LATAM Notes

First of all let me do a small introduction of who I am and my relations with Labrador and the main objective of this brief update of what is going on Labrador in Latin America this days. We wish hereby give a little bit of color of what is going on the Labrador World in Latin America and also specifically in Brazil. I don't have the intention to discuss or challenge very technical points specially because as you will realize along the text I am a very new Labrador breeder, so I will try to keep it the material very informative and hopefully enhance the relationship between the World and specially America breeder with Latin American Breeder just by exchanging information and opening new doors and horizons for Labrador and Labrador's people in both regions.

I am Brazilian and I am living in the United States since January of 2000 when I moved to New Jersey and got transferred to work at the New York branch of the firm that I was working in Brazil.  My contact with dogs and breeding started very early in my live. My parents had English pointer their entire lives. I had my own dogs and I going out with them on the fields to work them and planning the breeding with my dad were part of our main activities. And of course, my brother and I were responsible for taking of the puppies... Lots of work but a lot of fun too!!

Our last pointer died five years ago and I decided to move own and find another breed to learn about and maybe in the future start to take it more serious. Well, we lived in Rio de Janeiro that has lots of beautiful beaches and lakes and because of that Labrador were becoming more and more popular in our area so my wife( at that time my girlfriend) decide to research about this lovely breed.  The extensive research started three years ago and only almost one year later we decided to buy our first dog and up buying two. And later on, when we got to the US we got our third dog. So far it is one of the very experiences we had in our lives and we are enjoying a lot. So we decide to start breeding more seriously and get more serious. Two of our dogs won a few show in Brazil and one of the just finish his JH here in the US, and the third one just got his first leg for JH. Also, I was responsible for the first artificial insemination in Brazil and maybe in all Latin America that we just did three four months ago and was very successful and we are waiting for the results on the second one. I will discuss this point this point more extensively later on this article, and I also made part of the group of four people that started the initial push four the first Labrador club in Brazil that we will also discuss soon.

So far, Americans and American Labrador people has received me with open arms and really helped and taught me a lot that have contributed for my experience and baby steps into the breed. People like Jessup Price, Mary and Michael Wiest, Karin Day, Jackie Mischou, Bridget Bodine, Kendall Herr, Emily Beagle, Lisa Weiss, Donna Reece, Vicky Creamer, George Govett and the Jersey Skylands that accepted my wife and as members deserve nothing lees then our appreciation for all the help and support. All of them helped us to learn more about the breed, they may think their little gestures and saying did not mean much but actually it meant a lot to us.

Now about Latin America and more specifically about Brazil these time I can say that the breed have being growing a lot and conquering year after year more space among breeder and people heart. The biggest evidence of that is the significant increase of registered dogs with the Brazilian kennel Club(CBKC). On the year 2000 there were almost 9000 Labrador registered, which makes the Labrador the third breed on the ranking of new registration coming from seventh three years ago and tenth seven years ago. And for a breed that only started to be bred on the late seventies and early eighties with only a very dew number of people like Romy Fields who came from England and Claudia Kneese.
This surprising increase is a result of the serious work done by the local breeders that even with the weak economy and a devalued currency push hard to make the breeding and standards on their kennel as good as any good kennel here in the US. Also over the years this breeders did an outstanding work promoting the breed and increasing the number of new breeders that now are trying to carry on the good work.

Nobody can say that this new group of breeders with the support of the more experience group of Breeders are not truing to give anew push into the breed not only importing dogs into the country from the US and Europe but also truing to innovate by open the first specific purpose breed club the Labrador Club of Sao Paulo but technology trying to catch up with the rest of the world with artificial breeding.  Well, the first Labrador Club which initially had the push of four people including Romy Fields, Claudia Kneese giving the support and giving the directions we should take and Ana Cristina and my self who were making the invitations for all the other breeders and the small group became almost twenty five people and the club could be created. Unfortunately I need to come to the US, but my 25 new partners carried on the good work and in June last year the club did their first specially(under the Blue sky of the Paulista kennel club) with 150 dogs, the biggest Labrador specialty show in the region so far, and with an American judge Mr. Eugene Czerwinski who did an outstanding judging and on a informal conversation with me and after reviewing the tape of the show thinks that breed in Brazil is very close to what there is here in US. He also thinks that the real quality are on the chocolate and black bitches, his impression is that the male line and the yellows need a little catch to be done, but he emphases more then once that in general he was very surprised with the quality of the dogs down there in Brazil. And he also very impressed how nicely he was welcome by all the people. This show was an incredible achivment of the breeders down there and they need to be congratulated for that.

Technologically speaking Clone recently opened an office in Rio de Janeiro and with the support of some breeders that sold us the frozen semen and George Govett the president of Clone in the US my partners and were able to import the semen for the first time into the region and make the first artificial insemination in Brazil and maybe in South America. The fact that artificial breeding from now on is effective for the local breeders the quality should be improved and hopefully the local breeders would be able to finish to close the small gap between the dogs down there and the dogs in the US and Europe.

But this not all needed to be done. The health clearances need to be improved. Nowadays, as it is here in the US, the hips dysplasia control is very strict but very few people are doing the checks on the shoulders and probably nobody is doing the checking on the eyes. This issue is one of the main points that the new club should be able to provide a solution. Local breeders need to extend the procedure of only health dogs stay in their breeding program to the other heath control procedures. Very recently, I had a talk with Mary Wiest who had being doing some business with Brazilian breeders very successfully so far, according to her, she thinks that only health dogs with only proper clearances and with the instinct to retrieve should stay on anybody program.

Retrieving is also another point that need to be improve among the Brazilian breeders. Over the years a incredible work was done on the show rings. Our country have many international champions, Canadian Champions, American Champions, and specially TWO World FCI champions. The two bitches from the Tokay kennel(Claudia Kneese) were World FCI champions, in two different year and competing with dogs from dogs from all over the world like England, US, Finland and other countries. But very little attention was given to the field work for a few reasons. First because hunting migratory birds is not a very traditional sport in Brazil, only in Argentina and on a few states in the south of Brazil this sport is practice but only small number of people. Plus the more experience breeder had the objective to make the Labs a well known family dog in what the more then succeed. But now with the new group of breeders stepping up this area should be better explored for many different reasons.

Although hunting is prohibited in most of the states in South America the hunt tests and the field trials can still be done, maybe not with real birds but certainly with bumpers. Brazil have perfect landscape and weather for the practice of the hunt tests and field trials. This another issue that could be addressed by our new club. And I am it will. At this exact moment we are just waiting for the proper registration of the club with the CBKC that should be coming out soon. And very soon the Labrador people of the US would be hearing more about us!!

Congratulations to all Brazilian and South American breeder for their achievement so far and lets keep up with the awesome work!!