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by Tracy Young
Reproduced here with the written consent of Robert Zoller & Tracy Young
Starhawk congratulates and thanks these brave and dedicated individuals for
their forthrightness and determination to the true story of the Alaskan
Malamute history!
Copyright - Robert Zoller / Tracy Young 1998-1999
Any reproduction of this article must be done with the written consent of
the copyright holders.
A particular thanks to Christopher Cooper of the Starhawk Kennel that has
allowed me to publish this very beautiful and interesting interview
www.northernterritories.com.
Lisa Piccolo
Blue type: Tracy Young
Black type: Robert Zoller
Robert Zoller - "who is this man?"
I think everyone has heard of the Husky-Pak line.
Well, that's who he is. This man is now 83 years old and is a major part of
the Alaskan Malamute history with a factual history of our breed. Several
years ago, Dick Tobey persuaded Bob Zoller to write an article for the
A.M.C.A. newsletter describing the first years of the development of this
breed. He complied then, and some of the tales that were part of history
seem to not be exactly as we have been led to believe. I have the pleasure
of being a friend of Sam Maranto, a member of A.M.C.A. since 1952 and who
owned Ch. Cochise of Husky-Pak and finished his championship in 1955. He was
out of Ch. Toro of Bras Coupe X Ch. Arctic Storm of Husky-Pak. After reading
the story, I called Sam and questioned him in regard to the article. He
stated that the article was very factual. In my opinion, Robert Zoller has
not been given the credit that he deserves. So sit back, relax and enjoy "
the other side of the story".
Robert Zoller's Story
I haven't been active in Alaskan Malamute affairs for quite a long time. But
I keep in touch with a few people and dick tobey is one of them. A couple of
years ago I told him about an article I had written for the New Zealand
Kennel Gazette, about the many problems we encountered in getting our breed
established in the 1940's and the 1950's - - - the critical years. Dick
thought it should be published in our newsletter. The more we talked about
it, the more I agreed with him that the events of those years following
world war 11 should be told in some detail, before all the people who were
there were dead and the true facts lost forever.
I had tried to do this in my New Zealand article. But, done properly, it's a
long story and I felt there was a limit to the space an all breed
publication halfway around the world would devote to a 30-year-old history
of a single breed here in America. So I had to skip a lot of details and
just hit the highlights, without explaining what really happened and why.
I had also shied away from naming names. Even after thirty years, it is
difficult to call a spade a spade, because it may appear self-serving to do
so. It may even be construed as an attack on old enemies who are no longer
around to defend themselves. I assure you it is not that at all; I just
became convinced that, finally, the full story should be told. For many
years some of the bizarre happenings were covered up to spare feeling and to
maintain as much unity as possible within our club.
In the short run, I believe that is the proper thing to do. So I rewrote the
story and here it is: names, dates, places, people, dogs - - all as
accurately as possible.
It is important to say some things clearly, right up front. My first point
is that after all these years I bear no animosity toward anyone. Not even a
little bit. In those days I had ample reason to be outraged on many
occasions but I don't think I ever was, really. And lest you think with that
statement I may be proposing my own candidacy for sainthood, I assure you I
am not. I am human. I bleed when punctured, and I bled from a lot of stab
wounds in those early years. I was indeed "teed off" from time to time, but
I got over it quickly - - for several reasons.
First, by nature I am not a grudge-holder. I am a fighter, and I suspect not
one bit less opinionated than most others in our breed. But I have never
believed that others must agree with me to deserve my friendship or respect
(I've been a democrat surrounded by republicans all of my life!).
Secondly, after the initial shock, much of what I saw coming out of new
hampshire in those times was so audacious that some of it was actually
amusing, and practically all of it was fascinating to observe at close range.
You had to see it to believe it.
Most important, I think, it wasn't all that difficult for me to be somewhat
generous in my judgment since, eventually, I ended up winning all the fights,
at least the really important ones.
It wasn't always easy, believe me. Many times I sincerely feared for the
welfare of our breed. I was relatively young, not well known in our breed or
anywhere in the world of purebred dogs, and I was taking on some pretty
important people. Like many other newcomers to the wonderful world of
Malamutes, I was a bit "snowed under" in my initial contacts with the "in"
group. But I learn fast and was able to sort things out in rather short
order. After that, it was mostly a matter of hard work.
The second point to be made up front is that some of the following is
opinion and some is fact, and I hope there is no misunderstanding or
confusion as to which is which. It should be clear to everyone that when I
say our Cherokee was the best Malamute ever, that's an opinion. While there
is much evidence to support such a belief, there is of course no way to
compare him or any of the top dogs of this time with any of the outstanding
winners who may have come along twenty or thirty years later.
On the other hand, much of what I write is indeed fact: the show records of
"third strain" dogs; the events that resulted in changes in the standard;
the charges and counter-charges and the outcome of the historic "Seeley Vs.
Zoller" trial at A.K.C. much is well documented by official records, some is
subject to verification by people still living who are knowledgeable about
the happenings described.
In a few cases, I present facts I can no longer prove, perhaps because they
were never made a part of official records, or because after many years the
letters or whatever were lost, or maybe never intended to be kept. In these
cases you can take my word for them - or not. They are facts, nonetheless (you
can rest assured that I will understand it if you find some of the facts
incredible. If you were there and I was not, and you were telling the story,
I'm not sure I would believe you).
Having said that, I will get to the point and tell you my story.. It's about
the Kotzebues and the M'Loots and our own Husky-Pak days. About where our
breed came from and how it got to where it is.
It's about a few years when varying opinions led to vigorous disagreements,
choosing sides, and bitter battles over what the Alaskan Malamute is and
what it should be; about a rare on-again, off-again policy as to the
American Kennel Club registration, about changing the standard; about who
runs the club and how. It's about the trial that totally determined what our
breed was from that point on.
Almost all registered Malamutes today are in some way related to the events
that occurred in a relatively short period of time, more than thirty years
ago. Had things turned out differently then, our breed would be a lot
different now!
Malamutes are pretty much a product of evolution, so they've been around for
a long, long time. Early explorers wrote that the dogs of the Malamute
indians of Alaska were bigger, stronger, more beautiful and more gentle with
their human companions than any other arctic dogs they had seen. But the
breed was virtually unknown for many years. Until AKC recognized Malamutes
as a distinct breed in 1935, they were lumped with a lot of others as
"eskimo dogs".
Even then, not much happened before and during World War II. But in the late
40's and early 50's a lot of people became interested, all about the same
time. That is when the modern Malamute really began.
I saw my first Malamute in a primitive U.S. Navy Officers Club in
Newfoundland in 1941. Impressed, I decided to learn more about those dogs --
someday. When "someday" came in 1947, my wife Laura and I began our search.
We read everything we could find (there wasn't a great deal to be found). We
fell in love with the breed, went to New York and talked to AKC, wrote
dozens of letters (maybe hundreds), and logged thousands of miles driving
around to see almost every Malamute we could locate.
There were so few dogs to see, so little written about them, so few people
who seemed to know much, that we were doubly interested. We felt we had
stumbled upon something rare, beautiful and virtually unknown.
In our search we saw a lot of Malamutes that were not Malamutes - some not
even close. Everyone with an arctic dog had a story to tell, and no two
stories were alike (in those times they didn't even agree on how to spell
"Malamute"!). Pedigrees, often recorded in handwriting, were difficult to
decipher and frequently misread. We soon learned that most early sled dog
people were not very good at record-keeping, and usually didn't really know
much about our breed.
In all, it was like living a detective story - trying to sort out the clues,
separate facts from fiction and the good buys from the bad guys, and somehow
arrive at the truth.
It took a lot of work but we finally learned, and we applied what we learned
to a limited breeding program. I stress the word "limited"; people today are
surprised to learn that Husky-Pak's numerous national championships and
breed records were achieved with a handful of dogs, and we produced only
twelve litters in 12 ½ years, start to finish!
Our dogs won about everything there was to win. This made me exceedingly
unpopular with an awful lot of people. But it helped us develop credibility
and resulted in a following of good people who supported us and became
important contributors on their own.
From almost total chaos in the late 1940's, it took us less than ten years
to achieve a stable, established and secure Alaskan Malamute breed; an
active, growing, democratic national breed club; and a new standard that
worked well and which everyone could live with for many years to come.
At that time, mission accomplished, we quit and went on to other interests,
and let others carry on the legacy we left to them and all who followed.
In one sense, Husky-Pak came to the end of the line on July 16, 1968, the
day "Eagle", our last Malamute died. But in reality we closed up shop in
1962 when we sold the last puppy in our "m" litter (in case you are counting,
we didn't have an "f" litter). So it has been years since we have been
active in any way. Remarkably, we still get letters, some from overseas.
They are nice letters that talk about the great Husky-Pak dogs of the 1950's
and many tell us there have been nothing like them since. We are exceedingly
grateful to be remembered after all these years.
