Even before he starts showing, your new friend should rehearse! Setting up—holding the show stance as he is supposed to when the judge evaluates his qualities—is an easy lesson, something you can do together that will give him a head start when he does finally get launched as a show puppy. He should know how you want him to relate to his leash and how you want him to move.
And the business of being handled: few things are more important. The puppy should react well to strangers. He should not be suspicious or shy or nervous, against the day when the judge’s hands will examine his body. The touch of a stranger should not appear dangerous or threatening, and a well-conditioned show dog knows that. If he doesn’t, it does not bode well for future competition. A judge pressing down on his withers, checking how his upper and lower jaws sit opposite each other, spot checking his maleness, running hands along his back and down his sides: not dangerous, not unpleasant, and it is essential that the pup understand this perfectly well. A squirming dog or, heaven forbid, a biting one probably won’t have far to go in his career.
There is one thing about touch that can be a little confusing. When a male dog is being evaluated, you will note the judge perform a fast darting ritual between the dog’s rear legs. The judge (some do this with a shy grin, others with a slightly grim, stern look) is checking to be certain that both of the dog’s testicles have descended into the scrotum. (You get to talk about these things with ease when you are into dogs.) If the two are not there to be counted, if there is only one apparent, the dog is called a monorchid and will have to be disqualified. I have watched judges do this little examination scores of times, very often on dogs that are already champions and presumably have been checked scores of times before. Where do they think the testicles have gone? Perhaps they come and go at will, rather like Mr. Otis’s invention. Bitches don’t have to worry about things like this. It is not an indignity they are expected to suffer. (Of course, if a bitch has had a litter recently and has been nursing, she may have to walk around wearing a tight T-shirt or a tightly wrapped bandanna as an extended belly band. Her owners are trying to get her breasts to shrink and give her back her girlish figure. No one wants to see a show bitch waddling around with a pendulous belly like teatime at Romulus and Remus’s house.)
Back to testicles for a moment (a line we don’t get to use very often). The story is often told of an otherwise beautiful Boxer specimen, I think it was, with only one descended testicle. The owner talked a veterinarian into inserting an artificial one made of rubber to make things seem right. By the rules of the show ring that is a no-no, big time. Physical faults should not be altered for show purposes. They got away with it for a time, but then the second testicle descended, as can happen. The next time out, the judge shot his hand to the target, then turned to the handler with a puzzled look.
“Three?”
Chapter 6
Trials
and Then
Some
Obedience Trials
The dog “show” second in popularity only to the standard conformation show is the obedience trial. The AKC either licenses or sanctions the trial, and it can be appended to a conformation show or staged as a separate event unto itself. (A member trial is an event staged by a club that is an AKC member; a licensed trial is staged by a club that generally is not an AKC member; and a sanctioned trial is an informal event where titles are not earned. It is a kind of tailgate picnic with dogs. And a fine time is had by all.) The AKC licenses or sanctions twenty-two hundred or more such contests a year.
In the obedience trials, handler and animal are judged together as a team, with one member highly responsive to the other. Breed standards play no role and the events are not breed specific. Anybody can compete against anybody. Even spayed and neutered dogs can participate without prejudice. It is a case of performance, not beauty, although many participants have earned conformation championships in their careers as well. Beauty and brains are by no means mutually exclusive. It is simply a matter of what ranks highest in the owner’s and perhaps the dog’s “opinion,” if it does come down to a choice between the two. Much of what the dog accomplishes is strictly a function of the time, effort, and training on the part of the owner or handler.
Think of obedience as a very challenging second show career, a valued backup should a planned show dog’s career not work out in conformation. An outsize feature, a late-developing undershot or overshot jaw—these things don’t matter when the subject is exclusively brains and performance. If a dog can’t make it in the world of conformation for one reason or another, it can still go on to be recognized as the best obedience dog in town. That is no small accomplishment. By no means are obedience trials for would-bes or any other second-stringers. Obedience titles are hard earned, highly respected, and sources of great pride for the owners. They can add mightily to the value of a dog and its offspring. They are also great fun for man and beast and are wonderful bond tighteners. They make any dog much, much easier to live with. Obedience fosters a kind of man-dog brotherhood and profoundly affects the way dog and partner get along together.
There are three levels in obedience judging. Each has a set routine of exercises for the judge to score, and they become progressively more complex as the team advances.
Winning at the Novice level can earn your dog the title CD for Companion Dog. Next is Open, with the title CDX, for Companion Dog Excellent. The highest level is Utility, UD, for Utility Dog. Relatively few dogs in the general population, even show dogs, come near any one of these higher titles in their deportment unless they have been meticulously trained to the task. The world would be a much better place if that weren’t so! (That would be true of kids, too.)
The six exercises in Novice, the first level, are what any well-brought-up companion dog should know and do as a matter of course. No canine rocket science required here, just the ability and the desire to work closely with a human partner and accept graciously the praise that comes with success.
