Much is demanded of show dogs – they must be adaptable, calm, and tolerant in addition to meeting the requirements of their breed standards. Two Beaucerons, both champions and exhibited at the 2011 Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show, have show careers that are secondary to their day-to-day work. For Beaucerons Gideon and Elias, ribbons and trophies take a back seat to the life-saving work they perform every day.
Horses and dogs just naturally seem to go together. When I was riding jumpers and galloping racehorses, there were always dogs around the stables and at the boarding facilities. The horse owners almost always brought their dogs along when they came to ride. Horse people just seem to love dogs and many dog owners feel the same way about horses. However, other than Foxhounds and Harriers, nowhere in the dog world is this mutual love affair more apparent than with Dalmatian owners who give their dogs the opportunity to do what the breed was intended to do.
I read with interest the article by Ms. Gretchen Bernardi entitled “It’s All About The Spots”, published in your September, 2010 issue. Her stated reluctance to “discuss controversial matters that pertain to breeds other than my own and about which I have only limited information” is duly noted and I wonder what moved her to jump into the business of a Parent Club membership and a complex issue about which a great deal of inaccurate information has been spread through the pages of almost every major dog magazine in America.
A battle is being waged regarding the registration of backcrossed Dalmatians. It is an old battle, but new technology and research have made it front page again and the opinions on both sides of the issue are as strongly held as ever and the arguments even more complex.
Hence this revisit to the themes and variations of how we interact with each other and how we relate to the sport and to the dogs themselves. This subject is, of course, multidimensional and no attempt is made herein at comprehensively examining behavioral patterns or exhaustively exploring motives.
As could well have been expected (and was), a number of communications, mainly by e-mail, have been received in response to the article published in last month’s issue of The Canine Chronicle concerning the Grand Championship program and how it has been variously received by the Fancy and by judges in particular.
Anyway you spell “ridiculous” it conveys the same message. That had been the response that many breeders, handlers, judges, and local kennel club members have expressed concerning the recently imposed Judges Maintenance/Breed Fee.
Some business! But is it a business? Or a profession? Or is it a hobby? For many of us it is the latter although there are those who, by virtue of money earned and time spent, may consider it a business. Certainly it is business for AKC while the professional handler could easily call it a profession. Hobby breeders that consider their activity a business are generally hard pressed, however, to eak out a living, rarely making it out of the red. Then we have our judges, of which I am one. Exactly how are we defined?
Some years ago I served on a committee working to update our constitution and by-laws. The committee chair was a successful trial attorney who I simultaneously loved, respected and found tiresomely verbose. It was one of those jobs one worries will never end…especially bothersome considering the inordinate amount of time being devoted to it. But I walked away grateful for a single great line. “This club,” our chairman tersely remarked, “eats its own.” I have recently come to know exactly what he meant.
