THE CANINE BEHAVIOR SERIES By Kathy Diamond Davis Author and Trainer

“Show dog”! As people see more dog shows on television, the idea of showing the best dog in the world—your own!—can become intriguing. What is it like to be involved with dog shows? How is a show dog different from any other dog?

Dog shows place dogs in competition in order to choose which dogs conform most closely to their breed standards. A breed standard is an official, carefully worded description of the ideal conformation (structure) for a dog of that breed.

The same breed may have different breed standards for different registering bodies. We’ll discuss the American Kennel Club’s system here, but you’ll want to familiarize yourself thoroughly with the requirements of any registry whose shows you want to enter. From one registry to another, there can be quite a few differences.

Which Breed?

Before you get a dog, attend some shows and pick quiet times to speak with people who are showing breeds that interest you. They are busy, so just get contact information for a more convenient time for your questions. Use the rest of the time at the show to learn by watching.

Don’t touch a show dog unless you are invited to do so. You could spoil the painstakingly groomed silhouette at the worst possible moment with an affectionate pat on the head. Never feed or otherwise distract a dog, either, unless you are following a handler’s instructions.

Use the American Kennel Club webpage (www.akc.org) to get overviews of breeds and contact information for the experts on each breed. Most of the breed clubs have excellent web sites listed on the AKC site, and a volunteer club member you can contact to learn more.

Study the information about the breed on the breed club’s website, meet breeders who are members of the national breed club, and follow their recommendations about the best books on the breed to study. Meet dogs, learn how they are groomed for show, and learn about other jobs or activities the breed participates in. You can foster a rescue dog in your home while the national breed rescue finds the dog a permanent home. A breeder near you may welcome your volunteer help to socialize puppies and otherwise help out: that’s a wonderful way to learn. The future of every breed depends on mentoring relationships that allow the knowledgeable and experienced breeders to teach new ones so the breed can be preserved and improved for the future. 

Training

The better trained a show dog is, the better the dog’s chances of winning. Conformation is the major factor being judged, but if the dog is not presented in such a manner that the judge can see the dog’s good points, chances of winning go way down. At the higher levels of competition, good showmanship on the dog’s part becomes essential.

Besides the increased chances of winning, training your show dog makes it far more likely the dog will enjoy showing. An unprepared dog can find all the commotion of the show setting stressful, and that’s neither the experience you want for your dog nor the way to produce a winning show dog.

A mentor can help enormously in learning how to train and present your dog for shows. A conformation handling class is a good experience for the dog as well as a learning opportunity for you, and many dog clubs hold such classes.

Professional vs. Owner Handling

As the dog’s owner, you decide whether to handle the dog in the show ring yourself, hire a professional handler, or do some of both. Every arrangement with a professional handler is a negotiated one, unique to how that handler works and to your priorities. Some show dogs live with the handler until their careers are over. Some go back and forth between pro handler and home.

If you use a handler, the handler will need time to work with the dog, which likely will include training and some or all of the grooming. You will need to check out any handler you entrust with the care of your dog.

Professional handlers are highly skilled and tend to have an advantage over amateurs in the competition. This does not mean an owner can’t win over a professional. It’s harder in some breeds than in others. If it is important to you to handle your own show dog—which also means your dog would live full-time with you—include this factor in researching your choice of breed.

To handle your own show dog, you will want a breed you can personally groom for show, or for which you have easy access to a groomer who can do it for you. You’ll want to look at the availability of shows offering sufficient numbers of other dogs in the breed to make it possible for you to attend enough shows to reach your competitive goals. Having to travel a lot to find the right shows increases the cost and effort, but many people enjoy the travel.

Getting a breed with high numbers of dogs in competition may make it expensive to finish a championship. Only a few of the dogs at the show get any points or majors, and having to beat fifty dogs is much harder than beating five. The professional handler may be your best bet in this case.

On the other hand, if your breed is so uncommon that too few dogs are entered in a show for any points to be awarded, you make no progress toward a championship by winning the breed at that show. In that case your only chance at points is in group competition against a lot more dogs of a variety of breeds. This is a difficult way to win points and another case for a professional handler.

Thus the more logical choice for an owner-handled show dog may be a breed with numbers in the mid-range. Happily this describes a lot of breeds. You can find the registration numbers and rankings by popularity of all the AKC breeds on the AKC’s website; other registries also provide those rankings.

On the AKC website you can also find the point schedule for your region, telling how many dogs must be in competition in your area for the win to provide points, from 1 to 5. A “major” is 3 to 5 points, and included in the 15 points required for a championship must be at least two 3-point or higher majors won under two different judges, plus at least one other judge awarding one or more of the remaining points.

Anyone who thinks showing dogs in conformation is easy hasn’t tried it! It’s challenging and can be a great deal of fun for dogs and owners. Some people opt to keep it strictly on a fun level rather than striving for championships. Fun matches offered for practice are enjoyable days out for family and dog.