The Kotzebue and the M'Loot and the
"third strain dogs"
In the 1920's and 30's a few people here in the USA became interested in
sled dogs and discovered the Malamute. They brought from Alaska a number of
dogs believed to be Malamutes. But nobody really knew what they were. There
was no IKC (Indian Kennel Club) or EKC (Eskimo Kennel Club) - and of course
none of them were registered, and with many, even their immediate ancestors
were unknown. In all cases, it was a matter of opinion.
Since opinions differ, different-looking dogs were selected, labeled
"Malamutes",
and bred.
In New England we found the Kotzebues. Their stateside beginnings were
mostly at arthur walden's kennel - he was the noted "dog puncher” who
handled the dogs on byrd antarctic expeditions - but they were taken over
and their progeny later AKC registered by milton and Eva Seeley. Seeley's
also imported other dogs that resembled what they believed the Malamute to
be.
Scattered about in other places were the M'Loots, assembled and developed by
Paul Voelker, near Marquette, Michigan. Voelker was an enthusiast who sold a
lot of puppies but wasn't interested in showing or in the AKC, so none of
the M'Loots were registered.
In Newbury, Vermont, we saw an older dog named Irwin's Gemo that we thought
was the best we had run across. Once owned by Lowell Thomas, the famous
explorer-newscaster, Gemo (sometimes "Gimo” or "Chimo”) had been shown to
best of breed at Westminster in Madison Square Garden in 1941. We bought his
grandson, a puppy we named "Kayak”, and we learned these dogs were neither Kotzebue nor M'Loot: they weren't many of them, and some had been crossed
with M'Loot-strain dogs. Dick Hinman, the owner, had gotten some of his dogs
from Dave Irwin, another explorer and author of "alone, across the top of
the world". Later I began to call these dogs the Hinman-Irwin strain or
"the
third strain”, although actually they weren't a strain at all, just a few
individual dogs (perhaps a family) that were neither Kotzebue nor M'Loot.
Our main asset in those days, I believe, was a rare degree of objectivity.
The Kotzebues and the M'Loots had developed fanatical followings who were
too busy maligning the other side to really look, listen and learn. We kept
open minds and eventually came to these conclusions:
the Kotzebues were good type, mainly because of their heads, muzzles, eyes,
ears, expression and good body proportions. They were more uniform than the
M'Loots, mostly wolf gray, usually about the same size and structure.
Generally good rears and bad fronts - chests too wide, out at the elbows.
And most of them were much smaller than we believed the original Malamute
was or should be.
The M'Loots had better size but some were rangy and lacking in substance.
Good fronts, many bad rears - lacking angulation, which produced some
stilted gaits. Tendency toward long ears, long muzzles. Some "snipeyness”.
Much variation in coats and colors - long, short; from light gray to black
and white, some all-whites.
Dispositions differed as well. The Kotzebues were less aggressive, easier to
control; the M'Loots prone to fighting, often difficult to handle around
other dogs.
In short, the M'Loots were bigger, flashier and more impressive, but they
had some rather characteristic faults and I felt they varied considerably in
type and in quality. Kotzebues were too small, but they had uniformity going
for them, and their main asset was type-as a whole they more closely
resembled the original Malamute as we believe it to be.
We easily concluded that crossing these strains with some skill, to combine
their good points and minimize the faults, would produce better Malamutes
than by breeding within either two strains.
That "third strain”, however, could not be ignored. Kayak, unfortunately,
never turned out to be another Gemo. Our second Malamute was one of the
better pure M'Loot bitches: she became Ch. Husky-Pak's Mikya of Sequin. Then
we really got lucky. Near Great Barrington, MA., we found a pair of pups
sired by an impressive dog named Alaska (later Ch. Spawn's Alaska). This
brother-sister pair that we bought, raised and took to national
championships became Ch. Apache Chief of Husky-Pak ("Geronimo”) and Ch.
Arctic Storm of Husky-Pak ("Takoma”). They were the biggest winners of their
era and became milestones of breed progress
Best of all, they had third-strain genes; they were three-quarters M'Loot,
one-quarter "other” going back to Irwin's Gemo and Hinman's Sitka. Sitka,
incidentally, may have been an even better bitch than Gemo was a dog. I
think she deserves a great deal of credit for the quality that resulted
later on.
Our pair were as large as the bigger M'Loots but a bit heavier in bone and
better proportioned; in body they were almost like king-size Kotzebues. Good
coats and coloring and excellent overall balance. Heads were broad. Ears
were correct size and shape and set properly on the skull. We knew this
combination was superior, and the show results soon convinced a lot of other
people.
But we weren't entirely satisfied. We felt a "third-strain-cross” would
heavy up the muzzles and set the type. We searched for a Kotzebue of
adequate size and came up with Toro of Bras Coupé, then owned by Earl and
Natalie Norris of Anchorage, Alaska. Fortunately, Toro was in the states
being shown by a professional handler. He had just gone best of breed at
Westminster. We brought him to Husky-Pak, mated him with Takoma and produced
our "C” litter.
We think this was the greatest litter in the history of our breed. Five were
shown, all became champions. One was Cherokee, and we think he was the best
Malamute ever: three consecutive National Specialty best of breeds, and
three consecutive AMCA dog-of-the-year awards. There was not the slightest
doubt in my mind that he could easily have gone best of breed at the next
two specialties, for five years in a row, had we chosen to keep showing him.
But we retired him as a gesture of good sportsmanship.
Cliquot-the dog shown in our official AMCA emblem - was the first Malamute
to win both a championship and a CDX. He was also the top winner in New
England. Cochise was the best in California for a time, and the sire of Ch.
Snocrest's Mukluk, our breed's first best-in-show. Comanche and Cheyenne,
the "C” litter females, were consistent winners starting with the big 1953
national specialty where, at 14 months, they were winner's bitch and reserve
winner's bitch - to their mother's best of breed!
Comanche died shortly thereafter. Cheyenne produced two daughters who won
three consecutive national specialty bos, and both of whom defeated most of
the top males of our breed in that era - including Ch. Mulpus Brook's The
Bear, who was our 1954 national specialty best of breed and dog-of-the-year.
The sixth "C” litter pup was Chippewa, a sure champion except for one little
detail: his owner, who I couldn't talk into showing him!
The saying is, the lord giveth and the lord taketh away. Our "c" litter was
the formula. Unhappily, Arctic Storm (Takoma) and Comanche died from hardpad
distemper following the december 1953 Philadelphia K.C. show. When Takoma
died, we had advance orders for more pups than she could have produced in a
lifetime. And Comanche, owned by Martha and Bob Gormely, was an extremely
powerfully-built, broad-headed, heavily-muzzled bitch that I thought could
have become a superlative producer of the real, original Malamute type. What
a loss!
When we settled down from these tragic events, we decided on two ways to
approximate the "C” litter. (1) mate Geronimo to Takoma's surviving daughter,
Cheyenne. And (2) import a Toro daughter, also for mating with Geronimo.
Cheyenne's litter produced three champions including Ch. Husky-Pak Marclar's
Sioux, national specialty BOS (to Cherokee) both in 1956 and 1957, and ch.
Barb-Far's Marclar's Machook, Specialty BOS in 1958 and our breed's first
female to place in the group.
Sioux just has to be the finest show female in our breed, unless I missed
count somewhere in recent years. She completed totally in top national
competition against the best of those times, from her first show until her
retirement. And no other female ever came close. The only male she never
beat was Cherokee! Consider this: Sioux finished her championship in four
straight shows in one month's time, defeating 55 different Malamutes
including nine champions! (fifty-five was a might impressive number in the
mid-1950's) and, like Cherokee, she could have won at least two or three
more national specialties, had we chosen to show her.
Toro's daughter was ch. Kelerak of Kobuk, right off a dog team in Anchorage,
Alaska. The Norris' had sold us a good one: we showed her to two national
specialty BOS. (and after all these years, we still talk about her wonderful
disposition.) Her mating with Geronimo produced three fine champions. Erok
was the youngest ever to place in group and he became a winner and
outstanding sire in California. Echako was rated the outstanding Malamute of
1960 (Phillips System), held the record for group placings (and probably
still does on a percentage basis) and was our 1960 best of breed at
Westminster. Except for his first show as a puppy, Echako was never beaten
by any other Malamute!
Eagle was the best of the three, but he came along about the time we lost
interest in showing. We showed him only a few times and he was never given a
chance to show what he could do. Still, he was best of breed at Westminster
in 1958, held the dog world award for his overall show record, and in group
placings he defeated several of the all-time record holders in other working
group breeds. And I think Eagle may have been the best moving Malamute I
ever saw.
Our Husky-Pak "E” litter was the first and perhaps the only one in our breed
to produce three brothers to place in group (which was difficult for any
Malamutes in those days) and two to win best of breed at Westminster.
Show results play a major role in the improvement of all breeds because they
are supposed to be expert, unbiased, third-party judgments. They usually are
that (or about as close as you can hope for in this imperfect world)-except
for relatively unknown breeds as ours was in the 1950's. In which case,
expertise is not always provided. Since judging is a matter of opinion,
mistakes are made, probably a lot more often in the lesser-known breeds. I
showed under several judges who were seeing Malamutes for the first time.
But that's all part of the game and there isn't much you can do about it.
