Maryland
Bar Bulletin
Publications :
Bar Bulletin
Editor: W.
Patrick Tandy
May, 2004
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A Different Breed
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| By Patrick
Tandy |
“They’re not
toys,”
Steve Silberman says, qualifying the four Tibetan spaniels trotting around
the floor of his Westminster, Maryland, office. The career insurance defense
attorney, who only recently opened his own practice, is obviously making a
case: “They’re full-size dogs in small bodies.”
His wife Pat, herself
a retired attorney of “arcane specialty,” quickly elaborates.
“These are not sporting dogs,” she admits, a smile spreading across
her face. “But it’s a little embarrassing for a big, old guy to
go around cuddling a little tiny…” She turns her grin from Steve
to the moppish pup on her lap.
“It could be worse,” she
says, mildly taunting her husband. “It could be a poodle.”
“Right!” he
laughs with an appreciative nod. “A toy poodle.”
“They’re one
of the oldest dogs – a relatively rare breed,” Pat Silberman
says of the Tibetan spaniels that she and her husband breed and show. “They
go back for millennia. They were not allowed out of Tibet until about 1900,
I guess. Then [one or two] went to England, but they died out there during
World War I. [They were] reintroduced into England in the ‘40s, and
we got them here in America in the ‘60s. They were recognized by the
AKC (American Kennel Club) in 1984.”
“A lot of the other
Asian breeds are believed to be descended from the Tibbies,” Steve
adds, employing the term with which Tibetan spaniel enthusiasts affectionately
refer to their charges. “Pekingese, the pug, the lhasa apso…”
Despite its relatively
late arrival on the Western scene, however, the Tibetan spaniel’s historical
role is as ancient as its homeland.
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WALKIN' THE DOGS
Steve Silberman (left) and his wife, Pat, hold their Tibetan spaniels
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“They were basically
held by the Buddhist monks in the monasteries,” Steve explains.
“They have excellent eyesight, and they like to sit up on high places.
They would sit on the outside rim of the monasteries and look out. If they
saw something they didn’t recognize, they would bark-bark and
alert the monks to go investigate with the Tibetan mastiffs.”
“As you see, they
like to get up on their hind legs,” he adds. “Tradition has it
that they were taught to spin [Buddhist] prayer wheels with their front paws.”
But while the dogs - whose
fur is generally either sable or black in color (with the occasional white)
- might not be pulling much sentry duty these days, they’ve not retired
fully from their ancestral roles. “They’re small, about 11 to
15 pounds in the adults,” Steve says. “They didn’t have
central heating then, a thousand or two-thousand years ago, so they were
used as bed-warmers.”
At this Pat laughs:
“We use them as bed-warmers, too!”
Though the Silbermans
have been dog-owners for most of their lives (primarily Shelties), they never
made the transition to becoming breeders – that is, until they saw
their first Tibbie.
“We were looking
for a second breed,” Pat explains. “[We were] looking at a tape
of the Westminster Kennel Club Show, and my thumb slipped off of the fast-forward
and bang, here was one (Tibetan spaniel) on the table. We were literally
thunderstruck – the dog’s name was Thunder. And the rest is history.”
“We looked around,
asked around, if anyone in the local area had any we could see, and discovered
someone who had a bunch of them,” Steve adds. “[We] got our first
couple Tibbies from him and his wife.”
Though the Silbermans’ kennel
license permits them to have up to 10 dogs (at times, they have had as many
as nine), the household currently includes four Tibbies: 7-year-old Clover
and her daughter Moon (both AKC Champions) and two recently-acquired spaniel
pups, Rally and Winsome.
“[Acquiring a kennel
license] depends on how much land you have,” Steve says, noting that
they have not built any special structures for their pets. “We moved
from Finksburg to north of Westminster to get more land so that we could
get a kennel license – it’s strictly a hobby kennel license.
We’re not allowed – and [we] have no interest in – boarding
other people’s dogs or anything like that.”
“We breed them for
us, for show,” Pat adds. “If some don’t turn out show-quality,
those we sell as pets. That’s pretty much true across the whole Tibetan
spaniel community – we all just breed for show.”
