You’ve Shown Dogs For 20 Years. Have You Ever Stewarded?

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214 – October, 2026

By Sandy Weaver

How many dog shows have you attended? Fifty? Five hundred? Enough that you can identify the sound of a grooming table collapsing from three buildings away?

Now another question: How many times have you stewarded?

We have exhibitors who can explain—in breathtaking detail—everything a judge did wrong in their ring on Saturday, yet who have never spent a day sitting beside one. Maybe it’s time. If you really want to understand dog shows, there are few better places to get an education than inside the ring, with a steward’s book in your hand.

When you exhibit, you experience the ring through a narrow lens. Your dog. Your lead. Your bait. Your competition. Your judge. And occasionally: “OH MY GOSH, WHERE IS MY ARMBAND?”

When you steward, you see the whole ring. You watch dog after dog, handler after handler, class after class. Patterns become impossible to miss.

Some handlers enter the ring ready. Others–some that you’ve seen for years–seem clueless about how dog shows work. You see exhibitors who listen to an instruction once and execute it beautifully, and others who listen, nod, and get it terribly wrong. You see beautiful lead handling—and leads doing things that probably require an exorcist.

Click here to read the complete article
214 – October, 2026

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Posted by AnthonyA on Oct 19 2026. 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.