Junior Showmanship is a competition for young people in which the handler rather than the dog is judged. This sport can help youngsters develop poise, sportsmanship, responsibility and other qualities that contribute to a bright future in whatever they may choose to pursue in life. It is often possible to arrange with the owner of a show dog for the youngster to have access to the dog in order to participate in Junior Showmanship.

Possible Conflicts

Enjoyable as showing can be, not all dog owners or dogs will enjoy it or find it a good lifestyle fit. If you would need to use a professional handler, you may find you don’t want to be separated from your dog for the show circuit. Keeping the dog’s coat in shape for showing may be impractical for your lifestyle.

Show dogs almost always need to be intact, though a few competitions are available for spayed and neutered dogs. Traditionally, conformation dog shows are for the purpose of choosing which dogs to breed, thus the dogs must be able to breed. Living with an intact dog is not for everyone. There may be activities you wish to pursue with your female dog that would be hampered by heat cycles. And some male dogs are best neutered for temperament reasons.

Breeding your dog is a huge commitment that you may not wish to make. That does not mean you can’t show the dog, because whether or not you breed the dog who has earned a championship is still your choice.

There is one case in which choice could be taken out of your hands, though, and you should think carefully about whether or not to make this particular commitment. Some breeders sell show puppies on co-ownership agreements, contractually obligating you to show the dog and to breed a certain number of times. If you have no show experience when you sign such an agreement, you may be in for an unpleasant surprise.

Many people don’t enjoy showing, and a lot of dogs don’t, either. A veterinarian or behavior specialist may advise you that it is in the best interests of your dog or your children to spay/neuter, but the co-owner/breeder doesn’t want you to do it. You can find yourself under obligation to either raise a litter of puppies you don’t want to raise, or to let your dog go back to the breeder in order to raise those puppies. Breeding a dog can change behavior and health, and in the case of a female can put her life at risk.

Because these arrangements can cause everything from serious disputes to genuine heartbreak for either party, the AKC does not recommend co-ownership. From the point of view of an inexperienced person who is getting a potential show dog, you may well be making commitments that you simply won’t be able to understand until you gain some experience.

This is another way that a mentor relationship helps. You can provide an extra pair of willing hands (and maybe those of some family members, too), while learning from an experienced breeder. You can get involved with showing and breeding in advance of acquiring your own show dog so that you go into the situation knowing what you really want to do. You can also develop a trust relationship with your mentor and other experienced people in the breed that will result in your being offered a more promising show dog when the time is really right.

Appreciative Audience

Whether or not you decide to participate in conformation dog shows, it’s a great spectator sport. Watch how different breeds carry themselves, how they move, how they are built, and--perhaps most interesting of all—how they respond to their surroundings. A lot of a dog’s personality shows in the conformation ring, if you look closely. While it’s not an in-depth temperament test, considerable steadiness is needed from the dog to show well, and dogs who behave aggressively are promptly removed from competition.

Conformation show breeders select the dogs whose conformation most closely matches the breed standard to be shown and bred. Other dogs from the same litters are available to good homes. The dog available to you may be a puppy, a young adult grown out for further evaluation who is not going to be shown after all, or a finished champion the breeder has decided for some reason to pull from breeding. These dogs can make wonderful family dogs, and it’s great fun to watch your dog’s brothers and sisters and cousins in the show ring.

Most conformation breeders make a huge effort to place every dog in a wonderful home. They do not produce an excessive number of dogs, and they take great care with genetic decisions in order to produce the healthiest dogs with the best temperaments they can. If you want to adopt a dog as a puppy, this is the best source. It’s an excellent source for an adult dog, too. You’ll have the highest odds of a dog with predictable health and temperament, and the satisfaction of participating in the future of well-bred dogs.

Properly bred purebred dogs are an important historical legacy to preserve. They are also vital to certain dog jobs, such as police and military work and assistance dogs for people with disabilities. Dogs bred specifically for their work have an astronomically higher rate of success in many vital jobs that dogs perform in the world today. Dog abilities are constantly being refined by training techniques that continue to become more and more sophisticated as we discover more about the nature of learning.

Conformation show breeders of breeds appropriate for various jobs commonly prove their dogs and bloodlines through performance titles and placement in working lifestyles. Breeding dogs responsibly is seldom profitable. It’s an expensive hobby, as is participating in dog shows. It’s a labor of love. It’s a contribution to the sacred partnership between dogs and humans on this earth. It’s a breeder’s lasting legacy.

Date Published: 6/27/2005 9:10:00 AM

    

Kathy Diamond Davis is the author of the book Therapy Dogs: Training Your Dog to Reach Others. Should the training articles available here or elsewhere not be effective, contact your veterinarian. Veterinarians not specializing in behavior can eliminate medical causes of behavior problems. If no medical cause is found, your veterinarian can refer you to a colleague who specializes in behavior or a local behaviorist.