The six Novice exercises are:
1. heel on a leash,
2. stand for examination (where the handler poses his dog off-lead for a brief examination by the judge—the form of the pose is the handler’s option),
3. heel free (off-lead),
4. recall (where the dog remains where and as his handler left him until recalled),
5. long sit (one minute), and
6. long down (three minutes).
These commands are typically obeyed with enthusiasm and the same inherent sense of showmanship exhibited by any good show dog and companion. The obedience ring is not the place for laid-back, lackadaisical dogs. It is a place for pizzazz and excitement. It is a crowd pleaser for the people who understand what they are looking at. Wonderfully intelligent dogs trying so hard to please their human partners have a beauty all their own. In a very real way it is what sharing your life with a dog is all about. We have been at it for at least 150 to 200 centuries. We should be good at it. So should the dogs, and they generally are.
The Open schedule adds extra elements: (1) drop on recall, (2) retrieve on flat, (3) retrieve over high jump, and (4) broad jump. The Utility requirements add still others: (1) signal exercise, (2) two scent discrimination tests, (3) directed retrieve, (4) directed jumping, and (5) group examination.
A dog earns his obedience title when he scores 170 points out of an ideal 200 in that “leg” and gets more than 50 percent of the points for each exercise. Although the exercises are different in each of the three legs, the numbers—170 out of 200 and 50 percent—remain the same. A dog can go on for his Obedience Trial Championship only after receiving his UD, Utility Dog, title. For his championship, a dog must earn 100 points that include a first place in Utility with at least three dogs in competition and a first place in Open with at least six dogs in the competition and a further first place in either of these competitions. The three firsts must be under three different judges. A championship in obedience is an enormous accomplishment. And the necessary skills r
emain with the dog for as long as it lives. Obedience champions are generally the best of all canine citizens. You can tell. There is a spring in their step. Their handler’s step, too.
A Parenthetic Word about Ownership
An increasingly large number of people strenuously object to the use of the words owner and ownership when speaking of dogs because of the arrogant mind-set that is behind them. Undeniably there is a bit of bra burning in that, but there is also some logic and certainly some morality. “People don’t own animals, certainly not companion animals,” these people argue. “People and animals own each other in a very real sense; it should be a reciprocal affair, a partnership in every sense of the word.” This semantic exercise wouldn’t be all that important, perhaps, if people didn’t act like they were owners and if so many people didn’t overlook their responsibilities and do things that are out-and-out cruel, careless, and, ah, well, stupid. If people didn’t have the superior attitude that often seems to go with being an owner and thought of themselves rather as partners in the relationships they help foster, things might go a lot better for the dogs we have in our families. It certainly happens that way with husbands and wives, parents and kids. There is more than political correctness to this issue; it’s a lot about love and respect and giving as good as you get. Personally, I go along with it. I think of my dogs (and cats, and horses and other hoofed critters, and one supersweet cockatoo) as friends rather than property. I hate the idea of having dominion over other lives. I didn’t ask for it and I am not proud of it. Yet, as it turns out, it is an essential part of having these animals in my life and of my being a part of theirs.
There is a certain panache about a successful obedience dog, a distinctive way it relates to its owner and the world around it. It seems to understand the world better than most dogs and enjoy itself in special ways. People typically react to these accomplished companions with more respect. They are special dogs and obviously they have had a lot of quality time with their owners. That is a given. Many people prefer obedience competition to conformation and make a championship in that part of showing a dog their primary goal. The dogs seem to love it, perhaps because it is all about them and what they can do.
Field Trials
Four categories of field trials are sanctioned by the AKC: Hounds, pairs (braces) or packs in pursuit of hare and the cottontail rabbit (started as a formal competition in 1890); Pointing (since 1874); Retrieving (instituted as a field trial in 1931); English Springer Spaniel, for the old Spaniel game of flushing (since 1924). Cocker Spaniels and English Cocker Spaniels are no longer used in this part of the game. They have been assigned other duties: full-time love, the giving and getting thereof. Their position in the Sporting Group today is simply a matter of tradition, of which the dog-show world has a great many.
I, for one, would be unrelentingly opposed to the Hound events where live rabbits and hare are used, if the target or quarry animals were harmed. The AKC has assured me that they are never touched, and Dr. Steven Zawistowski, senior vice president of The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, the “A,” and a big Beagle man, has participated as judge, breeder, exhibitor, and steward, and in other capacities, in more than a thousand of these trials and has never seen a rabbit harmed. Based on the AKC denial that harm is done and Dr. Zawistowski’s testimony corroborating that, I accept things as I have been assured they are. No test, trial, or show in any category could justify harming other animals.
For a lot of people, understandably, these trials are not what companion dogs are all about. Obedience is much more to the point. Conformation is a given. Pride of ownership suffuses all, that and the joy of competition. Both human and canine participants can find what they want in dog shows. Not everyone wants the same things, but there is plenty of sport and hubris there for everyone.
