Words of Wisdom

Hellmuth Wachtel, PhD, was born in 1925. He studied agriculture at the University of Agricultural Sciences, Vienna with emphasis on animal breeding and genetics. For over forty years, he kept dogs and was a particularly involved in Agility. He is committed, above all, to the dissemination of knowledge about genetic health maintenance and improvement of the dogs and their breed populations.


He has worked for the past 25 years as as free consultant of the Austrian Kennel Club (ÖKV), is a regular contributor to "Our Dogs" magazine, and is a member of the Scientific Advisory Board Vienna Schönbrunn Zoo, and is a writer of articles and books on canine issues particularly regarding dog breeding. Here are Hellmuth's words of wisdom on June 28,2010 (posted here with his permission).

"There are good breeders and there are bad breeders. But whatever

they do, it won't change the system. And the system is wrong.

It was made when population genetics was unknown.

So today not the least inbred dogs, not the best performing dogs,

not the healthiest ones are highly rewarded, but the "best quality" dogs,

i.e. the best conforming (or overconforming) to the standard.

In some breeds these cannot breathe, run, let alone work.

Many have a short livespan. Many can not normally

whelp or even mate. This is what happens if appearance

is the Number 1 for success. Even if many try to do their best

for the dogs, this does not change a bad obsolete system."



Hellmuth Wachtel