National Dog Show

[Gil]

Is anyone else watching? This is my favorite part of Thanksgiving. <3

[Guest Anonymous]

My daughter and are watching. I love all the doggies!

[longskirtlotsakids]

I think the Great Dane should have won Best in Show. Hm

[PennySycamore]

I might watch the rerun tonight. The hounds and the terriers are my favorite groups. I like herding as well although it's painful to see the German shepherds basically walking on their pasterns. US breeders have ruined the breed so much that police departments import dogs from Germany and the Czech Republic.

[longskirtlotsakids]

I agree Penny. It seems like a useful breed (horses too for that matter) turns into a fad. Function and health go out the window in favor of freak extremes.

[ADoyle90815]

That's one of my Thanksgiving traditions, along with the Twilight Zone marathon that a local channel shows every year. I do agree that selective breeding has caused too many health problems for several breeds.

[PennySycamore]

I could not believe how tall that Dane was! It nearly came up to the handler's shoulders. I know she was a short lady, but WOW!

Someone in the US needs to make a documentary like was done about the Crufts show in England. It blew type lid off purebred dog breeding in the UK and some changes were made. I'm not sure the same thing would happen here though.

[Gil]

I could not believe how tall that Dane was! It nearly came up to the handler's shoulders. I know she was a short lady, but WOW!

Someone in the US needs to make a documentary like was done about the Crufts show in England. It blew type lid off purebred dog breeding in the UK and some changes were made. I'm not sure the same thing would happen here though.

Bad changes.

It resulted in the kennel club forcing changes on member clubs and breed standards that would sound good to the public but rarely addressed the issues and could seriously affect the breed in a negative way (for example, the lengthing of snouts in a situation where it wouldn't have any impact on the actual health challenges faced by the breed).

The documentary itself was pretty deliberately misleading, IMO. There were instances when they would cherry pick artwork portraying breeds of dogs in a particular way when there's plenty of artwork portraying them in another. I know there's a completely misleading image involving bull terrier skulls, iirc (and there's a wonderful blog post that I could try to find that addresses this much more elegantly than I could). It went out of its way to portray those involved in dog conformation as recklessly willing to jeopardize the health of animals for the sake of their hobby. By and far, it's inaccurate, although I certainly won't claim that there aren't bad apples. Most of the issues in dogs are things that are out of people's hands and don't have an easy fix like "Have the AKC tell them to make changes!" It's not that the standards are inherently bad, but that the dogs we have now are carrying these issues. Some of them can be addressed because they have a congenital basis, in which case, they should be easy to address and breeders who continue breeding those animals, or who breed them recklessly (i.e, merle-merle breedings) should absolutely be penalized. However, some of them just don't have an easy fix like that. It requires more veterinary research - research that, incidentally, many breed clubs sponsor and many breeders donate samples to.

Conformation breeders love their dogs. You have to. It's not a cheap or easy hobby and has potential to be absolutely devastating. Demonizing them as a group, especially in a documentary where it is very easy to attach bias, is counterproductive to addressing real issues.

Dog rant over -- I loved the Dane! I was a little disappointed to see a terrier win again, though. If you add up the numbers, they win so often compared to other groups! I think it's the terrier attitudes. :D

[FaustianSlip]

That Dane was crazy. It looked like a horse!

I'm actually going to be getting a dog when I go back to the States in the summer, and after a ton of reading and deliberation, I ended up opting to go with an English setter in part because they're not (so far as I can tell) as popular as, say, German shepherds or golden retrievers and thus less likely to be overbred. We had a golden growing up, and she was a fantastic dog, but I was really worried that with how popular they are, it was going to be tough to find a good breeder who had a dog available. As it happens, I found a very helpful, friendly breeder who was recommended through the American English Setter Association and think it'll be a good match.

[micatite]

It's almost Westminster Kennel Club show time! I saw the first ad for it the other night.

The Samoyed always gets robbed (not that we're partial or anything. :D ), but we watch anyway, even though it seems like it's always the dang poodles who win. I love seeing our favs (the Samoyed, the Chow-Chow, the Puli and the Komondor) and the new breeds. Seems like there's a new one or two every year now.

[StacyW]

It's almost Westminster Kennel Club show time! I saw the first ad for it the other night.

The Samoyed always gets robbed (not that we're partial or anything. :D ), but we watch anyway, even though it seems like it's always the dang poodles who win. I love seeing our favs (the Samoyed, the Chow-Chow, the Puli and the Komondor) and the new breeds. Seems like there's a new one or two every year now.

I like the Puli and the Komondor, too, but I would never be able to have one. It would take too much time to groom them.

[micatite]

They're fun to watch when they run, though, all those cords jiggling around. They look like giant string mops.

And we sigh over the Sams every time. Of course, we're on our 5th Samoyed, not including pups.