So a few wins or losses don't mean a lot; a consistent pattern of winning is
what counts. Quality of the competition, and who beats whom, how often are
the major factors indicating relative quality.
Before 1953, with a few exceptions, competition among Malamutes was mainly
local or regional. It was in early 1953 at the National Capitol and
Harrisburg shows that the top regional winners got together and national
competition in our breed began. Then in october 1953 we held our first real
national specialty in rye, New York.
In these biggest and most important shows of their time, the results were
revealing. Geronimo won both at National Capitol and Harrisburg. Takoma came
out of two years retirement to win the specialty, defeating all the best
dogs and bitches of that era. Her brother Geronimo was BOS and three of her
14-month-old pups won just about everything else: WD, WB, RWB, BW! (in the
bestof breed judging, Takoma's and Geronimo's main competition was their
father, Ch. Spawn's Alaska).
By year-end - after the Philadelphia show in December was again a total
family affair - the message was loud and clear: strain crosses had produced
a superior Alaskan Malamute.
If further evidence is needed, consider this: in national specialty shows in
the seven years 1953 - 1959, all seven best of breeds and five best of
opposites were strain crosses involving "third strain” genes. (our Kelerak,
a Kotzebue, had the other two BOS)
In 1955 AMCA selected it's "top ten” in our breed and eight were the strain
crosses. Toro and Kelerak were the two Kotzebues. No pure M'Loots. (nine of
the top ten, incidentally, were part of, or results of, our Husky-Pak
breeding program!)
Quantum leap?
At this point an interjection; you will remember that former President Nixon
often said, "now let me make one thing perfectly clear.” I need to do that
now, because I well understand that what I have been telling you sounds like
a eulogy of Husky-Pak. That - I assure you - is not my purpose. My
recitation of the foregoing statistics is essential to prove beyond any
doubt that dramatic improvements in the Alaskan Malamute breed had taken
place at this point in time. You might well call it a "quantum leap forward”.
I'm convinced that statistics prove this point-of-view because they are
overwhelming. That's point number one.
Point number two, equally important, is that because of this obvious
breakthrough, immediate steps were taken to discredit all the dogs involved
in it; to totally destroy this noteworthy progress, and return our breed to
the rather sorry state it was in, only a few years before.
I will describe these events in some detail. But first a few observations on
some of the important dogs of those times.
Except for moosecat M'Loot - our Mikya's sire, owned by Cecil Allen of
Fayetteville, Tenn. And I thing never shown - the best pure M'Loot those
days was Ch Mulpus Brook's Master Otter, owned and extensively shown by Jean
Lane (formerly massaglia, and later briar). This dog was the first to place
in groups and helped publicize our breed. But he was beaten by Toro, and
consistently by Ch. Spawn's Alaska. Alaska was the big winner - twice best
of breed at Westminster - until Geronimo and Takoma (Apache Chief and Artic
Storm) came along and totally dominated the breed. Geronimo was AMCA's first
"dog-of-the-year". He was a tremendously popular dog, so powerful, regal,
impressive, yet gentle and friendly. I suspect he may have done more than
any other dog to call attention to the Malamute breed in those days when we
were relatively unknown.
Master Otter sired one outstanding winner, Bill and Lois Dawson's Ch. Mulpus
Brook's the Bear. Bear was our national specialty best of breed in 1954 and
our first ever to win the group. He got his third strain genes from his dam,
and he was a better Malamute than his sire.
The best Kotzebue I ever saw was, of course, Toro. And I suspect his
daughter Kelerak was the best of the Kotzebue bitches; show records support
this opinion. I was most fortunate to discover these two and appreciate
their virtues. And over the years I have deeply appreciated the generosity
and good sportsmanship of Earl and Natalie Norris who were willing to share
them with us.
In all, the Kotzebue and the M'Loots were important contributors to our
breed, and the third-strain and the three strain crosses we pioneered in the
1950's added significant quality and ended up improving our breed for
countless generations to come.
Janet Edmonds, an English lady who researched "the origins of the present
day Malamute” and published her findings in 1979, tells pretty much the same
story I am telling you now, although in less detail. She did miss an
important point - the role of the third-strain dogs - but I forgive her
because she wrote:
"I find it interesting that it was when the types were sensibly interbred
that the resulting dogs looked most like the (original) pre-gold rush
Malamutes. The classic examples of this are the Husky-Pak dogs of the
1950's"
Eva B. Seeley, a formidable opponent
The breeding program described was a significant development, but there were
others in those critical years: the lengthy battles over revising (or "clarifying”)
the standard was one, the fight for control of the club was another. These
major conflicts occurred about the same time, with Eva Seeley being the
major proponent of the status quo, and yours truly leading the newcomers who
came to believe the status quo was intolerable and had to be changed.
To me, the status quo meant total domination of both the breed and the club
by Mrs. Seeley. And so long as that continued, our breed was dead in its
tracks and going nowhere.
In my initial contacts with Mrs. Seeley and other New England owners, the
idea of all-out war never entered my mind. I felt sure that cooperation and
negotiation could solve the problems and get both the breed and the club
moving. I was wrong. Mrs. Seeley like things the way they were and she
intended to keep them that way, no matter what.
She was indeed a formidable opponent. Less than five feet tall and maybe 90
pounds - her nickname was "Short" - she would nonetheless fight like a tiger
when crossed. Unfortunately, I seemed to have crossed her, early on. And
repeatedly. Everything Malamute soon become Seeley vs Zoller.
I really did not want to fight. She was, I thought, something of a legend in
our breed and I was the new kid on the block. But I did have one thing in my
favor: early in life I learned you should not believe everything you read or
are told. There is value in being skeptical, in finding out for yourself.
Already in my life I had met a lot of "celebrities” and was never all that
impressed with any of them. I learned we are all human, with our own
peculiar set of faults and virtues. Nobody's perfect; it's just that some of
us are luckier than others. It is right and proper to acknowledge
achievement, and even to honor it when it deserves to be honored. But
hero-worship is not my thing, and never was.
So I was a bit skeptical right from the beginning and I'm sure Eva Seeley
detected that. Unlike many others new to our breed, I did not become a
"disciple” and I did not believe everything she said, simply because she
said it - especially when I discovered that what she said didn't always make
a lot of sense.
Still, I knew she was a pioneer and had rubbed elbows with the likes of
Arthur Walden, Leonhard Seppala, Scotty Allen and Admiral Byrd. She owned
Chinook kennels and was well known by most sleddog people, and apparently by
some of the people at the American Kennel Club. So at the beginning I was
willing to give her the benefit of the doubt. I listened a lot more than I
talked. But eventually I came to not believing a great deal of what I was
being told.
It bothers me when the pieces of the puzzle began to fall into place. She
had a virtual monopoly on AKC-registered Alaskan Malamute and wasn't about
to let that get away. According to the Seeley-Riddle book, there were no
more than thirty registered Malamutes in 1947! She owned a number of those
and the rest were owned by close friends or had been sold by her under
written agreements that no breedings would ever occur without her approval,
and then only with a male of her choosing!
That you could buy a dog or a bitch and not be allowed to breed it, was a
new one on me. But you have to admit it's a great way to protect a monopoly.
All this wasn't too surprising in view of two later discoveries. When AKC
reopened our breed to registration - based on the same requirements under
which her dogs had been registered, plus a quality test requiring each
candidate to be shown and accumulate ten championship points as well - Eva
Seeley immediately declared all Malamutes not of her own Kotzebue stock as
"Eskimo dogs, not Malamutes”!
This was quite a shock for new owners in those days. They would approach the
legendary Short Seeley at a dog show, or by journeying all the way to her
home in the middle of New Hampshire, to get her opinion of their new
Malamute puppy, and be told their pride and joy was not an Alaskan Malamute
and probably not a purebred of any breed!
I have seen people shattered by this experience. But in time the word got
around. Since it had happened to almost everyone at one time or another -
even those of us whose dogs were going best of breed (or even placing in
groups under AKC licensed judges) - we all began to view this as a sad joke.
You just weren't important in our breed until Eva Seeley had labeled your
dogs as "Eskimo”. It was just "Seeley being Seeley”.
Toro repudiated
Still, I was indeed surprised when she repudiated Toro of Bras Coupé,
probably the best Kotzebue ever. Eva's husband, Milton Seeley, had died and
it seems that in the mid or late 1940's she became quite ill. Unable to care
for her dogs, she sold her kennel to a man named Dick Moulton, who lived
nearby. Dick produced two litters from the same sire and dam and sold them
both to a winter resort in Canada, called Bras Coupé. After a couple of
years the resort decided to sell the dogs. They offered them to me and other
Malamute people - apparently I was one of the first. Toro was one of these
dogs and he caught my eye immediately; I would loved to have had him. But we
were just getting started, already had four dogs, and no plans whatever to
ever be more than a very small hobby-type operation. Toro really tempted me,
but Laura said no.
So Earl and Natalie Norris bought toro and some of the others. When Toro
started showing and winning, I asked Mrs. Seeley how she ever let him get
away. She literally bristled. "those two litters were a mistake,” she told
me. "those two should never have been mated! I am going down to AKC next
week and have all those registrations revoked!”
