Are We Rewarding The Right Dogs?

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196 – October, 2026

By Omar Gonzalez

Walk around any dog show and you will hear the same conversations repeated ringside.

“That dog always wins.”

“Presentation makes all the difference.”

“The professional handlers have the advantage.”

“That dog is beautiful, but I wouldn’t breed to it.”

Whether these statements are true or not isn’t really the point. The question worth asking is far more important: Are we rewarding the right dogs?

The conformation ring was never intended to be a beauty contest. It exists as a breeding evaluation, a place where dogs are compared against their breed standard so that breeders can identify the individuals most worthy of carrying their breed into the next generation. Winning should never be the ultimate goal. Preserving and improving the breed should be. Yet sometimes it seems those two objectives drift apart.

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

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Posted by AnthonyA on Oct 17 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.