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Presented by Tom Coen
August 2 and
3, 2008
Article by
Jim Melton
The second of August dawned bright and hot as 35 Shetland Sheepdog lovers gathered at Lead Me On Dog Training in Murray, UT (a suburb of Salt Lake City), eagerly anticipating Tom Coen's incredible seminar, “The Quest for Quality.”
 Tom is widely recognized as one of the most knowledgeable Sheltie people around today, as is his devotion to sharing his knowledge of the breed, its history, and its standard. Unusual for a seminar of this sort, Tom started Saturday with a pictorial history – a 2½ hour slide show of photos of Shelties who had profound influence on the development of the breed. Starting with Inverness Patricia, seeing the influence of the Collie crosses (especially Teena and the Chestnut Rainbow cross), progressing to Mowgli and exploring the huge influence of the Page's Hill and Pocono kennels, we saw how the Sheltie developed from the non-descript crofter's dog into the magnificent breed we have today. After morning break, Tom continued his slide show, this time focusing on the influences of specific kennels and people in the development of type. We learned of the intense dedication the early breeders had in achieving their very specific vision of what the Sheltie should be, as well as the sort of people they were and what their lives were like in many ways.
The attendees seemed to particularly appreciate this human side of the story. Shanalee Waller-Michalsky, one of a group who made the trek from Idaho, described the first morning like this: “We all breed and show dogs for a variety of reasons. But, rarely do we really have a chance to dig down deep into the root of the importance of what we do and have a new found passion for it. I have a new, rekindled passion for Shelties. I have a new, rekindled direction and appreciation for what I have and need to achieve. Tom was absolutely incredible about going into the history explaining the traits and the evolution of the breed. It was so very neat to see how Shelties have changed from little mongrel-like dogs to being what they are in about 100 years. The slide show was so inspiring that it filled your eyes with tears just seeing the beauty of all the work of the founders accumulating before your eyes.” In the afternoon, Tom convened a panel of experts who had traveled to Utah to assist with the seminar. These experts were Kim Aston and Pete Culumovic of Laureate Shelties, Karen Parker of Trilight Shelties, Joyce Woolridge of Shadland Shelties, and Nioma Coen of Macdega Shelties. Between them, they have over 150 years of experience in breeding and showing Shelties. Tom asked the panel a number of questions intended to tease out details of their viewpoints on the breed. A typical question: What bitch, not owned by you, did you especially like, and to whom would you have bred her…and why? The audience participation in the discussions following each question indicated their great interest in such subtleties.
 In spite of the growing heat, participants gave rapt attention to the last session of the day, in which Tom presented a number of breeding principles, inviting panel and audience discussion of each. One such principle is that it is more productive to evaluate the producing ability of a dog or bitch on the basis of their very best get rather than on their lesser quality offspring as very few are able to produce superior offspring. Another principle is to keep fewer dogs in one's breeding program, forcing hard decisions about keeping and breeding only the highest quality Shelties. A favorite with the audience was the principle that Tom phrased thus: Don't add something to the gene pool if you don't want to have it show up later!
And, with that, the Saturday session was over. It was off to dinner for thirty of us at a local restaurant where there was plenty of discussion of what we'd learned during the day…and not much discipline shown when it came to letting Tom, Nioma, and the other panelists eat their dinners in peace.
Sunday morning started early, hoping to beat the worst of the heat later in the day. The entire day was spent on a “virtues match.” This novel concept involved asking audience participants to select one or more “classes,” each focusing on a single aspect of the Sheltie standard, and enter their dogs for evaluation of their virtues with respect to that item. The focus on virtues, instead of on faults, truly helped us learn how to see quality.
Watching the panel members and guest judges go over the dogs, then hearing their comments on the virtues of the dogs they thought were “best” in each class, was quite enlightening to all of us. Each panel member evaluated every single dog entered into every class, and Tom asked a “guest judge” for each class to participate in the evaluation. Our guest judges included Cheryl Sorensen and Caren Ciampini, both dedicated Sheltie breeders in Utah, as well as Patti Gailey (a Corgi breeder pursuing her license to judge Shelties) and Michelle Miller. Watching the panel members and guest judges go over the dogs, then hearing their comments on the virtues of the dogs they thought were “best” in each class, was quite enlightening to all of us. Non-Sheltie folk pursuing their licenses to judge Shelties commented that the seminar gave them the tools they needed to evaluate Shelties the way a Sheltie breeder would do.
The second day drew to an end all too soon for the attendees. Tom closed the seminar by asking that each individual say what he or she thought was the most significant thing that they would take away from the two days. Virtually everybody included in their response their delight at being able to actually see pictures, and even videos, of dogs of whom they had only heard about. Everyone said that they came away with a heightened awareness of how to evaluate quality in Shelties and a new dedication to pursuing higher quality in their own breeding programs. Shannallee summed it up beautifully: “for me….it was the new found responsibility that I have for upholding the standard, respecting the founders of our breed and educating future breeders to do the same. I love my breed, this is the least I can do for it”.
We all, individual attendees and the Utah Shetland Sheepdog Association, offer our thanks to Tom, Nioma, and the other panelists for an outstanding, enjoyable, and generally awesome two days of education and sharing our mutual love of Shelties.
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