They were not revoked. But not because she didn't try. I know she tried
because later, at the "Seeley vs. Zoller" trial, I cited her actions against
Toro and his littermates as evidence of the lengths to which she would go to
discredit any Malamute no longer under her ownership or control. I did this
both in my defense briefs and again in person at the trial, and it was never
denied either by Eva Seeley or her lawyer.
That she was willing to repudiate Toro was surprising, but I thought it was
even more surprising that she actually believed AKC would revoke his
registration on her say-so. But again, it was another example of "Seeley
being Seeley”.
Later on, of course, she claimed full credit for Toro. When I used him at
stud with Takoma, the Norris' instructed me to send him on to Mrs. Seeley
who wanted to use him as well. (surprise, surprise.) A bit later, while Toro
was still at Chinook kennels, I drove up to attend the annual meeting and
specialty show in Framingham, MA. Since I had brought no dogs of my own,
Mrs. Seeley asked me to handle Toro in specialty. He was entered in open
dogs and Seeley wanted like crazy for him to beat the specials entry, who
was Ch. Mulpus Brook's Master Otter, the M'Loot owned by Jean Lane. Well,
Toro won and I think short Seeley actually liked me for about ten minutes on
that june day back in 1952!
It didn't last long. A year later, at the 1953 annual meeting in Winchester,
MA., the AMCA President, Paul Pelletier, greeted me with a verbal attack so
violent that I was stunned, and bill and Lois Dawson who were nearby couldn't
believe what they were hearing. After all these years, I don't remember what
he said, or what I replied. I do know that he and I had had virtually no
contact ever before. He knew nothing about me from personal experience, so
obviously somebody had done a real hatchet job on me among the New England
members. It wasn't hard for me to figure out who.
The Alaskan Malamute Club
Until 1952 the club was very small, closed (Kotzebue only) organization
composed solely of New England members and dominated by Eva Seeley. These
people were not very active, either in breeding or showing. Mostly this was
just a few friends with a common interest, getting together at a dog show or
at someone's house to talk dogs and socialize a few times a year. I didn't
know it at the time, but the club was not affiliated with or officially
recognized by the American Kennel Club.
But with Malamutes suddenly growing in popularity and quite a number now
being shown in other parts of the country, it apparently occurred to the New
England group they'd better hurry and get AKC recognition as the official
breed club before someone else beat them to it. So I figured they petitioned
AKC, or at least inquired and apparently were told they'd have to grow a bit
and get some members from outside their own neighborhood. Or, in other words,
appear a bit more like a representative breed club.
This seems logical in view of the fact that all of a sudden, I was allowed
to join their club! (me, the guy with the Eskimo dogs down in Maryland!)
They also took in another outsider, Jean Lane. She lived in New England but
owned an "outside” dog, Master Otter.
So I paid my dues and over the next several months began to wonder why. All
I got out of it was an occasional postcard announcing a meeting at someone's
house in New England. Some of these even reached me a few days after the
meeting had been held! Some arrived prior to the meeting date but seldom far
enough in advance for me to plan on going and actually get there. And none
ever included a reason for me to drive that far.
Reading show reports in the AKC gazette, I knew there was a lot more
Malamute activity taking place in other parts of the country. Especially in
the Milwaukee area. On a business trip out that way, I visited Ralph and
Marcheta Schmitt who owned Silver Sled, the largest Malamute kennel in the
country. They had heard of me and welcomed me, and immediately started
phoning people. In a couple hours they had assembled more than twenty
members of their Alaskan Malamute club, all of whom lived reasonably nearby.
They also knew of other interested owners in Chicago and other parts of the
Midwest. Some people in California were getting active as well.
We soon figured out that if my group and their group joined forces we could
come up with fifty or sixty members in a few weeks time.
The Schmitts proposed we do just that and petition AKC for recognition as
the official National Breed Club - and leave the new england people out in
the cold. But I felt AKC would look more kindly on our putting together a
truly national membership, including the owners in New England. I also
argued that a cease-fire, if one could be arranged, would be better for
everyone.
It wasn't an easy sell. The Schmitts were singularly "unfond" of Mrs. Seeley.
But they agreed, reluctantly, to give me a chance to see what I could do. I
was to attend the next meeting in New England and spell out the new facts of
life to the people there. Their choice: open the club to new members
everywhere, or we would start our own National Breed Club without them.
Their response would determine out future course of action.
A few weeks later I drove up to the 1952 annual meeting in Farmington, MA.
This was the same day and place where I had handled Toro to the specialty
best of breed over Master Otter. We held the meeting in a tent on the show
grounds. Only nine or ten members were there, including Jean Lane and me. I
was surprised to learn the total club membership was only about twelve; or
sixteen or seventeen, depending on whether you counted those who hadn't paid
any dues for the past year or two.
I told them about my meeting with the Milwaukee club - including the
arithmetic of the breeding and showing activities going on in other parts of
the country. After some discussions they agreed but not very
enthusiastically, as you might suspect - to my proposal that we open the
membership to any Malamute owners who wanted to join, unless there was some
legitimate reason not to accept them.
Jean Lane, apparently still feeling a bit of an outsider, did not have a
great deal to say at this meeting. Mrs. Seeley, however, was not at all
pleased with the proposal to expand. And, true to form, she came up with a
great idea: we would have two classes of members - the new ones would be
"auxiliary members” and only "original members” would be allowed to vote! I
guess that was a bit much, even for the other "original members”. Her motion
didn't pass: nobody seconded it and it never came to vote.
At this meeting, I also pointed out that we have to give our members
something for their dues. A nationwide membership, whenever it came about,
would require more services than a few postcards each year about occasional
get togethers somewhere in New England. What Malamute owners wanted, I
submitted, was information. Communications was the key requirement.
I volunteered to write, produce and mail an official monthly newsletter to
all members. After much discussion - and apprehension - they said okay. But
they made it clear they would cancel it if they didn't like what I wrote.
Our newsletter, I think has been published every month since I wrote and
mailed the first issue in august 1952. Membership grew rapidly as the
Schmitts and I and a few others contacted our customers and got them t join.
Before long, the new majority pretty much took over, achieved a great deal
of growth and progress and planted the seed that grew into a democratic
national breed club. Today we have a membership of nearly 900 including a
fair number outside the USA. While growth isn't everything, we're a lot
better off than when we had twelve or sixteen members in early 1952.
Today's members should know the facts about the democratization of our
Malamute club. At the 1953 annual meeting in Winchester, MA., the new
majority had gained complete control and I submit, we exercised our control
in a most responsible manner. We elected more than a proportional number of
New England members - including Eva Seeley - to our board of directors. And
then our majority on the board - I was one of them so voting - elected Eva
Seeley as our president!
We tried hard to be more than fair because we felt that by doing so, we
could convince Mrs. Seeley and her followers that working together was the
best thing any of us could do to benefit our breed and our club. It really
didn't help. Nothing much improved.
The 1954 annual meeting, for some stupid reason (like believing if we
continued our goodwill and cooperation we might get some in return) we again
allowed to be held up in the middle of New England - actually in Wonalancet,
N.H., just a couple of miles from Seeley's home. This, of course, was about
as remote and inconvenient as we could get, for the vast majority of our
members.
This meeting, however, was a major step forward, in that Eva Seeley was not
re-elected to anything. And this was not my doing: she alienated too many
members outside her own group. It didn't help any when she hired a high-
powered boston lawyer, and brought him into our meeting to make sure the
rest of us did not pull any illegal shenanigans!
(the lawyer's name was Kenneth Tiffin. He had been an official of the
American Kennel club, and at the time, I believe he was president of the
Great Dane Club of America. More on Mr. Tiffin later.)
At the 1954 annual meeting, I was re-elected a director and elected
president. We continued to be fair; we elected Nelson Butler of the New
England group to our board of directors, and appointed Dr. Lombard as our
delegate to AKC. We also decided to incorporate - in the state of New
Hampshire, as a further gesture to Seeley and our New England members.
Shortly thereafter, we became the Alaskan Malamute Club of America, inc.
Incidentally, in the interest of accuracy, it is necessary to point out that
Mrs. Seeley was not the founder of our club. I cannot remember exactly when
we achieved official AKC recognition as the parent club of our breed - it
probably was in 1953 - but I know for sure after we had grown into a truly
representative national organization (over Eva Seeley's vigorous objections),
thereby meeting the requirements of the American Kennel Club. In my view, it
was probably not until the 1954 annual meeting that we really became and
began to act like, a national breed club.
Standard of the breed
The original standard was based on the Kotzebue dogs, because it was written
by the people who had Kotzebue dogs. In all, it wasn't a bad job and it
never occurred to me to try to change it. Contrary to some opinions, I was
never one who believed "the bigger, the better” when it comes to Malamutes.
Still, I thought that 20-inch, 50-pound bitches and 22-inch, 65-pound males
- allowed by the standard - were smaller than Malamutes ought to be. And I
could not see that 23-inch, 70-pound bitches and 25-inch, 85-pound males
should be the upper limit of our breed. But we had been showing our larger
dogs under that standard and were doing quite well. Only one judge ever put
down one of our dogs for being over the standard size, and I could live with
that.