There is such a lineup of performance competitions (field trials, herding contests, lure coursing trials) that there are actually thirty-nine titles a dog can earn besides Ch. for Champion. Unless you have a special interest before you decide to show dogs, you probably won’t be looking for OA (Open Agility), MH (Master Hunter), NAFC (National Amateur Field Champion), or JE (Junior Earthdog). You can show dogs for the rest of your life and never even know that such an alphabet soup exists. To the people who do pursue other doggy interests besides conformance, these other competitions are all-important and very exciting. The dogs are always special, and the pride and the joy of the owners are boundless.
Among the special areas (breeds) of interest in the Hound category are the Basset Hounds. In field trials Bassets are judged for searching ability, pursuing ability, accuracy in trailing, proper use of voice (proclaiming all finds and denoting progress without being noisy, silly, or overly talkative), endurance, adaptability, patience, determination, independence, cooperation, competitive spirit, and intelligence. Faulty performances are listed as quitting, backtracking, ghost trailing (chasing a trail that doesn’t exist), pottering, babbling, swinging, skirting, leaving checks, running mute, tightness of mouth, racing, running hit or miss, lack of independence, and bounding off. That is a long list of dos and don’ts and it explains why people with Basset Hounds think of them as very special dogs. In fact it is difficult to argue any other view. Bassets are special, very. If nothing else, our Bassets make us laugh. It can be difficult to think of them as serious trail dogs, but that is what they are. They take themselves seriously and expect you to, too.
The lures used in Basset Hound field trials are rabbit and hare. Again, the AKC and experienced participants swear the animals are never harmed and I have no information to the contrary. Insofar as it is true, these contests are wonderful sporting events. The trials are run in appropriate countryside: fields, meadows, marshes, woodlands. The same dogs can be in conformation shows as well, and there are beautiful examples of western European hunting dogs to be seen. Basset, in French, means low to the ground. Obviously, they are. And they have the most glorious voices. They’re special.
Dachshunds and twenty Terrier breeds are eligible to participate in Earthdog tests. Dogs that are spayed or neutered may join in the fun, as can the Jack Russell Terrier, which has just become a recognized breed.
Most people don’t realize that couch potatoes like Westies and Dachshunds and Miniature Schnauzers (aka lap dogs) can participate in the rough-and-tumble world of field trials, including Earthdog tests. Well, they can. There is something for almost everybody in the amazing world of dogs in competition.
The quarry in these trials are rats in cages. Here, again, the quarry are not harmed, although it probably is not what the rats would most like to do on a brisk Saturday morning. (We are not generally nice to rats on Saturday morning or any other day of the week. They have had very bad press.) One supposes that they are not volunteers in these contests but are shanghaied with relatively little formality. There are AKC regulations that require the caged critters to be fed and watered. The dogs, too, of course, are fed and watered. It is optional only in the case of handlers and judges. They can take care of themselves.
The dens where the competitors go to ground are, in the case of Junior Earthdog testing, at the end of thirty-foot tunnels with three ninety-degree turns. The dog, released ten feet from the tunnel entrance, has thirty seconds to reach the quarry. It can receive no instructions during the hunt or it is disqualified. The energy expended in the game is boundless and includes a lot of barking. These are noisy, exciting little hunters.
Senior Earthdogs have to tackle tunnels with a blind (false) den and a false exit. They, too, race against the clock. The attitude the Earthdogs exhibit is positively volcanic: quarrelsome and fairly bursting with energy and enthusiasm. They take it all very seriously. Digging furiously after vermin is what they were bred to do.
Stamina Can Help You Survive
Many dogs exhibit a great deal of enthusiasm and it is a good idea to match your own physical resources—bodily strength and agility—to the task to which you are putting your dog
if you are doing the handling yourself. There can be a lot more to owning a dog than brushing, trimming, and tossing the odd Frisbee now and then. The enthusiasm a dog shows is a measure of the regard he has for you. He wants to please you, to be praised and rewarded. As for you, survive it. If you are well suited to arm-wrestle an Affenpinscher, think twice before availing yourself of a Komondor or a Great Pyrenees.
Jane, a regular at dog shows, had a misadventure that wasn’t the direct outcome of a competition, but it does show the power dogs can exhibit when they are baited by life itself. And Jane’s mishap did occur at a dog show, after all.
Jane had been successfully showing her champion Bloodhound, Luke, a magnificent slobber-chops moose of a dog. Jane was a stunningly beautiful woman who always dressed to the nines. There was only one grievous fault in her style—she wore acres and acres of furs, real ones (a very unfeeling thing to do around dogs, I think, even if they get to keep their furs on their own backsides, at least in this country). On this particular day, a bright fall day with the trees around the show grounds in Washington, D.C., showing off their best foliage, Jane was wearing a double-breasted, full-length mink, part of what she thought of, erringly, as her own best foliage. As lovely as she was, that is how offensive her coat was. Even people who liked her, and most people did, hissed at her coat. She was oblivious. She just didn’t get it.
Going for the Blue Page 10
