FORUM CIOBĂNEȘTI ROMÂNEȘTI

Hi everybody,

I am Anita DeBruin and I got my first mioritic in 2003 from Constantin Bulgaru. I have been breeding since more than 30 years (collies, shelties and poodles) and I train service dogs for diabetes, epilepsy, MS, Alzheimer, people in wheelchars, children with autism. I have seen and experienced what we breeders can do to a breed in 6 - 9 generations. And I want to learn, I read and study all there is to know about my passion: dogs. Last weekend I was in Wels and I was surprised at Barbara Fallent's male mioritic behavior. It made me wonder what will happen to the mioritic in the next ten years or so. Therefore i posted on FB a whole story with my thoughts and worries. I want to share them with you, please give me your comments, I love to learn what makes people tic:-)

Movie Wels on FB
If I would have tried groups my 3 mioritics would have growled the other dogs and handlers out of the ring. Constantin Bulgaru always said: mioritics are body-guards !!! And yes, I never felt more secure than travelling with a mioritic on my back seat.

On the other hand Barbara's dogs show us that some mioritics adjust to being show dogs. From a Dutch point of view that is good but what does the Romanian farmer say about this?

Is it good for any breed to adjust to 'day to day hectic lifestyle in the city' or do we lose the specific breed qualities? In doing so will all breeds become 'coach potatoes' ??? Do we select on working abilities or house dog qualities?

I breed and select my smooth and rough collies on working abilities, but working means service dog qualities, not herding/bringing cows and bulls to the market.

And collies were recognized by FCI more than a century ago. But the mioritic only recently and therefore breeders are able to make decisions now - which will have an influence on the breed in the future !!!

Are breeders breeding to make more mioritics or are breeders breeding for making better mioritics? And what is a great mioritic? A dog guarding animals and its people, or a dog being able to take the metro at rush hour?

Ion Albiter asked me on FB: " mioritics are body-guards"... And when did you see a body-guard "guarding" his "VIP" without reason? What danger is for you in dog-show ring ???

My answer: My mioritics are reacting to my state of mind, in the ring I am (like everybody else) nervous. Dogs pick up that feeling and react to that: she is 'afraid' we don't know yet for what, but make sure nothing is going to happen to her. Like the diabetic alert dog who is smelling a different scent and is reacting to that. Only a collie barks to its owner and the mioritic is barking / growling to anybody coming close to its owner. I have seen lots of guard dogs doing the same in the ring and I think it is perfectly ok afterall they were bred to guard.

Another thought crossed my mind: I am from Friesland and we are world famous for our Frisian horses. But the best ones are living in USA and Russia, not in Friesland. And the Friesian farmers hardly make enough money to buy back some of the best genepool horses. I got my first mioritic 10 years ago in Botosani but today there are breeders of mioritics in Norway, Austria and more countries. They will change the breed in a certain direction. Breeding is always subjective, like judging:-)

Therefore it would be interesting to hear from you breeders, which direction you want to go with the mioritics. And are you aware that your mioritics will change as a breed in foreign countries?

Also: in Friesland we have two dog breeds, the Stabyhoun which you find a lot in Danmark and Scandinavia because it is a popular gundog. We also have the Wetterhoun which is almost extinct, the dog is even on the list of endangered species. Why did the Wetterhoun not really surfive? Because it is a farmers dog, not a house dog. It has a mind of its own, it is not classified as a very obedient dog, but it will kill all rats and moles at the farm.

Please let me hear your thoughts, because it is a very difficult subject, and not one answer is right - only a lot of compromises might give an answer !!!

ciao Anita

Wow, nice new entry on our forum!
Nice to meet you, Anita and welcome! I agree with everything you said about mioritics and I am so glad that a foreigner is thinking the same way as I do.
My grandfather was a shepherd. He had over 300 sheep and lots of mioritics to help him guard the sheep against wolves. That's where I got my passion from, tho I was just a kid. But all that I have learned from my grandpa is that the mioritic is not just a guard dog... it's the BEST guard dog.
When I met the breeder of my mioritic (he was stolen in the meantime, but I still hope tofind him) I was sure that my future mioritic has a good genepool. I was looking for good temper, power, strong will, to be brave and fearless. I got him exactly the way I wanted him. He was brave but he also knew that in dog shows he has to be calm and submissive. The judges loved him and he was Romanian Junior Champion. I was not looking for good looks, but he had them, lol
I am glad to have you here, you spoke my mind and I totally agree with you. I don't know where mioritics are going to.. But sure I've seen fearfull mioritics in the show rings, with their tails under their bellies. Or mioritics with their fur groomed like they were bichons or bobtails..
I don't know Barbara's dogs and how they react on their property. I've met some of her dogs in the ring and they seem balanced, nothing wrong with that. It's not ok to be agressive in the ring, it's a beauty contest, afterall, not a working contest. My dog loved dogshows, it was so easy to handle him... but everything changed on his property, if you understand what I'm trying to say.
I'm afraid that mioritics will have two varieties: working dogs and show dogs, just like german shepherds or hunting dogs. I don't know if that is good or bad for the mioritic, but I sure don't want to find out. I like the mioritic just the way he was, when my grandpa was alive... But we still have breeders that breed real mioritics, and this thing gives me hope.