It was Eva Seeley who wanted to change the standard. She had come to
Washington, D.C. in early 1953 to show one of her dogs at the National
Capitol Show. It was a large turnout for those for those days, and it
included dogs from several different areas of the country. Her dog didn't do
all that well, while our king-size Geronimo took Best of Breed.
She didn't like that. So after the judging she called a meeting of all the
Malamute owners and announced that on her way home she would stop at AKC to
"see my good friend John Neff” and have our standard "clarified” to
disqualify all Malamutes who were over the sizes stated!
She said the original intent was to disqualify; they just overlooked making
that clear.
This announcement created quite a stir, as you might expect. Almost
everyone's dogs were over 25", 85 lbs and bitches over 23", 70 lbs. We were
all fairly naive about AKC: based on her claimed relationship with "good
friend John Neff”, whom we did recognize as the guy who pretty much ran AKC,
we figured maybe she just might be able to pull it off.
We heard no more about it, though, until October that year, at the Big
National Specialty in Rye, NY. After judging, Mrs. Seeley (now the president)
convened an official meeting and the first thing she did was to introduce
the executive vice president of AKC - her good friend, John Neff!
We were totally taken by surprise, and most of us fully expected him to make
some pronouncements about disqualification's that we really did not want to
hear. But he spoke briefly, complimented us on our large turnout and the
excellence of our dogs, and then departed. This was a happy surprise.
The first point of business at the meeting then, was "standard clarification”.
By obvious pre-arrangement, Delta Wilson made a motion that Eva Seeley be
designated as chairman (we didn't have "chairpersons” in those days) of a
standard review committee and appoint her own committee members to serve
with her! Fortunately, we had the votes to put a stop to that sort of thing.
I made a short speech about democracy, and upon my motion we voted to elect
a committee representative of the membership as a whole.
Then, with fair and proper consideration for all points of view, we voted
Mrs. Seeley a seat on the committee. Bill Dawson, Ralph Schmitt, Jean Lane
and I were also elected.
Leaning over backwards - again - trying to accommodate Eva Seeley, which we
did on so many occasions, turned out to be a bad idea. She was dead set on
regaining control of the breed by disqualifying as many competitors as
possible, and she would not give an inch. We argued for two years. Dawson,
Schmitt and I agreed on what we felt was a correct, fair and representative
standard. Jean Lane, for reasons known only to her, just would not function
and contributed nothing whatsoever. Mrs Seeley insisted on the sizes in the
original standard with automatic disqualification's for any over that size.
(but not for being under that size). She wanted to add five other
disqualification's as well!
After two years of getting nowhere, the best we could do was to give our
membership a choice: the majority report, the Seeley minority, or leave the
standard unchanged. 107 members voted - 73 for the Zoller-Dawson-Schmitt
version (as I remember, Jean Lane didn't even vote), 9 for Seeley's and 25
for no change.
AKC added the 25 to the 9 and said that was "significant opposition”. They
said we couldn't change anything without a "more unanimous” opinion.
So the committee was disbanded in October 1956 after some 2 ½ years of hard
work, and I declined to waste any more time on the standard review matter.
Let someone else do it, for a change. In September 1957, Martha Gormley,
then president, appointed a new standard committee consisting of Bill Dawson,
Dorothy Dillingham and Hal Pearson. I felt this was a fair committee, in
that it represented the three points of view among our members - although
not at all in proportion to the number of members in each group. (but then
it didn't have to be: any sane person knows the majority isn't always right.)
at any rate, Pearson liked the big Husky-Pak dogs, Dillingham was a Seeley-
Kotzebue fan, and Dawson - whose bear was 25", 85 lbs and often lost to
king- size Cherokee - was solidly in the middle.
Size, really, was the major bone of contention from the beginning to end.
The new committee finally reached an intelligent compromise: instead of
defining a size range they settled for a statement that "the desirable sizes”
were 25/85 and 23/75, males and bitches. Otherwise, the revised was pretty
much as written in our earlier majority report. I remember writing many of
the words that still exist: "there is a natural range in size in this breed”,
and also that "size considerations should not outweigh that of type,
proportion and functional attributes...”. I remember writing the closing
paragraph: "important - in judging Alaskan Malamutes, their function as a
sledge dog for heavy freighting must be given consideration above all else”.
And the words that follow that statement.
There were no size disqualification's in the committee's recommendation so,
of course, Eva Seeley denounced it and voted no. But the membership approved
it in november 1959 and AKC gave it their blessing in april 1960, nearly
seven years after our first committee was elected and began its work.
What happened then is why I feel now that anyone who suggests "revising” the
standard to spell out whether red Malamutes (or whatever) are acceptable,
etc., ought to be chained to an iceflow and set adrift in the bering sea. Of
course, the standard is not perfect; it's a compromise. But it's one we can
all live with.
I could write a standard better than the one we have. And so could Penny
Devaney, whose knowledge of our breed I respect. But I know what it takes to
get an "almost unanimous” approval by 800-some-odd members, most of whom
want a standard that describes their dogs. I also think you don't want
anymore details than our standard now has. You don't want judges to come
into the with scales and a tape measure. You don't want a standard with so
many words that most judges won't read them, and the ones who do will not
remember what they read!
Before I leave this matter of size, a few final words: despite what our
standard says, I am not at all convinced that 85-lb males and 75-lb females
are "the ideal freighting size”. That statement was a compromise, the best
we could do then, and a lot better than the way it was. But I always felt
the "original” Malamute was a big dog, even after many generations of
survival in a harsh environment. I think the old photos show that. In the
1950s, near Lake Placid, NY, I saw real, honest-to-god good-type Malamutes,
brought out of the arctic by Jacques Suzanne, that were bigger than any real
Malamutes I have seen before or since.
For many reasons I was told that anyone who ever worked sled dogs had found
the big dogs "much less efficient” than the smaller ones. Some even said any
dog over 80-lbs was clumsy and more likely to break down and drop out. Not
being a driver, I couldn't argue. But now that opinion has been made to look
silly by Will Steger and his gallant companions who journeyed totally across antarctica in what has to be said to be the greatest feat of human and
canine endurance ever on this earth. They accomplished this with teams of
100-lb dogs - and their performance was magnificent!
Susan Butcher and her smaller Iditarod dogs are to be much admired. Let us
all keep in mind that Iditarod is a race, not a freighting event. The
Malamute is "not intended as a racing sled dog”... He is a "sledge dog for
heavy freighting”. Anyone disagree? It's in our standard.
And now - again - let me be perfectly clear: I did not say, the bigger the
better. And in no way am I suggesting we rewrite the standard to conform to
my opinions.
The plot thickens (enter John Hofft and John B. Roth)
By late 1954, Eva Seeley was an unhappy woman, to say the least. She was no
longer allowed to run the breed and the club, her dogs were not winning
anything important, AKC had registered a lot of dogs she claimed were not
Malamutes (i.e. Kotzebue), and it looked like she was failing in her efforts
to eliminate the competition by rewriting the standard. There were rumors
she was up to something and a good guess was that it had nothing to do with
establishing a Husky-Pak fan club.
Soon we heard she was gathering "facts” to prove our dogs were not purebred.
She had told a number of people that Dave Irwin, Dick Hinman, Hazel Wilton,
Paul Voelker and Brud Gardner - all breeders of dogs behind my stock - had
"admitted” their dogs were not purebred Malamutes!
I immediately checked with Hinman and Wilton and they said this was totally
untrue. Seeley had said Jean Lane was with Paul Voelker on the occasion when
he had repudiated all his M'Loot dogs, and Jean Lane said this never
happened. "quite the opposite,” she maintained, "Paul said his were
purebred, and a lot better than hers!”
My friend Jim Lynn was a friend of Brud Gardner, so I asked him to check
that one out. Brud told Jim that Seeley had approached him, asking that he
sign certain "affidavits” and he flatly refused because "they were based on
falsehood.”
On january 23, 1955, I received a most interesting letter. It was from
margaret Tracy Irwin, wife of Dave Irwin. These people did not know me at
all. They did not even know where I lived. S they addressed their letter to
me in "care of the American Kennel Club”! Something strange was going on,
she wrote in her letter, and they thought I should know about it.
She said that a man named John Hofft had popped in at the Irwin's a few
months previously, with no money, no job and a truck-full of hungry
Malamutes. Irwin's had helped, fed the dogs and gave him a job. Some weeks
later, he left. Now he had come back.
Mrs. Irwin wrote: "recently the man has been calling, writing and coming
here to get affidavits signed by Mr. Irwin. Since he had not been successful,
a letter we received yesterday took on a most threatening tone.”
The letter, she said, was signed by a "John B. Roth" - but was "suspiciously
in the handwriting of one John Hofft”! It was a long and rambling letter,
but among other things it said:
"Mrs Seeley has letters you wrote to Mr. Wolff also one fingerprinted
affidavit from Lowell Thomas, Margaret Dewey, Jack O'Brien and Dick Moulton.”
