MUDI OR NOT MUDI, THAT IS THE QUESTION

There are some changes, and these changes are not helping the breed to stay GOOD, in any sense. Let me explain what I mean. In the old good times (when I was young lol) breeders wrote a dog is well balanced, listed results and everyday use of the dog has been mentioned (eg social with children etc) But now...

What are the real keywords you see today in almost each ad?

-my dog is CRAZY
-my dog is MEDIUM SIZE or xy cm
-my dog is workaholic
-my mudi is fast
-my dog is from EPI FREE LINES
-longtail (- is natural bobtail not good, or?)
-my dog is UNIQUE COLOR

Let us see one by one, I personally breed for preferably work and sport so I assume I like motivated dogs. But not the CRAZY ones. The motivation level can be high but if the dog has no focus, no brain, not enough willingness to please you, the craziness will not help in anything. Your crazy dog will hunt bark or even bite? Funny...You will be the nightmare of the dog trainers and no, not because you are too good but because the skillset of your dog is far from anything acceptable. So crazy is not something you should look for...

MEDIUM size, normally the first question from everyone interested in a mudi. Size is one characteristic and about has nothing to add to the dogs value in most sports. But in agility, at least now (until M+ will be fully introduced) it may be the rule of thumb to have a mudi of midi size. For me, mudi is NOT only for agility and narrowing the mudi genepool by size is not a wise decision. On the other hand, for those who never will qualify to an international competition in agility why size is so important?Sure the dog size should not be the bottle neck to be a champion but lets accept most of us never will be agi champions....well, keep in mind mudi is a breed of standard size around medium but this does NOT mean your dog stay midi and most male SHOULD be above the midi size range anyway. Because the FCI standard says so. And the standard is not bad at all, so lets keep it. Also let me add that size of the parents is not as clearly determinates the size of the dog as most of you think, some fortune is also needed, very honestly.

Mudi is WORKAHOLIC. Yes it is, but just as above mentioned, the willingness to work is just one part of the success. What more a good working dog need to have? Health, well built body, good strong heart, place for the lungs (sometime I wonder where in a small chest some of the sport type dogs put their lungs and heart....) stamina, regular well built training, professional trainer. As you possibly see the latter two actually depends on you and not on the breeder, but the first two you should see yourself when you pick the combination and the dog. Think and decide well, check all information and never be afraid to reconsider.

Mudi is FAST - yes of course almost all mudis are fast, actually the mudi in itself IS the speed, and this is not a gift in this breed, today it is just the basic - this breed had to run fast enought and bark loud enought to keep the herd together. This was their profession.

EPILEPSY FREE lines are urban legend to mislead the newcomers, unfortunately. Epilepsy is present in all breeds and mudi is a breed with very small genepool, so just think, again. Sadly, with unharmonised data of health results in the different geos, also lack of data sharing among most breeders these facts can be HIDDEN but still they are there... Therefore anyone can say epilepsy free and some breeders say it without consideration. And talking about healthly breeding and citate bad health issues from other kennels but never from own...do you think that is realistic? If so, buy from them and have no guarantee what comes next. Me personally prefer those breeders who share all health issues and kudos for those countries where you need to share all health data, including bad ones. THAT is information (sadly, Hungary is not included at this point)

NATURAL BOBTAIL cannot turn well eought in agility. Did you also hear it? Me too. It is NOT true. Enough to see this year AWC and some of the best ranking mudis there (including Irhaberki as well) they could turn fast enough and get in the first 10 on worldwide level without tail. Wow. Small plus info for those who are interested: mudis with natural bob were preferred for herding in the mother country of the breed and believe me, none of the shepherds would go on with this breeding habit if the natural bob dogs would not be at least as fast and turnable as all the others. With such a raw breed you see that viable dogs were bred and could spread genes, so bobs are really cool. But combining two bobs is not a good try, on the other hand.

And last but not least, the COLOR. Which makes you dog unique, personalized and sometimes unbreedable. FCI standard lists the accepted colors and it is far from perfect today in this aspect, as it closes out some colors which may come from breeding two standard colored dogs together. Hopefully this will change. But what is not within the standard is wolf color and black and tan, which never was a color for this breed and today is it getting a fashionable color as well. These colors normally makes your dog unbreedable and around 8 week age all breeders see the puppy is wolf or tan...take care what you buy and consult with others before buying a dog with such unique color if you ever consider breeding.

Last but not least, why I wrote this post....Mudi is a rare breed, it needs each and every person who CARES. Maybe you are one of them and just have no contact to anyone who may advice you (take care of the advisors, there are so many however the breed is so small). Maybe you will be a good owner or good breeder one day and this post may help you to THINK, to read more, learn more, not accepting fairytales and do you homework to have a GOOD MUDI. A mudi which YOU find good enough and which is taking the rare heritage of this small breed to any corner of the world.

I listed some ~word hacks~, but please see that what we ASK IS GIVEN (also in dog breeding), so be careful what we ask...

 

 

 

 

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