From The CC Vault: Appearances

By Peri Norman

Originally published: January 2016

Last night I enjoyed a rare treat. My brother, my mother and I had dinner at a restaurant and got a chance to visit for a while. Don’t get me wrong. I love the big family gatherings and adventures, but sometimes it is nice to have a little more individualized, quieter time. Of course, present or not, the rest of the family doesn’t get left out of the conversation. My brother told an interesting story about his older daughter. She started high school this year and has started playing water polo. Blonde-haired with a fairly light complexion and sporting her summertime tan, she looks like a stereotypic Southern California surfer girl. As my brother relates the story, the first day in her new high school, she walks into Spanish III for Native Speakers, and the teacher takes one look at her and says out loud, “Oh honey, you are in the wrong class.” Snickering from the other students ensued. Long story short, she told her parents and her parents called the principal (who, incidentally, was the person who had tested her and recommended that class for her). Needless to say, the principal chatted with the teacher. Everything is fine now and she is one of the top students in the class. The moral of this story is that things are not always as they appear at first glance.

This got me thinking about a couple of dogs I judged a while back. I had two bitches in a breed whose culture allows for some fairly extensive grooming. Not extensive like Bichons or Kerry Blues, but much more than I would be comfortable with on my personal dogs. I have worked very hard to “see the world” in the context of the exhibitors in these breeds. In cases of clear violations of the AKC rules or direct contradictions to the standard, I have and will continue to excuse dogs, but as with so much of life, situations are rarely black and white and the common shade of gray may vary from breed to breed.

So these two bitches walk into my ring and any moron at ringside is saying, “This is a no-brainer.” The first bitch had a perfectly gorgeous silhouette. She appeared balanced with a strong topline and graceful neck. Her head was the picture of the standard including correct planes, depth, chiseling and wedge-shape framed by the “frill” created by her collarette. She had been scissored and coiffed to within an inch of her life, clearly by a master groomer. The second bitch looked like someone had turned the hose on her and let her air dry. Her coat was in good condition, but certainly not “worked” in a manner customary to many show dogs. Still, my eye was drawn to her as she floated around the ring. Hmmm….

As I stood there watching these two bitches on their first pass around my ring, my mind went back to a conversation I had with a dear friend who is a successful professional handler. I had come to him for his opinion on one of the many breeds he has handled and to take a look at the number one dog currently in his truck. We discussed various dogs that had crossed both our paths. We were juniors together “back in the day” so that covers many years and many dogs! He pretty much said that his top winning dogs, regardless of breed, look correct in profile and take a good win picture. Any other shortcoming is negotiable. While looking at ads for some dogs, you will find that many either look terrific in their win photos, or it’s possible our friend Photoshop has assisted in creating the illusion of “perfection”. Nowadays, that work is sometimes done by the owner of that “perfect” looking dog.

Stubbornness is one of my attributes. Some judges (perhaps too many) would have put up the bitch that “appears” to be the picture of the breed. On the other hand, the unkempt little bitch with the fluid movement that took my breath away had many attributes sorely lacking in her breed. Whether we are breeders, exhibitors or judges, the weighing of strengths and weakness that we go through as a part of evaluating dogs needs to be based solely on the tangible and unenhanced traits of the dogs. Sometimes, it can be challenging to extricate what is real from what we want to see!

It can be particularly difficult to maintain objectivity when one finds oneself on the losing end of these comparisons. The handler of the sculpted bitch said nothing, but grimaced as she took her second place ribbon. Out of the ring, she huffed over to her friends and declared, “That will be the last entry she gets from me.” And why not? From her perspective, she had a tremendous amount of time, energy and money invested in breeding, raising, training and preparing a bitch that was defeated by an exhibit that appeared to be of significantly lesser quality.

I get it. This happened to me recently. It was the last show of a big weekend. My young bitch had finished the weekend before and we moved her up. Three Grand Champion majors and a specialty Award of Merit later, I was a little perplexed at first. A young, owner-handled class bitch won the breed over several ranked and/or mature specials (oh yeah, and my precious, clearly destined for greatness baby dog!). This “surprise” winner was not a bitch who had captured my eye over the weekend and she didn’t appear to be a world-beater in the making. But I stopped and acknowledged that I had my hands full with getting in the ring with my remaining class bitch and the young special, so I had not really watched her. I certainly had not had my hands on her. I also have to say that I had easily followed everything else that judge had done. This experienced judge is known for being very knowledgeable and also for being an independent decision maker. It is important to remember that the more deeply we are invested in our own dog, the more likely we are to miss the merit in someone else’s dog. We do not have to agree with a judge or another breeder’s decision about the relative importance of various attributes described in the standard, but enough objectivity to acknowledge the validity of a different perspective indicates both a studious approach and good sportsmanship.

Our society still struggles with sorting out the importance of appearances. We all discriminate because we all come from differing backgrounds and perspectives. Whether we are observing an unfamiliar teenager walking through our neighborhood, a white girl walking into an all-Latino classroom, or an exhibitor presenting a dog not groomed or handled in a fashion accepted within the breed, our first thought should be to remember that things are not always what they appear to be at first glance.

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