"Mr. Zoller, president of the Malamute club, wrote John a letter claiming
you have a terrible reputation and that you couldn't tell the difference
between a Malamute and Siberian Husky. Zoller for years has controlled the
Malamute and Siberian situation and no dog could be registered unless
approved by him. Zoller could expose you as a phony who was never in the
arctic and never was in king Williamland, who simply was lost in the arctic.
The affidavits are for your protection. I have spent a lot of money over
this registration business, taking officers of the kennel club out to dinner
and shows on broadway. Registrations do not come cheap. I have spent over
$50.00 in the last few days buying scotch for different officials. Now I
don't intend to spend a lot of money to come all the way up to milford to
get those affidavits. "(further on:)” now Mr. Irwin, these affidavits are
for your protection because Mr. Hofft and Mrs. Seeley have enough affidavits
and letters to put Zoller on the lam and get their dogs registered. Both
Hofft and Seeley are going through regardless whether you furnish affidavits
or not. Zoller will put you over a barrel to save himself. For you to hold
back the affidavits you are not going to stop Mr. Hofft and Seeley from
putting Zoller on the pan because they intend to do it anyway and let Zoller
pass the buck on to you.”
I responded to Mrs. Irwin and tried to explain what I thought was happening.
When she wrote back she enclosed a photocopy of the "John B. Roth” letter. I
found several Hofft letters in my files, compared the handwriting, and found
beyond any doubt that John Hofft was "John B. Roth”.
Mrs. Irwin also wrote:
"there is a garage man, Terpster by name, who befriended Hofft, and to whom
David took our Pontiac station wagon after Hofft had messed it up. He told
David that Mrs. Seeley was tempting Hofft with a promise of getting him to
the South Pole expedition coming up. Hofft perhaps would do anything to get
to such a place, although I doubt it is sincere on her part. He had nothing
but horrible things to say about her when he was here, and then suddenly he
became pen pals with her!”
It was hard for me to believe all this was happening, but there it was, in
black and white, before my very eyes.
About the same time, several members noticed and complained that the AMCA
column in the AKC gazette always included a small head study of a dog with a
forlorn and unappealing expression, that was a poor advertisement for our
breed. They suggested we come up with a better photo. The board agreed. But
since the dog shown was one of Seeley's we were very careful to set up a
fair system for selecting a replacement. We solicited unidentified photos
from our membership. (as I remember, it was one of Toro that was finally
chosen.)
But of course the very announcement that we were considering a change was
greeted by the expected Seeley tantrum and related threats: she was going to
protest to AKC and "demand proof” of pure breeding of the dog selected, etc.
etc.
I guess this one was the straw that broke the Camel's back. Not long after
that, I received a strange letter from her. It started out by inquiring
about the health and well being of my wife and children and sending them her
best wishes. And then, it issued an ultimatum; I was to prove to her that my
dogs were purebred Malamutes and do so within ten days! Failure to comply
would result in her immediate launching of an AKC investigation!
At the same time she sent a letter to each member on our board of directors
which said, "the American Kennel Club must now prove to me that the persons
who signed off affidavits of pedigrees and made their own declaration as to
these pedigrees being of purebred of the same breed, have not been impostors.”
I wrote back, a long letter, saying to her that things were getting out of
hand and that her constant harping and outlandish accusations were damaging
our breed and our club; but most of all were damaging to her; that many of
our members who honored her for her pioneering efforts in the 1930s were now
saddened at seeing the disruptive influence she had become.
I felt sorry for her, and with complete sincerity I suggested in my letter
that before she issued any more threats, she should check her judgment with
some of the people she trusted - Dr. Lombard, Edna Lawlor, Delta Wilson.
I also wrote to the Lombards and the Lawlors. They were good and reasonable
people, I thought: I especially liked Edna Lawlor. Dr. Lawlor had a Malamute
team - some were registered, some not - and his main interest was racing. He
persisted in running his Malamutes against the Siberian teams and I don't
think he won very often, if at all. Lombard, a veterinarian, was one of the
best and best-known dog drivers in the world. He ran Siberians exclusively,
but always had a Malamute or two around the place.
I asked them to do me no favors, but to please help Mrs. Seeley stop making
a fool of herself; that if she would use a little common sense and back off
a bit, she could possibly regain some of the respect she had earned a few
years previously. I pointed out that while I was the target, literally
dozens of other people were involved; if she persisted in her efforts to
destroy thework of so many people over so many years, we would have to take
whatever counter-measures became necessary, and Eva Seeley would be a
certain loser in the process.
I never heard a peep from the Lombards and the Lawlors, and I do not know
why. Could be, they too were finally fed up with Mrs. Seeley and decided to
let her go hang. More likely, they agreed with her and hoped she could get
rid of all the new people and new dogs and return to the cozy little family
set-up they had in the past. It is also possible that neither the Lombards
nor the Lawlors cared enough, one way or the other, to become involved. I
never was able to figure it out.
Seeley vs. Zoller: the charges
In October that year I was notified by AKC that Mrs. Seeley had formally
accused me of knowingly breeding mixed-breed dogs and representing them to
be purebred Malamutes. If I wished to deny these charges, I could present my
arguments at a formal trial at AKC headquarters in New York City. Included
were photocopies of the letters that Mrs. Seeley had submitted as "proof".
There were a couple of letters from a man named R. Gibson Perry, a retired
medical doctor, establishing that in 1936 he had purchased certain dogs from
Milton Seeley. Other letter's established that Brud Gardner had obtained
some puppies from Dr. Perry and in due course had bred one called "Alaska ",
and sold one of her female pups named "Sitka" to Dick Hinman. Hinman later
had mated Sitka with Irwin's Gemo, producing a dog who later sired my "Kayak
of Brookside".
I realized immediately, of course, that the same dogs were ancestors of
Spawn's Alaska - and therefore, of course, of Geronimo, Takoma, Cherokee,
Sioux, Eagle, Echako, Machook, etc., etc. Even Dawson's "Bear" and Pearson's
Banshee and Aabara (national specialty winners) were involved. In short,
most of the National Specialty Winners over a period of years, and virtually
all of the top dogs and bitches of that era!
So the Seeley charges seemed to be based totally on this: our dogs and many
others went back to one or more dogs the Seeley's had owned some twenty
years before - and she now claimed they were not purebred Malamutes.
I kept looking through the material AKC had sent me, searching for her proof.
I couldn't find any. I wrote AKC saying they must have forgotten to send me
everything they had planned to. They replied and said no, that was it. That
was everything.
It was hard for me to believe the whole case boiled down to this: Eva Seeley
said the ancestors of my dogs were not Malamutes. All I would have to do is
prove they were Malamutes.
Question: at this early stage in the development of the breed, how do you do
that?
Since all Malamutes in 1936 - including hers - were only a generation or two
from "unknown", we couldn't prove that the ancestors of our dogs were
purebred Malamutes, just as she couldn't prove anything, one way or the
other, about her dogs. According to AKC, all Malamutes were "eskimo dogs"
before 1935!
In my defense brief - mine was hardly "brief", more like a textbook - I took
several approaches. I pointed out that she had no proof whatever to
substantiate the charges, that her whole case was based solely on her claim
that my dogs were not Malamutes. My claim was that Eva Seeley was famous
throughout the Malamute world for labeling all Malamutes not of her own
breeding as eskimo or crossbred dogs, and that she had been doing this for
many years, and nobody any longer believed her or took her seriously.
I also called attention to her repudiation of her own Kotzebue dogs - Toro
and the others who had slipped away from her control. This consistent
pattern of behavior, I said, should show her claims had no validity.
One thing, however, had me worried. That was the unique nature of our breed
in those times - so recently out of the arctic, so close to the "unknown". I
knew the members of the trial board knew nothing about Malamutes, and so
could totally err in their findings by not realizing how different our breed
was from most others. So I wrote a fairly lengthy history of our breed. And
to put Seeley's charges in proper perspective, I submitted a lengthy history
of her attempts to eliminate the competition by revising the standard, to
control the Club, to discredit all dogs not of her own.
I emphasized that this case was in no way a simple "Seeley vs. Zoller"
matter, but rather an attempt to destroy the work of years by as many as
seventy members of our Club (the vast majority as of then) and even
including eight of the nine people serving on our board of directors. I
established that the fourteen "Seeley years" had produced two AKC champions
in our breed, while the following five years had produced 61 - most of which
she was now trying to discredit and render useless for all further breeding
programs.
I even pointed out the Seeley charges made AKC itself look pretty silly: I
enclosed a list of 46 AKC-licensed judges - all of them among the best known
dog judges of those times - who had judges these "eskimo dogs or arctic
mongrels" and put them up as the best Alaskan Malamutes in our country. If
they couldn't tell crossbreds from purebreds they were obviously incompetent
and should have their licenses revoked. This case, I suggested should be
renamed "Seeley vs. Everybody including AKC!"
I also covered the whole story about the Irwin's Gemo - John B. Roth case as
an indication of how far she would go to build her case. I submitted copies
of letters from Irwin, Hinman, Brud Gardner and Mrs. Wilton to show that
everyone in the chain had bought, owned, bred and sold these dogs and their
progeny as purebred Malamutes.
