and, some believe,may have been developed over 2000 years ago. Also known as the “French Mastiff,” a Dogue de Bordeaux appeared in the Tom Hanks movie,”Turner & Hooch,” however the breed played a more role in France where it was beloved by both aristocracy and common man. During the French revolution, the breed nearly died out because of the wholesale slaughter of dogs associated the actual use of aristocracy. It fared equally poorly during World War II when Adolph Hitler demanded the execution involving most Dogues de Bordeaux for their devout loyalty to their owners.Were it not for that Dogues properties of butchers who used these types of drive cattle, the breed very well might have left out once again. The French love this breed which survived periods of turmoil. Do you see a parallel towards the Lipizzaners?
I was pleased notice an Australian Terrier walk by my booth, an individual favorite because I showed one into a Best of Opposite Sex award happy I showed a dog at Westminster Kennel Club.The Australian Terrier was the first Australian breed end up being recognized and shown in its native land, and seemed to be the first Australian breed to be authorized officially. The Aussies are pretty happy with this scrappy little puppies.
Imagine my surprise notice a dog with the history of being the only South African breed often would defend the homestead, puppy with a long-term history of breeding in South Africa; The boerboel nesten‘s name derives from “boer,” the Afrikaans/Dutch word for “farmer”. Boerboel, therefore, means either the “farmer’s dog” or “Boer’s dog.” By any name, this was THE all purpose utilitarian farm dog in the wild land, and several historian has noted numerous characteristics the breed explains to the that settled this untamed america.
A small number of really large dogs strolled past that stopped traffic at the festival,if only because not everyone could get by them. Most folks knew they were looking at something special, they just didn’t know what. They were Tibetan Mastiffs, considered by many to end up being basic stock from which most modern large working breeds including all mastiffs and mountain dogs, harvested. Though they are hard to see in present day Tibet, they are still bred by the nomads with the Chang-Tang plateau and live at a common altitude of 16,000 legs. The Mastiffs guarded not only the flocks of goats, sheep and yak,but the women and children, as well, and traditionally they protected the Jokhang Temple, the holiest temple for Tibetan Buddhists, The breed was so highly regarded by Tibetans that they made special collars for the dogs called Kekhors made of precious yak wool.
A Black Russian Terrier visited my stand, a stunning creature whose breed may be recognized from AKC since 2005. It was made by a breed that almost didn’t happen since most purebred dogs in Russia had been slaughtered inside Revolution and other depletion of pure stock occurred through the World War and economic disasters. Developing a new purebred dog, then, was initially daunting. Your 1930’s, a Moscow military kennel, the Red Star, started working with a native breed could part within the national security force. Some twenty breeds were for the the continuing growth of the BRT including the Airedale, large Schnauzer, the Rottweiler, the Newfoundland, the Caucasian Ovcharka and the now extinct Moscow Water Dog. By 1956, it finally reached the point where the black Russian Terrier bred true, and the Red Star Kennel released dogs to personal breeders. The first breed standard was put together by the Red Army in 1958, had been revised a few times before 1981.
As puppy show exhibitor, I get to see many breeds not generally recognized by the public, but even I have been stunned to stunned discover a Finnish Lapphund that there merely six in the entire associated with Colorado. Lapphunds are still being bred in the Lap region by the Laponian people who’ve used these dogs to herd reindeer for that very long time; Archaeological digs in Lapland have unearthed discovered of Laponian dogs estimated to back again prior to 7000 British columbia. Amazingly the skeletal remains of these ancient dogs are almost identical into the dog I saw in the fair.
These six breeds were developed purposely and with purpose to execute a unique task in the environment in which lived. These purebred dogs, when bred with their unique kind, produced another generation of puppies reliably and uniquely best for do essential job to individuals who bred them.The Lapphund was less suited to rid an Australian homestead of vermin than the Australian Terrier was to herd reindeer. If we lose these breeds, once we could from canine legislation, we lose cultural legacies, some that are in peril (Tibet). Do not think for a minute that mandatory spay/neuter laws, or breed specific legislation won’t impact the dogs I’ve just known as. The “bully breed ban” in Denver can easily mutate right ban on dogs which remotely resemble them, while i.e., the Dogue de Bordeaux. From there, could it’s all big dogs? (Black Russian Terrier). How about dogs with “snipey” muzzles? (Australian Terrier). Where can it end?
Speaking of “ends,” I conclude here with one more “culturally precious” breed you have not yet attained. I didn’t see one of these at the festival, having said that i came where you can find several of them: the Puli. I’d grown together with stories for the Pulik my mother had as pets in Hungary, and knew that because of the breed’s protective nature, German and Soviets soldiers shot them on sight in war, including my grandparents’ dog. It was years before I could find a Puli puppy in this particular country, but i finally found “Makos,” in 1978 and remain good friends with her breeder even now. I’ll forever remember the 1st time I showed my mother my new Puli – the occasion she laid eyes on one since escaping out of Hungary. She hugged the puppy and cried.