Where can we see your mioritics? I'm really curious And I hope we'll hear from you again, soon.
Cheers!

Hi Anita,

First, welcome to the forum Looking forward to a fruitful debate on the above mentioned topics.

Now, secondly, although I'm not a Mioritic breeder, I have to agree with your comments, all around the world the dogs are transformed into show muppets without character. The only differences being the groups,.....so potential customers can choose if they want big and fluffy, small, athletic or lazy dogs. All having the same character, shadows of the dogs they have once been, and unfortunately the Mioritcs are following the same path to a certain limit. As Lilith said, we are having show dogs ( increasing) and working dogs (decreasing). As myself and my colleagues were discussing on a different topic, the biggest enemy of our beloved breed are the ring Judges as they are the ones accepting and looking for distinguishing element,influencing the standards, therefore slowly but surely the Mioritic seen in shows are looking more like fur balls that you just want to hug and lay your head on. It has reached at the point that the working, rough ones are treated and seen like muds.

Now on the other side, we are having breeders that are looking for substance as-well, so you can still find proper Mioritcs that have the willingness, power and heart the old ones had. After all they are all livestock guardians, and even in Kennels, Mioritics are still doing their job.

Last but not least, due to the financial crisis we are currently experiencing, the number of sheep flocks has increased, therefore you can see very often Mioritics blending in between the sheeps, just waiting for that opportunity, for that moment when a predator will challenge his instincts, his skills and his limits. Even some of our colleagues from the forum, that breed very high quality Mioritics, have sheep at home that need to be protected and they are looking to breed only the most correct, healthy and strong dogs that can do the cat walk in a ring and fight an intruder at home.
Thanks to them, the future is still bright for the Mioritic shepherds.



They are plenty to be discussed on this subject, and will leave my colleagues to add their touch of experience to this matter.

Once again, welcome to our forum and I'm pleased to see that you are looking for working dogs as-well.

Best wishes

Hi,
Thank you for your respons!

In Wels the judge told me Armani is too small. But the standard says minimum 48 cm and he is 57cm. So this judge wants males to be big and therefore he thinks Armani is small. Now if we all would listen to this judge we would start breeding giant poodles, very close or bigger to the maximum of the standard. Suddenly the standard starts to live a life of its own, for sure different than how it original was meant to be. This is sometimes a real threat to a breed since everybody wants to win in the ring and judges train others (breeders mostly) to become judges and breed specialists.

Another thing Dutch people expect dogs to not bark (since we live on top of each other), be always friendly (we live with 17 million people in a very small country), loves strangers of all colours / races (we are a multi-culti country) and everybody can walk in and out of the property (we don’t even close our curtains at night so everybody is welcome at all times). There must be a difference already between a breeder who breeds mioritics in the city of Bucarest or at a farm outside Suceava, right?

Recently people from outside Romania are also breeding mioritics. That would have never happened if FCI would not have recognized the breed. I sometimes even think (just for a minute or so) it might be a good thing that the Romanian Raven shepherd is not recognised by FCI as of yet?
FCI didn’t do a lot of good to dogs in the last century unfortunately it is mainly interested in making money. In Holland if you rescue a dog from a shelter and you tell FCI the chip number they give you the pedigree so you can – yes that’s right - breed!

To make it even more complicated FCI has or FCI recognised breeding clubs have in every country different rules. Like: you have to test on genetic diseases like HD, CEA, PRA or dogs must have won twice a show before you get permission to breed. Sometimes (breed) judges will decide if the dog may or may not be bred. A very interesting thing since totally ugly dogs can produce a terrific litter because genetics are often more important than how the dogs look themselves.
I always put health first in my collie and sheltie breeding program therefore I lost some breed qualities.

Are we/you aware that (y)our mioritic will change as a breed in foreign countries because of environment, society and FCI rules?

For the love of the Mioritic we might want to discuss the good, the bad, the contradictions and the compromises in breeding programs.

ciao Anita