So You Want To Be A Show Dog!

My friend Jodi over at jodistone-life with Sampson and Delilah…the 411 asked me a question regarding what is stacking your dog. I tried to explain this to her in words, which I don’t know how helpful that was, so I looked around the internet for some video’s and found this site

http://www.ehow.com/videos-on_1340_train-show-dog-show-ring.html

I thought for those who have never attended a dog show or trained a dog for the ring would get a lot of insight from these video’s on the work and training that goes into getting a dog ready to enter the show ring.

I have read posts from others with some very negative comments regarding dog shows and I think that may come from lack of knowledge about them. So here’s a little dog show 101; the history of dog shows dates back to the mid 1800’s. The Westminster show began on May 8, 1877 and is held in New York at Madison Square Garden’s, it marked its 136^th year this past February and is the largest all breed show; it is the second-longest continuously held sporting event in the United States behind only the Kentucky Derby.

One of the biggest misconceptions is that a dog show is a beauty pageant; nothing could be farther from the truth. Judges examine the dogs and place them in accordance to how close each dog compares with their mental image of the “perfect” dog as described in the breed’s official standard. The standards describe the characteristics that allow the breed to perform the function for which it was bred and include qualifications for structure, temperament and movement. These official written standards are maintained by each breed’s national club and published in AKC’s “The Complete Dog Book”.

When you enter the ring the Judge  will examine or “go over” each dog with their hands to see if the teeth, muscles, bones and coat texture match the standard. Then the Judge will examine each dog in profile for general balance, and watch each dog gait, or move to see how all of those features fit together in action.

Here is the link to the Westminster website and a video of well you guessed it, the Chessie’s from 2012, it gives you a good picture of a dog show in action.

http://www.westminsterkennelclub.org/videos/#/Breed%20Judging/2012/Sporting/vid:17897680

So you see it has nothing to do with beauty at all! Because what it comes down to folks is to show the Judge your cream of the crop so to speak, dogs you would use in your breeding program to enhance your breed. You only have two minutes to show the judge your dog and let me tell you it goes by quickly so you have to be paying attention and do your best to present what you hope will be the dog the Judge awards the points to.

I hope this was helpful in explaining what a dog show is all about!