On Fri, 29 Aug 2003 14:25:34 GMT darrz <darrz.RemoveThis@earthlink.net> whittled these words:
> On Thu, 28 Aug 2003 10:03:18 -0400, "Emily Carroll"
> <carrol82.RemoveThis@pilot.msu.edu> wrote:
>>> It isn't hard to understand - but it's hard to accept. Would you like
>>> to live in a house all wired by amateur electricians? Framed by
>>> volunteers? With microwave and gas ovens built and installed by
>>> hobbyists? Get your car's automatic transmission fixed by a "shade
>>> tree" mechanic?
>>
>>Last I checked, that's how Habitat for Humanity works.
> No, it doesn't. It has the services of professional contractors, and
> experienced professional framers, electricians, plumbers, etc.
Those are volunteers. You have made the statement that you believe the
profit motive in a "professional" is what drives a "professional" breeder
to be "better" than a hobby breeder. But these people are VOLUNTEERS and
what drives them to use their skills well is personal ethics.
For example you stated in one of your initial posts "A professional
breeder wants only the best for their dogs. Anything
less might well put them out of business." And I noted at the time that
the problem with this scenario is that you have the breeder behaving based
on desire to preserve income, not on moral or ethical obligation to use
their skills for good. The volunteers above have skills they may have
gained at least in part by getting paid, but here there is no profit
motive, they do it because they want to do good. And many of the
supervising volunteers have constructions skills that they have never been
paid to use. They got them in the course of using them for their own
needs, just exactly as does the hobby breeder.
As Amy noted the term "professional" has more than one sense. It can mean
one who is paid, or it can refer to the level of skill acquired and
applied. The first implies income but not necessarily a high level of
skill, the second implies a high level of skill, but not necessarily
income. You have merged the meanings and glued them together.
> Yes, lots of volunteers work on the home, but they do it under the
> supervision and direction of experienced pro's.
The experienced supervisors are also volunteers. Pretty much everyone who
places a hand on a construction tool is a volunteer.
>>(And I have no problems with an amateur mechanic messing with my car.
>>That's what Dads are for.)
> Volunteers can definitely do some things, but when your car needs to
> be hooked up to a diagnostic test station that costs 20,000 bucks or
> so, it's time for the pro's.
I might pay a mechanic who has the diagnostic tool to give me the
readout so I can then decide whether the need repairs are within ny skill
set. Once you know what the problem is, there are MANY repairs that can
be done by the person who is interested and has learned, regardless of
what they do to produce income. So certainly when it comes to complex
things the involvement of someone who DOES derive income from some part if
it is necessary. Skilled and knowledgable breeders make use of all kinds
of "professional" (in the sense that you pay for them, hopefully they are
also skilled) services. That does not mean the breeder must derive income
from breeding in order to be motivated to learn and apply a high level of
knowledge and skill to breeding practices. They do as all of us do - know
what they know, and what they don't and get appropriate support when they
need it.
Very high level of knowledge and skill are acquired by people in a wide
variety of endeavors, purely as a matter of interest and passion. I know,
for example, a person who was offered a veterinary fellowship. Was he a
veterinarian? Nope. Had he ever been paid or formally trained in
veterinary medicine? Nope. Did he have dozens of researchers and trained
veteranrians convinced he knew what he was talking about? Yup. He had a
passion for a particular area of veterinary medicine and the intelligence
and research skills to do something with it. Now admittendly in that
field he is more than a little unusual but the basic concept is not.
In reality what often happens is the reverse of what you propose. You are
suggesting that high levels of skill and knowledge come out of the fact
that one is paid to use them. My personal experience is that acquistion
of skills and knowledge often lead to the opportunity to get paid to use
them. But my point is that the skills and knowledge can, and often do,
exist apart from being motivated by income. Side issues such as the need
or value in using expensive diagnostic tools really do little to counter
the initial proposition.
To restate the inital position I took.
The problem with a breeder who breeds for income is NOT a difference in
knowledge or skill. The problem is what choices are made in the name of
attaining the goal.
The corallary to the use of professional skills you list above is this.
When one is a skilled woodworker and producing an item purely to satify a
sense of personal accomplishment and aesthetics the chose of woods, and
join types, and finishes etc will rely on a desire to produce what is
personally satifying. The choices will be made without regard to whether
the end result would be marketable given the cost of production because
that is not the motive of the maker.
If that skilled woodworker wants to move into the marketplace and sell the
item produced, then the woodworker will, indeed must, compromise in
choices. Until you get up into the most elite and educated of buyers you
aren't going to find many folks who are willing to pay a significant
difference based on whether the joint is finger, dovetail, mortise and
tenon, etc.
Skilled wood workers do it because of the personal satsifaction it brings.
They vary from the ignorant to the amazingly skilled. But like the
hobbyist breeder the acquisition and use of those skills is based on
motivation and passion, not on whether sufficient income can be derived to
justify the production. The passion motivated breeder is not going to
compromise on their efforts just because the income won't justify the
costs.
The concern most of us have for the differnce between the passion
motivated breeder vs. the income motivated breeder has to do with
disposition of the end product. The passion motivated breeder hates to
see their product in the trash. The income motivated breeder just shrugs,
says "I guess they didn't like it" and leave it there.
Diane Blackman
>> Stay informed about: Offended a Breeder 
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