Almost everyone. One line is missing: Dr. Gibson Perry. This concerned me
more than somewhat: I did not know this man at all, but I had heard Mrs.
Seeley praised him and quoted him on many occasions. I figured he was either
a relative or a close friend of the family, and as such might be willing to
sign anything just to help her out.
I had no choice but to find out. I learned he was retired and living in the
woods way up on the vermont border with Canada. Jim Lynn offered to drive me
there, a long trip. After two days of fast driving, we arrived in a mid-
afternoon. It was november. Cold. I remember the skies were dark gray. It
was just beginning to snow.
We had no idea what to expect. When the old doctor found out who we were and
why we had come, maybe he'd throw us out. It was make-or-break time, I knew
that for sure.
He came to the door of his cabin. He was indeed an old man, in his eighties
I found out. Didn't see too well. But he was, I soon learned, a right sharp
senior citizen.
"Dr. Perry?", I inquired. He said "yes". I said, "I've come to talk to you
about Eva Seeley”. He held up his hand to stop me. He took out a match and
lit his pipe. Then in a moment or two - without knowing anything more about
me, or why I was there - he volunteered his opinion of Eva Seeley.
Throughout this account of the critical years in our breed's history I have,
in the interest of accuracy and historical perspective, been totally frank -
perhaps more so than some readers may feel is necessary. But so much
misinformation still exists, it must be corrected, and I have done so with
considerably more charity than I ever received from Eva Seeley or any of her
friends. Still, I cannot bring myself to tell you what Dr. Perry said,
although the exact words are etched forever in my memory!
But I knew then for sure that if we ended up losing our case at AKC, it
wouldn't be due to Dr. Gibson Perry.
One of the printable things he said about Mrs. Seeley was that she drove him
crazy. Always pestering him "to sign something or other". We talked at some
length. More than an hour. When we left he had given us a letter that said:
"to whom it may concern":
"the dogs I purchased from Milton Seeley in 1936 were represented by him to
be Alaskan Malamutes and were understood by me to be of that breed.
The dogs I mated to produce the pup I sold to Vernon (Brud) Gardner were
purebred of the Malamute breed.
I have never had reason to suspect that those dogs were crossbred or
purebred of any other breed.
I have owned other sledge dogs, but the above facts apply to the dogs in
question; those purchased by me from Milton Seeley in 1936. I have never
told Eva Seeley, or anyone else, otherwise."
The trial
There were several delays, postponements and changes in the composition of
the trial board, so the hearing did not take place until june 1956. Jim Lynn
went with me. He was our AMCA delegate to AKC, and came along as a witness
to verify the Brud Gardner and Dr. Perry statements in case that became
necessary. My wife, Laura and Connie Lynn were there, too. But just along
for the ride.
We arrived at the AKC offices in Manhattan before the others. Nobody knew us,
but we told the receptionist who we were, and we were asked to have a seat
in the waiting room. People we didn't know kept walking in and out, and no
one spoke to us or paid any attention.
AKC had told me most people hire an attorney for cases like this, but I
figured I would handle it on my own. Besides, (with apologies to any lawyer
reading this) the money I'd save would buy us a nice trip to europe later
on. Or a new car. Someday. (maybe)
Then a lot of people came into the waiting room, all at the same time. A
half dozen or more well-dressed, distinguished-looking gentlemen in their
fifties or sixties, obviously lawyers, probably members of the trial board,
and some AKC officials. Eva Seeley was with them and I recognized Mr. Tiffin,
Seeley's lawyer from Boston. Being President of the Great Dane Club of
America and a former AKC official, he was well known there and was shaking
hands with everyone. As a matter of fact, everyone was laughing, shaking
hands and slapping each other on the back like long-lost buddies. Or
fraternity brothers. Seeley was right in the middle of the festivities,
being treated like it was a family reunion and she was one of the family!
Jim Lynn looked at me and shrugged, with a "win some, lose some" expression
on his face. I felt terrible. If ever I saw a stacked deck of cards, this
was it. It occurred to me that maybe I had lost the case before the trial
even started.
However, the trial board turned out to be courteous and imminently fair.
Seeley got to present her case first. She brought in John Hofft as a witness
and he told a lot of lies about me. This really hurt, since he was once a
customer of mine and I had done a number of favors for him over the years. I
could not believe what I was hearing. But as he continued to berate me, I
began to realize he was such a bad liar he was probably doing more damage to
their side than mine.
When my turn came, I think I was able to discredit him completely. I brought
up a few character flaws I knew about and I introduced Mrs. Irwin's letters
and the ridiculous John B. Roth letter. Hofft denied writing this, of course,
and I told the trial board that it was so obvious that any handwriting
expert - even one who wasn't very good at it - could easily identify the
writing as Hofft's. And I insisted on having this done if the board had any
doubts who was lying and who was telling the truth.
I accused Seeley of bribing John Hofft and there was no real response to
that, either from Seeley or her lawyer. They just changed the subject.
One thing surprised me: Seeley and her attorney introduced matters at the
trial that were not included in their original charges! I though that was
illegal. With no advance notice, they brought Irwin's Gemo into their case.
They had not mentioned him in their original charges, obviously because dave
Irwin had refused to sign their affidavits. But now they claimed he was not
a Malamute because he had been shown as an eskimo dog in 1934! They did not
back up their charges with any information or proof of any kind-no mention
of when or where or anything else!
This caught me by surprise. But then it dawned on me that Gemo wasn't even
born yet in 1934!! I said so, and then I also said it didn't really make any
difference anyway, because all Malamutes were "eskimo dogs" under AKC's
definition until they acknowledged ours as a separate breed; and that didn't
happen until 1935 - at least a full year later than the alleged showing took
place!
And then I declared most emphatically that I could prove that gemo was shown
as an Alaskan Malamute at the Westminster K.C. show in Madison Square Garden
in 1941 and again in 1942, after AKC recognized our Malamutes as a breed
separate and distinct from the eskimo.
Introducing such a careless accusation with no evidence whatever to back it
up, was, I am sad to say, typical Eva Seeley behavior. But I could not
imagine her big-time Boston lawyer doing anything that dumb. When it
happened, I began to feel a lot more at ease about handling my own case
without legal representation.
The other new "evidence" presented without any advance notice was a
statement by Paul Voelker that was potentially damaging to my defense and to
all owner's of M'Loot dogs (of which there were many). Apparently after
Hofft had failed to bulldoze Dave Irwin, he had gone to Arizona where
voelker was living at the time, and tried the same thing with him. I had no
way of knowing whether the Voelker statements presented at the trial were
authentic or forgeries, and I said so. I also said that, by several years of
corresponding with Voelker, I had figured him to be not totally reliable and
something of an egotist who considered everyone else in the breed as a "Johnny-come-lately",
or an "impostor". That he was intent on playing the role of the master, with
all others as devoted disciples. I had letters from him calling his best
customers - the Schmitts and Jean Lane - stupid people who refused to follow
his teachings and who had "ruined" the dogs he sold them.
Since Voelker was totally out of the business, and I believed quite jealous
of how far the breed had progressed beyond where he was able to take it, it
was possible he may have decided to repudiate his M'Loot dogs to get even
for imagined wrong.
Possible, I said at the trial, but not likely. It was easy to prove that for
all of the years he had been in the dog business, he had consistently
represented his dogs to be not only purebred Malamutes, but by far the best
Malamutes on planet earth! It would take a lot more than "affidavits" by
Seeley and Hofft to convince me the documents they presented against the M'Lloot
dogs had any more validity than the rest of their case.
Finally they got to the matter of the Perry dogs and I figured this was the
big, high, hard one of the Seeley case. And just about the time I was
beginning to feel quite comfortable, her lawyer tossed Dr. Perry onto the
table a document about the dogs bought from Milton Seeley in 1936 - and it
included the statement, "these dogs not of purebreeding!”
I was dumbfounded. What in hell was happening here? All I could do, of
course, was to present my letter signed by Dr. Perry which stated positively
that the dogs were Alaskan Malamutes. I called on Jim Lynn as a witness to
tell the story of our visit to Dr. Perry's camp and attest to the validity
of my document.
Then I told the trial board I could not explain the conflicting documents
but it wouldn't be all that difficult to contact Dr. Perry and find out from
him which of us had presented the true facts, and I insisted that this be
done.
At that point, Mr. Tiffin began to whisper to Mrs. Seeley, and in a moment
or two (rather painfully, I thought) he explained to the trial board that
Mrs. Seeley had herself, typed in the words, "these dogs not of purebreeding"
above Dr. Perry's signature, after he had signed it!
(I told you early in this story that some of the things that happened in
those days were indeed incredible. I don't know what records AKC has kept on
this trial or how detailed they would be. But if a complete transcript still
exists and is available, it will show this account to be totally accurate).