As breeders, the Silbermans
adhere to the guidelines and ethics put forth by the Tibetan Spaniel Club
of America (TSCA; www.tsca.ws), the breed’s national parent
club. “It sets up the breed standard,” Steve says. “That
is, what Tibbies are supposed to look like – size, the shape, temperament,
what the coat looks like…things like that. In addition to establishing
the standard, the club also has a code of ethics that you subscribe to if
you want to become a member – Pat knows more about the code of ethics
than I do.”
As well she should.
“I just finished writing the new one,” admits Pat, who also serves
as TSCA’s breeder referral contact as well as the organization’s
corresponding secretary.
“They come into
season about once a year, maybe every 10 or 11 months – not as often
as most breeds,” Steve notes. “We won’t breed them on successive
seasons. If they have a litter, we won’t breed them a year later. We
let them have a year off, so to speak.”
And the Silbermans are
nothing if not selective with regard to their breeding practices – in
fact, none of their dogs are bred until they’ve become AKC Champions.
“We don’t
breed them unless we think that they’ve got something to contribute
to the breed,” Pat says. “We don’t just breed them to have
puppies.”
“We’re very
particular,” Steve adds. “I mean, all that we’ve bred are
girls, so we’re very particular about what studs or sires we use.”
By way of example, Pat
points out their canine matriarch, Clover. “She was bred to a stud
in Switzerland that’s an international – Luxembourg, French,
British blah-blah-blah-blah-blah-blah – champion,” she says.
“The dog happened
to be in the States,” Steve notes with a laugh, negating the question
of proximity. “He was in Colorado, so Clover took a flight to Denver.
[She] was picked up by the person who had the sire and [they] took care of
the breeding and sent her back.”
Pat laughs. “We’ve
never been to Colorado,” she says, “but that dog has!”
The Tibbies and their
human entourage go everywhere in style, traveling to shows from New York
to North Carolina in the Silbermans’ Gulf Stream motor home. The TSCA
national specialty show (held annually in rotating locations around the country)
notwithstanding, the Silbermans attend general events “at least three
weekends a month,” by Steve’s estimate, with separate shows on
Saturday and Sunday. “Sometimes there’s also a show on Friday,” he
adds.
“I often don’t go to the Friday [shows] – Pat may go, and
I show up on Saturday.”
And Pat has the time,
after all, having assumed the role of full-time caretaker for the couple’s
dogs (as well as their website, www.doggoyles.com, through which they
sell “statues of dogs as gargoyles”) since retiring from her
own law practice in 1995.
“I was hired right
out of law school by one of the stuffy downtown [Baltimore] firms,” she
explains. “I was their first female lawyer – this is back when
there weren’t a lot of us – and they gave me ladies’ work
to do.”
“Ladies’ work”
didn’t sit well with Pat Silberman, so she leapt at the first solid opportunity
that came along.
“I practiced international
liquor law,” she explains, her husband quickly pointing out that her
practice was on the manufacturer and importer, not the retail, level. “There
were only 28 of us in the country.”
“At one point, Pat
had clients on every continent except Antarctica,” Steve says.
“That’s only
because they don’t drink beer in Antarctica,” Pat quips.
“Well, they do,”
returns Steve. “They just don’t make it there!”
But hold fast before bathing
the family dog and trotting him down to the nearest competition; citing entry
fees that can run as much as $25 per show, Pat offers a word of caution. “It’s
got to be the world’s most…well, second-most expensive sport,” she
warns. “Horse shows, I understand, are worse, but when you’re
talking three shows in a weekend – the one dog is $75. And of course
you don’t win anything – you win a dinky little ribbon or at
best a coffee mug.”
“If you want to
start from scratch, having no dogs,” Steve adds, “look around
and see what kind of breeds would fit your lifestyle, [and] how much time
you can spend with your dog.”
For anyone interested
in learning more about Tibetan spaniels, the Silbermans recommend visiting
the Tibetan Spaniel Network online at www.tibbies.net. But as Pat
quickly points out, don’t start clearing a place over the mantle for
that ribbon prematurely.
“Check with your
breeder and see if the breeder thinks your puppy is a show-quality [dog],”
she advises. “That’s first because it’s a lot of money to
waste on a dog that’s not going to win.”
