In this special competition the show qualities of the dog are not even to be considered, so say the rules. Certainly, however, a beautifully groomed dog with a solid show background and in excellent condition, including psychological motivation, is going to make the youngster who is showing it look a whole lot better than a combination of lesser elements. Kids who do go into Junior Showmanship and stay with it are likely to be involved with dogs as a lifelong enthusiasm. The best of the best, at least many of them, began this way. In the final analysis, it is a lot cheaper than booze, drugs, and psychiatry. How does it work?
The classes and divisions of junior showmanship are Novice, boys and girls who are at least ten years old and under eighteen on the day of the show who have not yet won three first-place awards; Open, same age group but the junior shall have won three first-place awards; Junior and Senior classes: when there is an age split into two divisions, ten to fourteen and over fourteen to eighteen. Best Junior Handler is a prize not always given, but if it is, the prize must be announced in the premium list in advance of the show.
The dogs in junior showmanship must be registered with the AKC and very often are retired show dogs with lots of savvy and plenty of spunk and energy left, making them still highly competitive. The dogs used by the kids can be entered for junior showmanship only or may also be showing in conformation or obedience at the same show. The dog must be owned by the participant or a member of the youngster’s immediate family or household and be so registered.
The ribbons offered in the junior showmanship classes are: first, rose; second, brown; third, light green; fourth, gray; and if Best Junior Handler is offered, the ribbon is rose and green. The intensity and professionalism shown by the kids and the dogs in these competitions is remarkable and inspiring. They are both serious about the competition and deeply committed to the concept of winning. They are dog people with no reserves, and people dogs. They care. No quarterback, center, or shortstop was ever more serious. The ribbons are treasured possessions.
The purpose behind the dog show itself, as we have noted, is to select the best examples of each breed whose genes should be brought forward in a carefully planned breeding program. The purpose behind junior showmanship is no less precise. It is to assure the future of the sport and of fine dogs. To begin showing your dogs as an adult is just fine. On the other hand, if you come into it when you are ten or eleven years old, to be judged on your own skill and not the dog’s degree of perfection, is an added dimension. Handlers, judges, breeders, exhibitors, experienced family members, are all anxious to help the juniors develop their skills. It is an important part of the wonderful world of dogs. In no small way it is the future of the whole grand affair.
The world of show-quality purebred dogs and their future is summed up for me in one image: I remember two kids, about fifteen, doing their homework together in the benching area. They were apparently good friends outside the show ring. Their dogs, one a Gordon Setter and the other a Cocker Spaniel, were lying on either side of them, heads on the appropriate lap. The kids were working away, apparently on their schoolwork, and petting their dogs at the same time. It was a pretty picture. Everything was in balance.
Parenthetically, the young participants in these competitions are usually delighted to learn one ruling the AKC passes down to all judges they will face: Under no circumstances should questions be used as a means of testing a junior’s knowledge. It is one thing to memorize a sheet of wisdom and parrot it back and quite another to perform with your dog in front of a very critical audience. The only form of competition that I know of where you can win with words is a spelling bee. You can’t take either an oral or a written exam to become MVP.
Chapter 9
Details
Worth
Noting
The Hound Group we outlined earlier in this book noted only one real Coonhound, the Black-and-Tan, that is recognized for conformation championship points under AKC regulations. It has been a registered breed with the AKC for years. It is one of many breeds descended from the far more ancient Bloodhound.
There are five other Coonhounds popular in the American South today that almost certainly will be registered by the AKC and shown in this country under their aegis eventually. One of them is the Plott Hound, which has already been approved and joined the Hound Group in the year 2000. Following the Plott Hound, someday, will be the Blue Tick Coonhound, American English Coonhound, Treeing Walker Coonhound, and Redbone Coonhound. As you explore the world of dogs, it is interesting to see how breeds emerge from cultures and then pass on their genes to more new breeds as they evolve. It has taken at least 150 to 200 centuries of the process to get us and the Coonhounds to where we are. It is about to happen.
AKC Titles
Earlier in this book we made a number of references to titles a dog can earn, especially when charting the remarkable career of Snickers the wonderdog.
We will compile here the complete list of AKC titles, noting which go before the dog’s registered name and which after. It is rather like “Dr.” and “M.D.”
