Maybe you’re new to showing or maybe you’ve had show dogs for decades. Wherever you are in your conformation life stage, you can end up with a dog that drips in type, moves like a dream, stacks like a Lecourtier bronze and won’t show any of that off in the breed ring. Read this article for ideas you can use to help your gorgeous dog become a show dog. You might even want to save this issue of CC for reference, in case you need it in the future.
As we know, the foundational strains of our breeds originally developed in response to prevailing conditions. Specialized selection, which added the finishing touches, came much later. Modern breed development built on the natural groundwork of the dog’s genetic plasticity. Blistering hot, arid, frigid or wet, adaptation truly became the canine key to survival. Where other species merely thrived or failed in response to changing conditions, dogs systematically tailored their physiology to conquer their environmental demands. That has resulted in everything from hairless dogs impervious to heat to Nordic breeds ideally adapted to arctic zones. It also explains the globally pervasive presence of domestic dogs.
In the middle of the night, my telephone rings and instantly my racing heart brings me from slumber to full-attention. Fumbling, I find the phone and learn that a dear, elderly, dog friend is dying and I must come at once to collect the dogs.
Who knew? For months there were so many questions surrounding the move of the 147th Westminster Kennel Club annual dog show to the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in Flushing, New York. “Flushing, New York? Where in the world is that,” so many inquired. Well, sitting right near LaGuardia Airport, and Citi Field–home of the New York Mets baseball team in the boro of Queens–the center is in a highly trafficked area where commuters travel through to get to and from Manhattan to the West and Long Island to the East. How was this ever going to work? Let me say, unequivocally, it worked perfectly.
Did you know…virtually everyone in the dog sport, even those famous ones in the history books for one reason or another, started exactly where you started. Somewhere, somehow, they wanted a purebred dog and sought to find one. Most didn’t have a show dog in mind at first, and most likely their first purebred dog didn’t cut it as a show dog. Those of us that dipped a toe in the pond were quick to find that out. There were big fish in ‘Dem Der Waters’…and some of them looked like sharks with really, really sharp teeth to those of us in the uncharted waters we waded into.
I’ve bred quite a few litters in my time (Boston Terriers, Miniature Smooth Dachshunds and Standard Smooth Dachshunds) and the one thing that’s always really struck me was the difference in behaviors of the various puppies produced.
I’m not sure “sighthound” is the best term for the group of dogs we call sighthounds. Mostly because any dog will chase by sight as long as their quarry is within view. So to say that a sighthound is any dog that hunts by sight is akin to saying that a sighthound is any dog with eyes.
If the title means nothing to you, you were not part of a street gang in 1930s Glasgow; or an English football hearty in the 1970s. And, it means exactly what you’d imagine—on top, and with attitude.
The big problem researching breed history is the gigantic blank space that frequently spans everything up to the late eighteenth/early nineteenth century. Filling in those mysterious gaps is the primary challenge–with one outstanding exception. A handful of breeds have been consistently documented throughout recorded history because their role was inseparable from human civilization. Everything from farming manuals to folklore to ancient Roman tax records provides a glimpse into Working breed development. These dogs were simply too important to omit them from the official story.
Aces can’t be returned. They’re brilliant and beautiful serves, a small furry orb shot from a racket at a rate of speed that seems unimaginable. In 2021, Oscar Otte from Germany set the record for the fastest ace in US Open history at a blazing 151 MPH. It traveled right through the center of what would become the Best In Show ring on May 9th, 2023. Perfection. Timing. Dedication. Hard work. This year, Westminster served its own ace at the same great place. Matching adjectives apply.
