Pampered Dog Show Dogs C&C welcomed

[KimC]

I attended a sanctioned dog show this week/weekend; the lighting at the venue was the most difficult I have encountered to date - dimly lit fluorescent. Flashes were not allowed. I brought my D810 on Thursday (as well as Raven - my puppy) and "trashed" all those pictures as they were just too noisy at that high ISO. Yesterday I went back again (as I wanted to figure out shooting in that light) and brought my D3S (also called my best friend); I was pleased with the result.

My goal yesterday was to capture the environment and it's competitors...

#1 (This one is my personal favorite)



#2



#3



#4



#5



#6

[IzzieK]

OMGoodness Kim! Those are abused animals... Can you imagine Raven going through that hair brushing experience trying to straighten those curls?

I particularly love the first one here as it seems that s/he is away from those "activities" and happy to be just lounging around where s/he is...

[deetheturk]

Well captured Kim, although I am not a fan of this type of showing!

[Manfred M]

This is legal?

Well captured and an interesting story line.

[Donald]

Good photography. Demonstrates the obscenity of this sort of behaviour towards dogs.

[dennybeall]

Nicely done. If folks think this is abuse they should go to a "Walking Horse" competition down West Virginia/Kentucky way....

[rpcrowe]

Actually some breeds of show dogs lead terrible lives. The long haired dogs like Maltese are often kept in cages and walk on wire grates to preserve their coat.

We never did this with our show dogs. They lead fairly normal lives except that they didn't get to roll around in the mud. But, except for that their lives were great.

This guy, Dandy, was so well set up that he consistently whipped all entries in his class. But Dandy was treated like a pet at home.

The day I shot this picture, he won his first AKC points out of puppy class - which is almost never heard of.



We still have him, although in a cut down coat and he is still enjoying himself like a puppy at ten years old. He likes to sleep cuddled up next to me but will get under the covers when the night is cold...

We no longer show because we have found that it is far more satisfying to do rescue work. Dandy was our last show dog...

BTW: there are several breeds (ShihTsu, Lhasa Apso, Maltese and a few others) who wear top knots in the show ring. Maltese puppies normally wear a single top knot and adults wear two top knots like this (I shot this the day after he attained his AKC championship). As soon as the picture was shot, he was zipped off to a short coat and allowed to roll in the mud and grass all he wanted...



You will notice that the hair on his left ear (image right) is shorter than the hair on his right ear. I gave him a big knuckle bone to celebrate his championship and her got the hair on his ear involved with the bone and chewed off about an inch of hair. We didn't care because, except for this picture, he no longer needed the long coat...

[Digital]

I had no idea that some show dogs underwent this type of abuse.



Bruce

[KimC]

Thanks for sharing your story Richard as I was caught off guard a bit by the comments. There is good and bad in all sports, professions, etc. My friends show poodles and their dogs live at home as pets when they are not showing (similar to your beautiful dog). I was up there to shoot their dog in the ring. They are well cared for - bathed, fed, receive veterinary care, and most importantly, loved. IMHO not all dogs have show dog personalities. When I groom Raven, she stands on a grooming table with the collar on... for her safety - it doesn't harm her and she has been acclimated to it since she was a little one.

Actually some breeds of show dogs lead terrible lives. The long haired dogs like Maltese are often kept in cages and walk on wire grates to preserve their coat.

We never did this with our show dogs. They lead fairly normal lives except that they didn't get to roll around in the mud. But, except for that their lives were great.

This guy, Dandy, was so well set up that he consistently whipped all entries in his class. But Dandy was treated like a pet at home.

The day I shot this picture, he won his first AKC points out of puppy class - which is almost never heard of.

We still have him, although in a cut down coat and he is still enjoying himself like a puppy at ten years old. He likes to sleep cuddled up next to me but will get under the covers when the night is cold...

We no longer show because we have found that it is far more satisfying to do rescue work. Dandy was our last show dog...

BTW: there are several breeds (ShihTsu, Lhasa Apso, Maltese and a few others) who wear top knots in the show ring. Maltese puppies normally wear a single top knot and adults wear two top knots like this (I shot this the day after he attained his AKC championship). As soon as the picture was shot, he was zipped off to a short coat and allowed to roll in the mud and grass all he wanted...

You will notice that the hair on his left ear (image right) is shorter than the hair on his right ear. I gave him a big knuckle bone to celebrate his championship and her got the hair on his ear involved with the bone and chewed off about an inch of hair. We didn't care because, except for this picture, he no longer needed the long coat...

