National Dog Show

[GentleLake]

I watched the Best of Group and Best of Show portions of the National Dog Show that was televised earlier today.

 

I was happy to see that the Barbie collie got no more attention than the brief introduction given for all of the breeds, with no serious consideration for its being a contender in the herding group, much less Best of Show.

 

I noticed the same thing the last time I watched one of the televised big dog shows. I hope the trend continues.

 

And lest you think I'm a fan of conformation shows, I'm not. But it's a great training opportunity for my dog reactive lurcher, who reacts the same way to dogs on TV as she does in person. By the Best in Breed segment, she'd had enough of the other dogs (and probably a pretty full tummy).

[geonni banner]

After reading your post I went looking through Google images for pictures of what they have done to the Border Collie in the breed ring. Didn't find anything from this year. But I found a lot of images, some funny, some strange, some creepy and some downright depressing. Here's some that might be worth a look...

 

"Hillary, a Border Collie, is shown herding several ducks dressed in formal attire during a demonstration inside the new Purina Event Center in Gray Summit, Missouri"

 

 

from "The Border Collie Society of America, Inc"

 

"A dog is groomed on the first day of Crufts dog show at the NEC on March 6, 2014 in Birmingham, England. (Photo by Matt Cardy-Getty Images)"

 

I hate this. Even when I was showing Lassie Collies back in the dark ages, I refused to cut my dogs' whiskers.

[GentleLake]

And look at the whale eye on that Crufts dog.

 

I'm curious about the fist pic of the dog performing. Do you know when that was?

[geonni banner]

And look at the whale eye on that dog.

 

I'm curious about the fist pic of the dog performing. Do you know when that was?

Nope. I went to the page it came from and it was that twit over at "Border Wars" and he didn't credit it. Traced it to Zazzle, but they didn't credit it either.

[Tommy Coyote]

There is another thread going on what you do to keep your dog clean. And most of us never even give the dogs a bath at all unless they roll in something totally disgusting. And then we just hose em down.

 

I discovered a video over on Youtube made by a show breeder that details what they do to groom their dogs. Lord, it takes hours. They use a whole host of products to make sure the coat is bright - some kind of whitener. Then they just go through all kinds of gymnastics to get that dog into show shape.

 

Those show dogs don't really look like real dogs any more. They look like stuffed animals.

[KrisK]

What I've noticed is the vast majority of the dogs are so darn fat, they couldn't possible do what they were bred to do without suffering heart failure! ....okay, that might be an over exaggeration, but my goodness..those were fat dogs!!

[Tommy Coyote]

I think show dogs in general are kept on the chubby side. I don't know why that is.

[rushdoggie]

They are looking for "substance" and mistake fat for that.

 

I have a friend who shows dogs, and after a show it takes her longer to wash all the crap out of her dogs coats that it took to groom them for showing. Seriously.

 

I groom my dogs more often than most people on these boards... I have coated dogs who spend a lot of time running in dirty places and I like a clean (ish), brushed dog with tidy feet and short nails sleeping on my furniture. But I can't imagine dealing with what coated dogs need to win in the show ring. It's all so very silly.

[Sue R]

I've heard (no idea if it is true) that one reason show dogs are fat is because they are fed heavily to produce lush and shiny coats.

[Gideon's girl]

I don't know about now days, but when I was showing, they called it condition. They seemed to think that fat over the bones equated to muscling somehow. And yes, they feed extra fat for coat. I don't think there is much that looks worse than a fat sighthound, but there were plenty of them, and plenty of people saying they were too thin.

[Sue R]

I think that what I consider "too fat" is now common in horses, also. Compare photos from the 50s and 60s to today and you will see a marked difference. Some of that may be the use of more warmbloods now compared to more Thoroughbreds back then but even now, they seem to want to pack the pounds on the Thoroughbreds, too.

 

I've told the store before but one young vet, just out of vet school, told me my dog's abdomen was "very tense" and that he'd never experienced that (I've had other, more experienced vets tell me that, too, that my dogs had "tense" abdomens). I guess he'd never examined with a lean and fit dog before...

[Pam Wolf]

Tommy DO NOT give Zeke a bath!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :0

 

Show ring translation : Fit is spelled with an "A"