What is the big deal about dog shows anyway?

by Jaa Scheffler

The first dog shows in America pre-date the invention of the light bulb and the automobile, the building of the Brooklyn Bridge and the Washington Monument, the invention of basketball and the establishment of the World Series.

Since Westminster held its first show 128 years ago, there have been 24 men elected president and 12 states have joined the union. The dog show has outlasted three previous versions of Madison Square Garden, and is currently being staged in MSG IV.

Westminster’s annual dog show has survived power outages, snowstorms, a national depression, two World Wars and a tugboat strike that threatened to shut down the city.

The First Annual New York Bench Show of Dogs, given under the auspices of the Westminster Kennel Club, was first staged in 1877 at Gilmore’s Garden (the forerunner of Madison Square Garden) in New York City, drawing an entry of 1,201 dogs.

But the question remains why did dog shows ever get started and why do they continue today/

The First dogs shows in America ( or even the world) were started by breeders .in fact they were breeder shows. A chance for breeders to bring together like kinds and types of dogs in order to better stamp or improver the work that dogs did in the field…there were no cameras of TV commercials and there was no place to log in a vote for your favorite..Just a group of breeders and a judge, who most likely had raised that type of dog himself..And of course a deep desire to improve the overall breeds of dogs that were on display..

I often have prospective puppy owners who will tell me after I explain the pedigree and accomplishments of my pack,  ” well that is nice but all I want is a pet. .”

As if each and every puppy in my litter is distend to go to Westminster..

Or maybe what they are saying is “ I want a cheap dog”..not a show dog..”’

Most people never quite get “the whole showing thing”  thinking of it more like horse racing, then what it really is the litheness test of  Type..Heath..and History..

Every great breeder knows that there will only be or two standouts in a given litter..However most dogs have 6 to 10 puppies..To keep the two “picks of the litter” the breeder must put in years of their life..Carefully planning bleedings..Doing health test..and spending countless weekends and holidays away from home traveling to dog shows..Then there are pro-handlers..Veterinarian visits , and many, many sleepless nights carefully tending a litter of pups that you help to deliver..Countless hours on the phone taking to prospective homes and the heart break of losing even one pup in the litter..

A breeder may get lucky enough to get one dog or two, to a dog show like Westminster in their lifetime..But you the buyer get the benefit of all that work when you get A top dogs  litter brother or sister..

You get the benefit of the same pedigree, the benefit of the same genes of good health and temperament, and the same history of the carefully breed relatives that came before him or her.

And the truth is that you really don’t pay anymore then you would pay by going answering a ad in the newspaper..infact you save money, by starting out with a healthy well bred specimen with a warranty a predicable temperament, and a network of support from others in the breed.

The best decision you will ever make in selecting a puppy starts with a great breeder and great breeders care about the history of the lines that have and the future heath and type that they will leave behind for the next generation..Done correctly most breeders never make a big profit off a litter of pups..Most produce the litter and win the dog lottery when they get to keep one or two great ones..you win every time by getting everything that they get…that is minus the work..money..and years..