Ok dad if we are going to a show you had better get this food off of my nose!

Sadie's First Show
Part 1 Confirmation

When you first get a puppy they are a bundle of joy, you feed them, love them, train them and in Sadie's case prepare them for what you hope will be your contribution to the foundation of an extraordinary breed. No matter how much care you take in planning and selecting the foundation dogs for your kennel you always second guess yourself and those that help you along the way.

In my case I left the this choice up to the breed founder Tina Barber. No one else knows more about these dogs than she does. I got to know her well enough that she understood my training techniques, personality and what I was looking for in a bitch. Even then I did not leave this very important decision of up to her without having some sort of track record with me. Having already matched Storm with me I had confidence that she would make the correct choice again.

Having said that no matter how good a match you think you have you are never sure about the quality of your dog until you get what hopefully is an unbiased 3rd parties opinion, in this case that of a judge.

The other reason I choose to show my dogs is quite frankly monetary. Noting increases the value or demand for a puppy more than being the prodigy of titled parents. Storm should have his championship, although that has not yet been confirmed, and if I can get Sadie titled and I get the blessing of the breed warden to breed them prospective buyers would not have to rely on my opinion of these dogs but that of numerous judges.

Even though I do not like the politics that seem to accompany confirmation shows for the reasons listed above it is a necessary evil. I would much prefer to compete in intellectually based competitions such as Rally, Schuthund, Obedience, Agility, Tracking or whatever because it is much harder to show favorites when the judge has to go by a finite set of rules and not just his opinion of the way your dog looks. However, prospective buyers are much less impressed with training titles than with beauty pageants. To me the dogs intelligence is more important than how the dog looks. It is what I us to select a dog and what I intend to breed for.

Unfortunately the number of opportunities to show our dogs in confirmation are few and far between so when one presents itself within a reasonable distance from me I am there. All of Storms shows were in excess of a 4 hour drive so when I became aware of a Rare Breed Show in Columbus (a 2 hour drive) I was all over it. Sadie had just turned 8 mo old and I was anxious to see if others would be as impressed by her as I was. Since I was going anyway I figured I might as well enter Storm as well since most of the time at a show is spent sitting around and waiting he would give me something else to do. There were to be 5 shows 3 on Saturday and 2 on Sunday. This meant that I would have to be in the ring a minimum of 10 times and if either of them win I would have to go in even more. Since it had been 7 months since I had been in the ring and Sadie had never been in the ring I decided a little preparation was in order.

Next Sadie's First Show Part 2 Preparation