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“Ringside Thoughts” By Kerrin Winter-Churchill
DEATH, DOGS and ARCHIVES
In the middle of the night, my telephone Ribbons and trophies might line your walls
rings and instantly my racing heart brings me and bookshelves. You might have files of old
from slumber to full-attention. Fumbling, I pictures, pedigrees and letters from everyone
find the phone and learn that a dear, elderly, from mentors of years past to Christmas
dog friend is dying and I must come at once cards of happy puppy buyers. Get them
to collect the dogs. organized. Make lists of what gets thrown
away and what goes to whom for when you
Those that have regular jobs might not be die. If you, yourself had mentors that are
able to react as quickly as me, but in the next long-departed, you might have things from
few minutes coffee is being made and I am a different era in dogdom that on first glance
searching for my glasses so I can make a list appear to be simple paperwork to the casual
of what needs to be remembered to take with survivor but turn out to be valuable keys to
me on my thousand mile journey, and what the very foundation of your breed. Only you
must be remembered to bring back home for can decide what must be done, and passing
it is not just the dogs that must be preserved, things on to those you have mentored is a
it is my friend’s archives. tradition as old as our sport. Also, many
This is a short, cautionary tale of what to breed clubs have a historian and archivist.
do and what not do when collecting the The American Kennel Club also has a
memories of a fellow breeder’s lifetime. It is repository for archives of special interest to
also a reminder to us all that life is fleeting. the fancy of purebred dogs–and there is the
None of us get out alive. Museum of the Dog. Find out what kinds of
things a repository takes as they don’t take
It might be my age but I’ve seen an awful lot everything.
of death in the dog world in the last ten years
and, unfortunately, five of those deaths hit It is a nice thought to have an old trophy on
close to my own heart. your mantle or a collection of long-forgotten
As an all breed historian and archivist with a show dogs in your collection of photographs,
but these things take up a lot of space and
deep-appreciation for the individual histories often get buried under the new items that
of the breeders that have gathered with me you collect. In the end, your house becomes
at ringside, it has been my greatest honor cluttered and things are lost. It is better to
(and also a terrible curse) to have been on get these items into the hands–now–of those
the receiving end when death came knocking who know how to preserve them for the ages.
and a dying, dear one was not quite as
prepared as they thought. Maybe most famously, the doggy-affects
of Poodle breeder Hayes Blake-Hoyt were
thrown out with the trash after her estate
was settled. Luckily, an eagle-eyed neighbor
spotted the art-deco, sterling silver trophies
and rescued them from oblivion; and today
at least one is on display at the American
Kennel Club.
THREE ARCHIVAL TALES
In my own journey with archives, I once
found a folder of letters from one Boxer
breeder to another. The seller on Ebay gave
no description to the contents, but using my
instincts I deduced they might be important
GIVING AWAY STUFF and bought the lot. Imagine my intrigue
If you’ve been involved in dogs for more when I opened the package to discover
than twenty years, you have no doubt hand-written letters from none other than
collected a lot of dog-related material. Frau Stockmann (the very “mother of the