I cannot remember every detail, but I do know that another document signed
by Dr. Perry turned up at the trial, and it included the words "not of
purebreeding". Immediately after the trial concluded, Jim Lynn drove all the
way to the Canada-Vermont border to see if Dr. Perry could explain how that
had happened. Dr. Perry was away on a hunting trip, but his granddaughter
remembered. "Just as he was ready to leave", she told Jim Lynn, "Mrs. Seeley
pulled in with some papers for him to sign. He refused and she told him it
was nothing but a statement that he had bought some dogs from the Seeleys at
one time. He didn't have his glasses, so he accepted her word and signed.
Then he told her to leave as he was in a hurry".
The granddaughter said she would tell Dr. Perry what had happened when he
returned. He would be mad, she said, and he would go to AKC personally and
give his views on Mrs. Seeley if that were necessary.
Although the trial was over, the findings of the trial board would not be
announced immediately. So I sent this new information to AKC, just in case.
I knew the future of the entire breed was at stake, so I would leave no
stone unturned!
The verdict and the appeal
A couple of weeks later we were notified that the Seeley charges were not
sustained and that the case was dismissed. Seeley and her lawyer, however,
immediately appealed the verdict to the AKC board of directors as a whole.
Mr. Tiffin's appeal brief, which AKC sent me, was three pages of undiluted
hogwash containing statements like this: "there is further contradicted
evidence to be found in the transcript that certain of the dogs in the line
of Kayak were first shown as Siberian Huskies....."
Unbelievable! Another new accusation never before mentioned in the charges
or introduced at the trial! And therefore - think about it-there was no
possible way for them to be "found in the transcript" as stated. I cannot
believe Mr. Tiffin, a lawyer, did not know his tactics were improper. And
more important, like everything else charged in this trial, his statement
about "shown as Siberian Huskies" was not accompanied by explanation as to
which dogs, which shows, when, by whom, or any evidence or proof of any kind!
When I studied Mr. Tiffin's appeal brief, I found no substance whatever. The
appeal was based on his claim that with all the affidavits I had submitted,
"the people probably were not telling the truth". And the board, he said,
should really decide the case on " Mrs. Seeley's own testimony which I do
not believe can be questioned."
(Maybe I'm wrong, but that seems to me to be quite a claim about a woman who
typed in "these dogs not of purebreeding" over Dr. Perry's signature and
introduced it as evidence at the trial!)
I did not even attend the appeal hearing in New York on November 28,1956. In
due course, I was notified that the appeal was denied.
Aftermath
Several people who had followed the case suggested I should sue Mrs. Seeley
for slander, libel, and defamation of character. I did not. I will fight to
defend my interests, but not to get even.
I had won the case, but it took nearly two years of my time, a great deal of
hard work, and a right fair amount of money I could ill afford in those days.
She had lost her case. But she never really paid the price - not when you
consider the tactics she used. Many who knew what happened excused her.
Looked the other way. Again. People believe what they want to believe. I
didn't care. I was in favor of sweeping it all under the rug, now that she
was no longer a threat to our Malamute breed. I actually felt sorry for Eva
Seeley - although at times I cannot understand why! At any rate I refrained
from publishing the whole story for more than thirty years.
I am convinced also that it never occurred to Eva Seeley that anything she
had done was wrong. Even a little bit wrong.
In a few years, I was out of it - and I think that at least in some measure
the way I had been treated had something to do with my getting out. On the
other hand we had made a number of close and lasting friendships. We met a
lot of interesting "characters" and some really good people. Jim Lynn was
always 100% with his support, and the Pearsons and gormleys and the Dawsons
and some others were solidly on my side from start to finish.
But I think everyone who owned Kotzebue dogs wanted Seeley to win, and they
didn't care how. (Human nature is like that. Even as I write, millions of
Arabs worldwide revere and support Saddam Hussein simply because he is Arab,
and nothing else counts). Most of our AMCA members realized I was fighting
to save their dogs as well as my own, and therefore were firm allies at the
time.
But quite apart from the trial, and except for a few of us in the middle,
our Malamute people remained mostly Kotzebue or M'Loot fanatics and they
viewed each other with about the same amount of trust and affection we see
with the jews and the arabs in the middle east today. Since I had said some
nice things about both strains, I was viewed with suspicion by both camps.
Winning a lot didn't help me much either.
You know and I know that our dogs are more like our kids than just
possessions. This overstates to make a point, but: you beat me stamp
collection and I will admire your stamp collection; you beat my dog in the
show ring and I'll hate you forever-and probably the judge as well! Some of
this you have to expect, but a little goes a long way. Over time, you get a
it tired of it.
Things like this bothered me: just before the trial, a prospective customer
in California wrote:
"A touch matter has come up. Another breeder out here wants us to take one
of her bitches .... I told her after seeing Geronimo's picture, I wanted a
daughter of his. She wrote back quite a reply. Before you hit the ceiling,
let me state again, I like Apache Chief and definitely feel he's the most
beautiful Malamute I've ever seen - whatever is said about him. I still like
him and want his daughter. Her letter read, "I'm reasonably well acquainted
with the stock ... The dam is an excellent specimen. (Author's note: that
was Kelerak.). The sire, Apache Chief, is the dog I spoke of, that is under
fire with the AKC. What a shame that a bitch of her quality was bred to a
dog of questionable background".
I never said anything about that letter, but it's the kind of thing that's
hard to forget; the kind of behavior that makes the dog hobby less joyful
than it ought to be.
I'm sure there's still some of this going around. But those of you who came
into our breed in the 1960's or since, found everything pretty neatly
packaged and not a lot different than in most other breeds. It may be
difficult for you to understand what things were like in the early days.
That's mainly why I am telling you this story.
Great dogs like Geronimo and Takoma and Cherokee and Sioux were only a few
generations from "unknown". So they were maligned constantly by Eva Seeley
and some others who's own dogs were even closer to "unknown". They used the
term "foundation stock" as if it applied solely to the Seeley dogs. Actually,
Irwin's Gemo and Sitka and the early M'Loot dogs were foundation stock as
well.
And consider this: Ch. Gripp of Yukon, one of the first Seeley dogs to be
registered was by Yukon Jad out of Bessie. Bessie is described as "a
Greenland Eskimo" by none other than Eva Seeley herself in her book, "Chinook
and his family".
What's more, Yukon Jad was sired by Grey Cloud - a dog whose owner, Frank
Berton of Dawson, in the Yukon Territory, claimed was "about three-quarter
wolf".
(To give credit where it is due, the above information was the result of
research by Richard Tobey, who in my opinion, knows more about the early
history of our breed than anyone else in the world).
Now please understand, you cannot use the above facts to indicate the Seeley
dogs therefore were not Malamutes. Every breed has to start somewhere.
Malamutes - regardless of bloodline - all go back to "unknown". Which isn't
at all bad when you consider that most other breeds go back to known dogs of
other breeds!
A postscript
One final note. Years later - 1975? - the phone rang. It was Maxwell Riddle.
I didn't know this man personally, but I remembered him as one of the best
and best-known dog judges in America. He told me he was working with Eva
Seeley to produce an authoritative book on Alaskan Malamutes. I said, "that
sounds like a contradiction; to me "Mrs. Seeley" and "authoritative" are
mutually exclusive. Since she claims there are no Malamutes except her own;
obviously you will be writing a very short book!"
Mr. Riddle said he was definitely including our Husky-Pak dogs. That's why
he was calling; he needed to verify some of the facts and figures. We talked
at some length, and I'm sure he was hearing a lot of things from me that he
hadn't heard from her. He asked if I would be willing to put some of it down
on paper.
A bit later on he wrote to thank me for the material I had sent to him. "What
I have done", he explained, "is to have a chapter in the beginning by Eva
Seeley, and another chapter in the beginning by Robert J. Zoller". And he
added, "I am printing what you sent, word-for-word..."
Surprisingly, the Seeley-Riddle book was published just that way. Maybe you
saw the book and wondered how this happened. So did I! Could it be that
Seeley finally decided the hundreds of AKC-registered Alaskan Malamute
champions were really Malamutes after all?
I found out....... Years later, in September 1987, when I received another
letter from Maxwell Riddle. He told me what had happened.
"After the book was published", he said, "short Seeley refused to speak to
me ever again!"
So that's what happened in our Alaskan Malamute breed in those critical
years. Perhaps I have told you a lot more than you really want to know. This
was a true life adventure and, like life for almost everyone, it was a bit
sad in places. But I think it turned out well in the long run - for all of
us who love this breed and want to be the very best it can be.
In retrospect, I am proud of what I did to so effect (and protect) the
quality of the Malamutes of today. I don't think about it often, but it hit
me recently when Laura and I decided to drop in on a dog show for the first
time in more than ten years. There, at quite some distance, we spotted a big
male Malamute. "Look", I said, "a Husky-Pak dog!" Anyway he looked like one,
an on closer examination we decided he was the best Malamute we had seen in
many years. And I didn't have to see his pedigree to know that this
magnificent dog would never have been born if the events I describe herein
had turned out differently many years ago. And I'm willing to bet the same
is true of virtually every top winning Malamute of the past twenty years!
For me, my experience with Malamutes was a lot like my involvement in World
War II (which isn't a bad analogy, come to think of it); I wouldn't have
missed it for anything, but i'd never want to go through it again!
THE END! |
