THE HISTORY OF SEPPALAS in the
last quarter of the twentieth century is a complex, contradictory
and frustrating affair. Perhaps it is not yet quite time to try to
write a definitive account of the period. For the time being, as far
as this website goes, a brief commentary will have to do; an
adequate treatment of the subject would take a long time to
research and write. It should be done, and one day it will --
provided enough Seppalas survive to justify the effort!
For the post-Markovo
period failed utterly to fulfil the promises it held out
in 1975. Instead of expanding and going from strength to strength,
the pure Markovo-Seppala population was used largely as a
resource for cross-straining, pushed to one side by a mushrooming
population of near-Seppalas, part-Seppalas, and wannabe-Seppalas.
Worse yet, the distinction as to what really does constitute a
Seppala became lost from sight. Today no one is sure how
many pure Seppalas are left, because no one is sure what
exactly constitutes a pure Seppala any longer. The few remaining
Markovo-Seppalas have become
invisible in the dust-cloud thrown in everyone's eyes by the Willett
percentage system.
The well-structured distribution
of pure Seppala stock that resulted from the Markovo kennels
dispersal sale failed within some five years of that sale. Bailey,
Stuckey and Morrow did not create lasting kennels or bloodlines
of their own. The reins of Seppala destiny were gradually gathered
into the hands of one man whose agenda had little to do with
pure-Seppala survival.
Sepp-Alta/Alta Kennels and Satellites
THE BREEDING PROGRAMME of Douglas W. Willett (Sepp-Alta
and Alta Kennels) did keep pure Seppala lineage alive through the
last quarter of the twentieth century; that much is beyond dispute.
Yet at the same time that the main trunk Markovo-Seppala line
was maintained, an ever-increasing body of part-Seppala stock
developed from the cast-off experimental "outcross" breedings
of Sepp-Alta (and Alta) Kennels. Reassured and encouraged by
the percentage system promoted in Willett's writing, the
Sepp-Alta spinoff and satellite kennels consistently neglected
the pure-Seppala core bloodlines in favour of cheap, easy and
available part-Seppalas.
The Willett system
makes no clear distinction between the purest available Seppala
stock (the Markovo-Seppalas) and part-Seppala "outcross" lines;
it merely assigns relatively higher or lower percentages to each,
and in many cases part-Seppalas are now given "100%" Seppala
ratings by the Willett-dominated ISSSC.
That being the case, new Seppala breeders assume there is no
qualitative distinction. This assumption was strengthened when
Willett promoted the idea that various Racing Siberian Husky
bloodlines could be categorised as "other Seppala" lines even
though they might be in substantial part Seeley-derived and
often devoid of any Markovo-Seppala content. Today few people
clearly perceive which bloodlines are legitimate Seppala and
which are mixed-lineage.
Willett began by reserving the affix "Alta" (his original kennel
name) for part-Seppala breedings, keeping "Sepp-Alta" for
pure Seppala breedings, but this system soon broke down.
As early as the 1982 J-litter we can see "Alta" and "Sepp-Alta"
individuals in the same litter! The cross-strain offspring of
NATOMAH'S KAMIK, SMO-KI-LUK'S SERYA, KODIAK'S LILY and
KODIAK'S LAYLA were registered with the Sepp-Alta affix.
Although Willett may have had private criteria for which affix
he used, to the outside observer no system was apparent;
this has furthered the general confusion. Most people seem to
think that if a dog has the Sepp-Alta name, that makes it pure
Seppala, and if it's Alta, it's probably still Seppala -- it's all
Doug Willett's breeding, after all!
One
major practical difficulty in analysing the Willett output is
that he has never included his Alta litters in published records
of his breeding programme, or counted them when reckoning up
the number of litters bred.
The published record takes
the Willett breeding up to 1991 through 45 litters (other litters
were bred that are for some reason omitted from the series);
five of the 45 are actually Bruce Morrow's Uelen Kennels litters,
not Willett's. Leaving out the Morrow litters, of Willett's first
40 litters, 26 were pure Seppala, 14 part-Seppala. But several
part-Seppala litters were omitted from the series, probably 7
or more. Since 1992 there has been no published breeding summary.
In any case, the full extent of Sepp-Alta/Alta breeding has never
been disclosed, which makes it impossible to judge the relative
proportions of Seppala vs. part-Seppala breeding!
