This ‘N That Thursday

Today we are joining 2 Brown Dawgs for their This ‘N That Thursday’s blog hop!

This is what she has to say about the hop,

“This ‘N That Thursday is for anything you want!  Maybe you want to post about unrelated topics, or each topic isn’t quite long enough to make up a whole post, or you have awards to share, or you have one long post…anything goes!  So grab the button and join the hop!”

Ah where to start today’s post…well first I guess I will talk about the show Maia and I went to last weekend. We arrived nice and early so Maia could get settled in, this helps her to get over her jitters I fill my pocket with plenty of bait, also known as treats, so we can walk around and have people pet her and treat her. By the time it is our ring time she is usually pretty settled but then we walk in the ring and she gets just a tad nervous. Just our luck this time we were first in the line up, so that means when we move around the ring Maia thinks all the other dogs are chasing her. She is getting better about this but it will just take practice, a lot of practice! Now with that being said, over all she did very well, I can see so much improvement in her since we began last year.

In this photo you can see I have her stacked pretty good, her front legs are under her and the rear is stretched back so the hock and pastern are perpendicular to the ground; and yeah she has her ears forward!

And then the judge approaches to do his exam and that begins my post for tomorrow so come on back and I will tell you all the things wrong with this…

Now on to Titan, he looks amazing and Dave is doing such a great job training him. My brother and I arrived at Michelle and Dave’s house and Dave brought Titan in, at first he strolled in pretty nonchalant and I have to tell you my heart sunk, I thought oh no he forgot us! But then I started to talk to him and he came to life, leaping and jumping around rubbing on us; he was beside himself and I was a happy camper. He took turns between me and my brother getting plenty of rubs and loves!

They showed us a little basic retrieving but we were having such torrential down pours it was hard to do much; he was able to do a couple retrieves and Michelle got some really great action shots.

Look mom I got my bumper!

This shot and the next one I love, love, love!! He is just flying through the puddles kicking up that water!

You can really see the rain starting to come down again in this one but that isn’t going to stop him!

Come back tomorrow to find out more about how training is going

So that wraps it up for today, why don’t you hop on over to 2 Brown Dawgs see what their up to and grab the badge and join the hopping fun!

THIS IS A BLOG HOP!

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Wordless Wednesday ~ Show Stack

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!