Titles before the Dog’s Name
AFC—American Field Trial Champion
CH—Champion
DC—Dual Champion (CH and FC)
FC—Field Trial Champion (includes Lure Coursing)
HC—Herding Champion
OTCH—Obedience Trial Champion (includes the UD title)
CT—Tracking
TC—Triple Champion (CH, FC, and OTCH)
Titles after the Dog’s Name
AX—Agility Excellent
CD—Companion Dog
CDX—Companion Dog Excellent
HI—Herding Intermediate
HS—Herding Started
HT—Herding Tested
HX—Herding Excellent
JC—Junior Courser
JE—Junior Earthdog
Titles after the Dog’s Name (cont.)
JH—Junior Hunter
MX—Master Agility Excellent
MC—Master Courser
ME—Master Earthdog
MH—Master Hunter
NA—Novice Agility
OA—Open Agility
PT—Pretrial Tested
SC—Senior Courser
SE—Senior Earthdog
SH—Senior Hunter
TD—Tracking Dog
TDX—Tracking Dog Excellent
UD—Utility Dog
UDX—Utility Dog Excellent
VST—Variable Surface Tracker
I don’t know of a dog that has earned anywhere near the whole bowl of alphabet soup. Indeed, I suspect that would be impossible to do given the life span of dogs and their high-performance span of a few brief years. For most people who start as novices to “show” their dog, Ch. is the goal and UDX is a wonderful second. That is a fine combination to retire with—beautiful by definition (Ch.) and bright as a rocket scientist (UDX)—and who could ask for anything more!
As a matter of fact, as you explore the dog world, you will find discreet groups with at least some common ancestry, like the Coonhounds, that invite further exploration. As they wend their way through our history and aesthetics, you will see how the complexities are endless and the ramifications also beyond counting.
The matter of performance life span is of particular importance to people who really like large dogs. Our Bloodhounds fell into that category, and we are well aware of the heartbreak dog lovers must suffer. Every dog or cat we get is a tragedy waiting to happen to us eventually. In the case of the giants, it all comes to an end too soon.
Any dog of the Mastiff line is likely to be relatively short-lived. That includes (but not exclusively) the Great Dane, Newfoundland, Great Pyrenees, Saint Bernard, Bernese Mountain Dog, Mastiff, Bullmastiff, Bulldog, as well as the Bloodhound, Komondor, Borzoi, Irish Wolfhound, and Rottweiler. That Irish Wolfhound, for example, may not be fully mature until he is four or even five years old, but he may have pretty much lived out his life by the time he is seven or eight. Fo
r comparison, very much smaller dogs like the Schipperke and Pomeranian regularly live twelve to sixteen years or more. I have known of Schipperkes and Lhasa Apsos who passed their twentieth birthdays. A Jack Russell Terrier that we placed in a wonderful home (she had to have a wonderful home because she was born stone deaf and yet earned an obedience title) celebrated her nineteenth birthday before she began really going downhill.
Built-in Faults
There are, unfortunately, potential genetic faults in most breeds, and it can be somewhere between difficult and impossible to breed them out of a line. By choosing puppies from the best lines, it is sometimes possible to avoid trouble. There can be no guarantees, and as with any domestic animal, there is always the luck of the draw to contend with. Pick the healthiest-looking puppy from the healthiest-looking and -acting parents produced by the most honest, involved, and concerned fanciers and you can have the luck to come up with a fine companion and show dog. Do it any other way, puppy mill; pet shop; inexperienced, unthinking, and uncaring backyard breeder, and you will almost certainly come acropper.
There are huge differences in the frequency of potential faults in the different breeds, and that does point fingers of suspicion at many of today’s breeders. You, as a potential owner, must choose very carefully. Faults include a great range of potential anguish for your dog—faults of the skeleton, hip displasia to shoulder dislocation; severe allergies; progressive retinal atrophy; hypoglycemia; diabetes; epilepsy—some breeds having as many as thirty or forty of them.
The Norwich and Norfolk Terriers have no recognized genetic faults, nor does the Harrier. The Great Pyrenees, on the other hand, has fifteen; the Great Dane sixteen, including epilepsy. The German Shorthaired Pointer has one potential fault listed, the tendency to form subcutaneous cysts; the Field Spaniel two; but the German Shepherd and the Labrador Retriever each have twenty-five. The Bulldog and the Cocker Spaniel lead the parade with thirty-nine and forty potential genetic faults, respectively.
The incidence of hip displasia isn’t nearly as common in some breeds as in others. The Saint Bernard is the most frequently impacted of all breeds, while displasia is virtually unknown in some other breeds, such as the Saluki.