Although the Sepp-Alta breeding programme, at least up until
around 1990, may have consisted of slightly more than half
Markovo-Seppala matings, the same cannot be said for the
satellite kennels. Only one of the Willett spin-off kennels --
Carolyn Ritter's River View Kennels -- restricted its breeding to
Markovo-Seppala matings. Most others took little if any interest
in the ongoing task of preserving Seppala lineage for posterity.
If we take the listings in Willett's two books as an indication of
the general trend of breeding, then only around 15 percent of
satellite matings were pure Seppala in ancestry!
Even 15 percent could be
considered misleadingly high. Out of 117 litters listed in the
"Other Seppala Kennels" sections of Willett's two books, 18
litters were Markovo-Seppala. But of those eighteen, seven
were from the Ritter kennel which bred only Markovo-Seppalas.
Of the other "Seppala" kennels' 110 litters, only 11 -- 10% --
were Markovo-Seppala.
Well-meaning people have
insisted to me that the satellite kennels were not really started
with the cast-off outcross experiments shed by the Sepp-Alta
breeding programme. I believe the foregoing figures refute that
contention beyond any reasonable doubt. How else could it be that
although the Sepp-Alta breeding programme scores 57%
Markovo-Seppala litters (through 1991, anyway), the "other
Seppala kennels" (leaving aside the Ritter operation that had a
well-defined Markovo-Seppala philosophy) score only 10%?
(66% Markovo-Seppala)
The Seppala Situation Today
THE ACTUAL SITUATION today is no better. The International
Seppala Siberian Sleddog Club's periodic "Seppala Directory" may,
for lack of a better source, be taken as representative; it is our
only contemporary summary of the Seppala population, although
(like the listings in the two Willett books) it does not represent a
comprehensive survey of all Seppala kennels. Out of the 164 dogs
listed in the first directory, only 14 were Markovo Seppalas --
8.5%. (These figures are presented on an individual-dog basis; the
figures from the Willett books are on a litter basis.) That is not
to say that there is not a certain number of high-percentage
animals that would rate 95% or more Markovo-Seppala content,
although even these are not nearly as numerous as people often
assume. In any case, high-percentage animals are not enough to
keep Seppala strain from vanishing, because one thing is certain:
percentages do not get higher over time, they only keep getting
lower, until the point of total assimilation is finally achieved.
Today, through the widespread dissemination of frankly
cross-strained Siberians masquerading as "Seppala" and sold as such
to the unwary, there is an increasing abundance of low-percentage
animals. (The most numerous of these are the Sepp-Lok/Kimball/Riverdance
dogs bred by Ms. Lanette Kimball.) Recent highly-touted
Sepp-Alta racing leaders (SEPP-ALTA'S ZEUS AT WINDY RIDGE
and his brother SEPP-ALTA'S GRIFFIN AT WINDY RIDGE) rate only
about 66% Markovo-Seppala ancestry. The trend is more sharply
downward now than it was ten or fifteen years ago.
The ISSSC's Continental
Kennel Club registry shows a similar picture. Of the dogs in that
registry as of summer 2003, only 8.5% were Markovo-Seppalas
of breedable age (under 10 y.o.) and around 60% showed significant
Sepp-Lok influence in the pedigree. The trend is very obvious, and
rather than simply dismissing these warnings as the ravings of a
purist, it is hoped that those who have any real concern for the
survival of the original Seppala bloodline will take a critical look at
the figures, at the photos of Markovo stock on this website, and then
ask themselves whether cross-straining and duplicating the already
existing racing Siberian Husky genome is really the best use we can
make of unique Seppala genetic material.
Is This History?
IF YOU WONDER what this page is doing in the Seppala
History section of the website, the answer is really quite
simple. "History" is really just a retrospective look at what
happened. Often its true nature was not recognised at the time,
in the heat of the moment and in the midst of decision-making
and action. You and I determine today, what the Seppala
history of tomorrow will be -- or if there will be any Seppala
history at all.
In spite of continued
interest in Seppalas -- or perhaps even because of it -- the
authentic Seppala rootstock continues inexorably to become ever more
and more scarce, outside of the SSSD Project itself. Will there be any
authentic Seppalas in another
quarter-century? Or will Seppala lineage then be like the Cold
River bloodline now -- represented by old photographs but not by
living, breathing dogs? It's up to you, really . . .
