There are no secrets in the breeding of fine dogs. Nature's laws, basic truths, are like the Ten Commandments and bear repeating - the more often the better. The receipt for success in the science of reproduction is both simple and complex, but it can be summed up in a little word: Selection is the secret of breeding fine dogs - selection based on knowledge. A great winner is no accident. Behind each great dog are a planned breeding program and a continuity of purpose extending over many years, by the dog's immediate breeder, of a succession of breeders. Long ago, people assumed that ill luck and good fortune were based upon chance. Science has narrowed the gap - if one does not depend entirely upon Lady Luck.

Nature is all-powerful, but science has proven that nature can be guided and controlled, that individuals' traits in a living machine can be focused and fixed. Thinking back, I recall a poem that my parents used to quote to us children. (I am not sure I have it just right.) If, of all sad words of tongue and pen, the saddest are, "It might have been." Sadder are these we daily see. It is, but it ought not to be. But of all glad words of prose and rhyme, the gladdest are, "There still is time."

Nothing could be more appropriate than this when we consider the little dogs that hadn't ought to be, but there is still time for breeders to take an inventory of their breeding programs, to check where they've been, how long they've been there, and the direction in which they are going.