Painting By Numbers

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76 – April, 2023

By Wayne Cavanaugh

First you see it …

You likely know the number of dogs and bitches it takes for a major in your breed. You may even know the number of dogs your dog must defeat, or the number of group placements required to be ranked in the Top Ten of your breed. You know who is judging next weekend–the ring, the time, and the number of dogs entered. If your breed is scheduled for 10AM but after 14 dogs of another breed, you can calculate the time that your breed will actually start. You even know how to calculate the number of dollars you spend on your dogs (but I don’t recommend it).

We’re pretty good about knowing our own numbers. But what do we know about the collective numbers that determine the pulse of the sport–the numbers that help us to see into the past and predict the future? It’s the big picture numbers that tell us where we are headed. They are the gauge of the health of our sport.

Do we know the number of dogs and litters that were registered in our breeds last year? Do we know if our breed is trending up or down? Do we recognize that the number of entries per year doesn’t tell us anything about the number of individual dogs that are shown each year? Do we know if shows and entries were up or down and what that means? Do we know how our rules and regulations are created and by whom? Can we name more than one person on the AKC Board, the group that approves the rules and regs?

It seems that in our busy lives, we’re more focused on our win picture than the big picture. But without maintaining the health of the sport, there won’t be any win pictures. As humans, we gravitate more towards hearsay than real numbers because hearsay is easier to find. That’s too bad because when we complain to each other, we’re just preaching to the choir. If we learn to see how the sport is really doing, it might spark an interest in ways we can help contribute to the future of our sport.

Click here to read the complete article
76 – April, 2023

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Posted by AnthonyA on Apr 7 2023. 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.