How breeds are ruined.

Last year at a fair show a woman was talking to me about rabbits. She said she owned a Mini Rex that she bought in or around the London area. She was also quite adamant that the rabbit I was currently holding was in fact not a Mini Rex. Her idea of a Mini Rex came from the one she owned, she stated that Mini Rex were supposed to have long ears and very fine bone. They were supposed to be 5lb-6lbs and their fur was supposed to be exceptionally silky and lay flat when they were petted. All in all she described what I pictured to be one very ugly rabbit. She had also said that I must have been confused because the rabbit I was holding was much to small, and much to round to be a Mini Rex and that it's fur was all wrong. The rabbit I was holding was a multiple Best of Breed Winner.

I can see how this woman was confused. When you look at a lot of the Mini Rex listed for sale in classified websites, or even some pet breeder's websites. You get the idea that a Mini Rex is some sort of big, long, ugly rabbit with no density to it's fur. When in reality a good Mini Rex is a very attractive small rabbit with luxurious fur. So how does this happen? How does a breed turn into some sort of monstrosity that lead people to believe what a Mini Rex really is is the complete opposite of what they're supposed to be.

People are the main reason for it. Certain breeders who give no heed to the standard and breed their rabbits willy nilly. People who only breed for pets, or are only in it because they think they can make a bit of money. When you stop breeding a rabbit to the standard it stops becoming the breed it is supposed to be. When enough people are breeding this to that, producing essentially "junk" animals and flooding the market with these rabbits then general consensus starts to believe that is what a Mini Rex is truly supposed to look like. The worst offenders for this are the people who only want to breed "rare" colours. When colour is only worth 15% in the Mini Rex standard a lot can go horribly wrong with body type and fur.

At the Royal when I was judging I had a few Mini Rex show up on the table that had I not been judging youth I would have disqualified for lacking in breed Characteristics. (The rule is no disqualifying youths we want to encourage them by giving constructive criticism  and not outright dq-ing). Anyways, the rabbit was placed last and I could not find nothing good to say about this rabbit, even the colour was off so I ended up saying she was a lovely pet. After judging the mother of the youth came up to me and asked me why I thought it was a pet they had bought it from X breeder (a breeder I recognized but will not post) and were told she would be a great rabbit. I showed her the standard for the breed and then an example of what that is supposed to look like. She was actually very surprised about it, so I wrote down a few websites for her to check out to get a better idea of what to look for in a Mini Rex.

This holds true for other breeds as well, I have seem some gruesomely awful Holland Lops, and Netherlands that just aren't Netherlands, It seems every broken coloured rabbit is an English Spot or Checkered Giant Cross, every Chestnut rabbit is a Flemish Giant, and any rabbit with wool is an Angora. Most of which hold not discerning breed characteristics of any breed, but are being sold as Purebred and pedigreed.