Genetic faults are a minefield where a potential owner should tread gingerly. Remember, a genetic fault is by definition a potentially inherited one. Learn as much as you can about the lines of the breed that attracts you the most. Don’t do it the hard way. We did. We purchased a Bloodhound puppy only to have it pitch forward into its breakfast bowl dead of a heart attack at eight months of age. The breeder and her veterinarian both knew something we didn’t know and we hadn’t thought to ask. It was our fault; we should have inquired. Every puppy in that litter, as it turned out, had at least a heart murmur. Whoever’s fault it is, losing an eight-month-old puppy is heartbreaking. It can be said that the puppy would have died anyway, when it did and how it did. It is just so much harder when the puppy is your own, one you have come to love. Guilt is built into these catastrophes. It is easy enough to handle guilt intellectually, but when it comes to the emotional elements, it is far more difficult.
The fact that a puppy has had genetic defects in its family background is no guarantee that they will recur in the generations of concern to you. On the other hand, however carefully you plan the breedings, those faults can pop up seemingly from nowhere. All you can do is the best you can, picking, matching, and perhaps praying. Raise your puppy with the help of your veterinarian using the best nutrition possible, make certain all of the shots are on time, and love your dog. It can go very well indeed. Just avoid those pet shops, puppy mills, and amateur backyard breeders. Give your puppy at least a level playing field and try to work with the breeders who are working with other fanciers of your breed and veterinary research facilities to eliminate genetic faults and improve the strength and vigor of what is by this time “your breed.”
Afterword
There, then, we have the basics. If you want to show a dog and become a part of the sport you have admired, these are the things you will have to know to start. It is not space physics and not brain surgery, but it is an exercise in knowing and caring. It is the ability to give and to get.
First you have to have a dog not only suitable to the task but as taken with the whole idea as you are. There are to be two of you out there on display and you both have to have the same thing in mind, winning. Most exhibitors are at least marginally smarter than their dogs, so it is natural for them to lead the way. The dogs will go along with that.
Once you have taken the biggest and most important steps of all and chosen your breed and then, clearly step number two, chosen your individual dog, the training begins. When you are in that phase you have a clear shot for the peak. Don’t stop and don’t look back. Just get better and better at the game and help your dog hold up his end. Win and then win again. After your winner has a Ch. in front of his name, you may want to think about breeding him or her to the best partner you can find. Explore other aspects of the dog sport, such as obedience, agility, and the others we have discussed. You will have met any number of people by that time who have the same kind of interest in the same breed you do. Talk things over. Presumably you didn’t stint in choosing your dog. Try not to stint in choosing a mate for it. Your skill as a matchmaker has a great deal to do with how the puppies turn out.
One other point: About sixty-three days after the breeding, the puppies will appear. If you have not had experience in the whelping process you may want to have someone on hand to help you who has had experience—a breeder, a veterinarian, or a vet tech. Give your puppies every chance there is for a good life, and that starts with a good beginning. Talk it over with your veterinarian. Get the details right. Everything from a heat lamp to the whelping box itself should be perfect.
• • •
Going back a step, you will notice something strange happening with your feelings about your original puppy. When you two first meet you will want to hug him—he is cute, after all! Puppies are supposed to be cute and huggable. His eyes look straight ahead, just as your eyes do. He makes heartwarming squealing sounds and reacts with his whole body when you tickle him. He will have puppy breath, which is practically an aphrodisiac for dog lovers, and he will squiggle and you will squeeze. Something wonderful is beginning to happen. It is a string of markedly fuzzy moments, and you may be surprised to see how susceptible to fuzzy moments you are. The process is called revelation. You are probably a pushover.
But then, day by day, the change will progress. It will grow and grow and grow. Your reaction to fuzzy will mature into a solid relationship. When your dog looks up at you (a typical man-dog spatial relationship, since our heads are on top of us and the dogs’ are out front of them pointing to wherever it is they are going), there will be eye contact, and then you will realize the miracle that has occurred—you really do understand each other. And you certainly are profoundly interested in each other. You care about each other. You have bonded and now you are friends in a way peculiar to just the two of you. There is pride in this and some nervousness, of course, because the showing is about to begin. Fortunately, you are able to relieve each other’s tensions. You touch. But typically the other comes first: first you love your dog and then you put him to the test, and then finally you begin to collect and display his trophies and ribbons. You do all this together, the two of you. By now you will be boasting. The circle is closing and you and your dog are inside it. Enjoy.
*In 1983 the breed was moved over to the newly formed Herding Group, where it is today.
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Going for the Blue Page 12