[KimC]

None of the dogs I saw were abused - they were tolerating the oddities of humanity, but they were well cared for, fed, and many were openly loved. As with any profession/sport, there are always a few bad apples.

No, Raven would not tolerate this... she would nip at the judge and bound off the grooming table ;-)

OMGoodness Kim! Those are abused animals... Can you imagine Raven going through that hair brushing experience trying to straighten those curls?

I particularly love the first one here as it seems that s/he is away from those "activities" and happy to be just lounging around where s/he is...

[KimC]

Thank you for your comment David. Not something I would do with my dog as she enjoys being scruffy way too much!

Well captured Kim, although I am not a fan of this type of showing!

[KimC]

Thank you for your comment Manfred.

Yes -- have you heard of the Westminster Dog Show? Many of these dogs would compete at that level.

This is legal?

Well captured and an interesting story line.

[KimC]

Thank you for your comment Donald. This, and many, many other things...

Good photography. Demonstrates the obscenity of this sort of behaviour towards dogs.

[KimC]

Thanks for your comment Denny. Are you speaking of the endurance horses?

Nicely done. If folks think this is abuse they should go to a "Walking Horse" competition down West Virginia/Kentucky way....

[Kris V]

OMGoodness Kim! Those are abused animals... Can you imagine Raven going through that hair brushing experience trying to straighten those curls?

I particularly love the first one here as it seems that s/he is away from those "activities" and happy to be just lounging around where s/he is...

+1

[Stagecoach]

Kim, No 1 is a very powerful and thought provoking image, well done.

I wonder if showing just a bit more of the adjacent cages if their dogs were not in view may also have given another option and emphasis depending upon what you wanted the image to portray?

As for my views on this 'hobby' they are somewhat weighted due to the fact that I live in a country where I would say 85% of dogs are not fed adequately, not treated as pets and never taken to a vet to deal with their ailments, if recognised.

[Shadowman]

Kim,

I'm surprised the D810 couldn't handle the lighting, were you using the same lens on both cameras? I've had m y fair share of lowlight disasters. Nice series.

[rpcrowe]

The Westminster Show is a bit more difficult for the dogs because it is a "Benched Show" in that the dogs have to be there and available for public viewing all day. The shows that we attended were not benched and so we would arrive a while before ring in time to get the dog ready for the judging and then leave after the showing unless the dog got Best of Breed. Then we would need to stay around for the group judging (dogs are separated into 7 groupings https://www.akc.org/pdfs/public_educ...ven_groups.pdf)

First the dogs will compete within their breed. Then if they win Best of Breed, they compete in group showing such as all the Toy dogs who have won their Best of Breed compete. When a dog wins the Group, then it competes against the six other dogs who have each one their groups. The winner of that contest is judged Best of Show.

When a dog is being judged in competition with other dog breeds, that dog supposedly is not judged against the dogs of other breeds but judged against the AKC Standards for its breed.

Shows like the Westminster Kennel Club in New York City and the Purina National Dog Show are by invitation and all the dogs entering the show are already AKC Champions.

A dog will accrue points in dog shows for its wins and then after it wins enough points, it can be called an AKC Champion. The numbers of points awarded for the different wins is a pretty complicated formula. Once the dog has become a champion, its AKC name changes to include Champion. Our dog's AKC name is "Champion Simon Says I'm Dandy" He was bred by a friend of ours whose last name is Simon. Of course, his call name is just plain "Dandy"!

There are quite a lot of differences in entering dogs in English shows. The Kennel Club has some different standards. There are some that I heatedly agree with. The Kennel Club (it is not called the English Kennel Club or the British Kennel Club, just "The Kennel Club") does not allow the cruel practice of docking tails and ears. I personally think that is a terrible thing to do to any defenseless animal.

[ucci]

Very telling shots and well captured to show the actual bottom line.
We once had a very brief dalliance with the dog showing world with Standard Schnauzers. Didn't take us long to realise our dogs were going to have a better life style. Which they deserved. Okay, so we found the other dogs at the shows were quite okay, despite being cooped up for long hours on display for the edification of the paying public at the show. It was their owners who were our problem. Obsessive, melancholic, pathetic inadequates, personality defects, in need of a meaningful life, are some of the things which come to mind. But then again, maybe we just attended dog shows on bad days, when only such folk were in attendance; and so maybe we have a biased view of the doggie world as a result?

[IzzieK]

I have a blue heeler somebody named Roxie...and she can keep your Sam trimmed around the edges...these doggie images of Kim are a pampered lot actually... and I agree about the owners. I once attended a doggie show at Purina Farms and have seen how snooty those owners are of their dogs...very discouraging. Never attended another one.