Dog shows

Tarquin and Karma: National Deerhound Specialty Ohio

My family has owned Scottish Deerhounds since before I was even a thought and has been showing them just as long. It isn't a surprise that my brother and I are now on the scene with our current deerhound, Karma.

Tarquin (brother) and I have already spent most of our year training with our aunt and showing Karma. In May we went to Ohio for National Deerhound specialty and this past weekend we showed at the Hamilton Kennel Club dog show at the Ancaster fairgrounds. This weekend was an anniversary for us as this was the first show we did.

It has been a slow process to get Karma interested in showing and we still have a lot of work to do. So many things to learn that seem trivial but apparently can make or break your performance. For instance having both hands on the lead signifies you're an amateur. Although I'm tempted to continue this practice, because I believe that a DOG show should focus on the, wait for it, DOG, I will train myself to hold and control the lead with one hand.

What I find most interesting is the politics that are so clear in the shows. Even being the amateur I am, I can see the politics that go on. I have been and still am part of several competitive teams and it's no surprise to me that their are politics but it got me thinking, why are their politics? How do they start? Can we stop them?

As any competitive field, their are veterans. People who have been going to the shows for 25, 30 or 40 years. They know the circuit, they know the judges and they know how to win. There are campaigners. Their dog is everywhere all the time in every category possible. There are breeders. People who have their "name" on several dogs at once and are looking for other dogs to breed with. Then there are amateurs. People looking to compete with their dog for fun, or to start to become a campaigner. Most of the people at these events are undoubtedly a combination of any of the first three making it nearly impossible for someone like myself to have any chance of winning.

Judges feel obligated to put certain dogs up based on a previous title they may have won, regardless if the other dog is better. This alone makes things difficult. Take into consideration that to get a title you need points and to get points you have to make it to group, and you don't go to group unless you win breed and you won't win breed if you're against someone with a title. Vicious cycle, no? Dogs can win against others with a title but it's incredibly rare because judges feel pressure from the dog community to put up someone who's already been declared the "best".

But what if we could stop them? Well we can't. Unless we were to saturate the judges roster with fresh faces who don't care about titles and simply put the best dog up. Not that this would ever happen but it is an ideal. Even then I imagine we'd see some form of politics in this begin to flourish.

Why is it we can't be completely subjective when it comes to judging competitive activities. We're human. This will never change, so we have to get our hands a little dirty and play the game.

**This is a completely opinion piece. Everything stated is by observations made and not on solid research.**