Hello… I’m A Faultoholic

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368 – July, 2025

By Sandy Weaver

Could you introduce yourself that way? Nearly everyone who’s been in conformation for less than five years should just go ahead and answer “yes.” And far too many people who’ve been in the sport years longer would answer “yes” if they were being honest with themselves.

It’s perfectly normal to be focused on what’s wrong. After all, humans spend their whole lives focusing on problems that need to be fixed. You can’t fix what you can’t see, right?

The conformation ring holds the best of each breed, when compared with the carelessly-bred examples of the breed produced by backyard breeders and puppy mills. Even the worst in the show ring are better than 99% of those purebreds. When you think about the dogs you see at shows that way, maybe it can help you appreciate why being a faultoholic is detrimental to your ability to choose or breed outstanding dogs–which is detrimental to your ability to win in the show ring.

Stop finding faults. Start finding virtues.

Every dog has faults. The written standard for each breed describes the perfect example of the breed, and every dog varies just a little bit from what’s described. Maybe your breed is supposed to be slightly longer than tall, and yours is slightly more than slightly longer. That’s a fault, no matter how perfect the rest of the dog is. Every dog has faults.

It’s the virtues described in the standard that are important.

Click here to read the complete article
368 – July, 2025

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Posted by AnthonyA on Jul 28 2025. Filed under Current Articles, Featured. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. Both comments and pings are currently closed.