It was Thomas Wolf who said, “you can’t go home again!” I don’t agree with him. Last weekend I DID go home again. It was the spring weekend of the Long Island Shows. The Ladies Kennel Assn. on Friday and Saturday and the Long Island Kennel Club on Sunday.
Dogs in paintings run, play, follow the prey, take care of their puppies and look at us. Such paintings are indispensable for unraveling the history of dogs.
When I was in Germany many years ago, I learned that in some European countries the parent clubs appoint some of their most knowledgeable and highly respected member breeders to act as “Zucht Wachter,” or breed wardens if you prefer. No longer active breeders when receiving this appointment, their primary responsibility is to serve as breed guardians.
Not only did thousands of those who participated in the finale of Crufts 2015 have the chance to see the volunteer of PETA protesting against Crufts in the name of crossbred dogs but a bit later the same organization uploaded a video and they were proud of this so-called ‘dramatic’ moment.
On The Cover – 2015 is Looking like a BANNER Year! The Multiple Best In Show Winning MBIS GCh. Jcrv-Klasse Warrior Raising The Banner
Advertising is an important part of the modern dog show environment and has been for the past three or four decades. The advent of desktop publishing and various advances over the past 20 years have allowed us to create ads for dogs that couldn’t even be imagined in the 1980s.
There are lots of opportunities for dogs and their owners these days, a veritable plethora of sports that provide mental stimulus and physical activity for the dog. Some, like agility for example, are designed to do the same for the dog’s owner. But for almost every breed, there is one type of work for which they are uniquely suited. In other words, the work the breed was intended to do, their “real job.”
You wouldn’t know it from the weather, but one unmistakable clue confirms that spring has arrived here in Queens. Lost dog posters adorn every tree, lamp post and bulletin board. Granted, runaway dogs don’t follow any predetermined schedule, but the sudden spike in these incidents happens like clockwork every spring. There are plenty of contributory reasons for it.
There is nothing that gives my wife Sylvia and me as much sustained pleasure as having a newborn puppy in our hands, and all that follows: see the puppies nurse and be cleaned lovingly by their dam, observe and record their growth, watch them romp, get their kisses on my nose, evaluate them again and again with a dream of great future contribution, work with them to train them for their potential careers in the conformation show ring, and take them to their first few shows.
The American Indians, Desert Bedouin Chiefs and many others from tribal lands around the world knew it was important to convey their ancestors’ history and heritage to the next generation. The recorded family trees as well as pedigrees of their stock were passed down from one generation to the next. The preservation of this history was the task of “the Tellers”. Early on this information was communicated verbally and later was recorded for posterity in writing. There was no “Google” to fact check something …one sought out the “Elders” who had a story to tell and you were entrusted to pass their story along.
