Canis lupus hominis

I've never understood why this color is called red in Dobermanns, BC's, and Aussies. It's liver and tan. Red is the color of an Irish setter.

I tried watching a dog show on tv this evening– well, the tail end of it. You know, when they bring the winners of each group and have them vie for best in show.

A Labrador with lots of bone and short legs was up for consideration for Best in Show, along with a “red” (liver and tan) Dobermann, a pug, a bulldog, an Irish wolfhound (with a conspicuous white tail tip), a Sealyham, and a Berger de Brie.

The laudatory praise about these dogs from the announcers was slowly getting my nerves. These dogs were great examples of canine perfection, conditioning, and eugenics. And yet not a single one had a title other than the conformation championship.

The Labrador was not required to do some retrieving work.  You could already tell it was too cumbersome to really be of much use in the field, just from how it moved.

The Berger de Brie didn’t have a herding title, or even the herding instinct certification.  I wonder what it would do if a sheep had suddenly appeared in the ring. It probably would have run like hell to escape the woolly monster.

The other breeds haven’t been used for the original function in many decades.

Indeed, in the case of the wolfhound, it hasn’t coursed Irish wolves since wolves disappeared from Ireland in the late eighteenth century. It was as rare as its lupine prey when Cromwell invaded Ireland in the seventeenth century, so that breed could never be tested for its working quality. Most of these dogs are dead by the age of 7, which is really sad. Many of them are wonderful companion dogs with such lovely natures.

Bulldogs haven’t been catching pigs or baiting bulls for a long time either. However, the working hog dogs from bulldog stock still exist, and they still closely resemble the dogs yore. This current animal known as the bulldog is pug-bulldog cross, and while there are concerned and reputable breeders trying to make this dog into a healthy animal,  most of them are anatomical basket cases.

Pugs, on the other hand, had no real function other than to be loved and cuddled. But do you really want one without a muzzle at all? That’s what I saw on that televized dog show. A pug, which the announcers said was a conditioned on a treadmill and heavily muscled, really didn’t have much of muzzle at all. To compensate for its reduced ability breathe and cool itself, it was gaited at a very slow pace, as was the bulldog.

The Sealyham hasn’t been used as  real earth dog in a very long time. Although I’m sure they do the artificial “earth dog” tests, they probably aren’t going to be seen in rural England or Wales digging up foxes.

The winner was a Dobermann, which Americans tend to call Doberman pinschers, even though they more than twice the size of a German standard pinscher. They do have pinscher blood in them, but that’s not all they have.  Berger de Beauce, Rottweiler, Kurzhaar, and Weimaraner are just a few breeds whose blood courses through their veins. The dog had that weird neck that I see in show quality Dobermanns. I have yet to figure out what its utility would be in a protection dog. The ears were cropped in the long show crop, which is actually nothing more than cosmetic surgery. Functional protection dog crops are short in order to keep the bad guys from grabbing them. A long show crop simply can’t be functional– there’s almost as much ear left as the dog would have had if it had not been cropped at all.

The dog had no protection dog titles at all. It didn’t growl at the judge and no padded sleeve was to be seen. But it was declared best dog– it fit its written standard the best. So it must be the best.

“Louis Dobermann would be proud of this dog, ” the judge said, or something to this effect.

And I thought to myself-

Really? Would a tax collector for the German Empire really want a dog that had never proven itself to be any sort of protection dog. Would he have wanted a dog with such long-cropped ears and such weird shape to its neck?

Wouldn’t he be more concerned about the dog’s behavior and working conformation, rather than the breed standard, which I’m sure has been revised at least a half dozen times since the breed came to this country.

In short, dog shows are nothing more than infuriating little events that try my patience. Dog expertise isn’t knowing all the breed standards.  It’s also not knowing all the dog histories. I knew all the dog histories and “creation myths” when I was in the seventh grade. And I’m pretty knowledgeable about breed standards.

Yet, I don’t think I can tell a quality Dobermann from a quality ostrich. They aren’t my area of expertise. I don’t have the hubris to say that from my reading of their breed standard and breed histories that I know what one should be.

But that’s what dog shows are.

The standards tell us what a dog should be. And the standards are written by people who show the dogs, who not necessarily the people who keep the dogs for their original purpose.

It doesn’t matter that often the people who do use these dogs for working purposes have dogs that look vastly different from these dogs.

Of course, there are exceptions– Chesapeake Bay retrievers, flat-coated retrievers, and most of the HPR breeds are very notable in that they don’t have separate show and working forms.  And I should say that they are not the only ones.

But in general, there are rather dramatic splits between working and show forms in virtually every breed. Working retrievers of the two popular breeds don’t look like their show forms at all. Working GSD’s look nothing like the show dogs. Jack Russells that are registered with the JRTCA and Plummers don’t look like “Parson Russells” or wire and smooth fox terriers.

Working dog standards are written by real conditions. Standard committees are not necessary here. It’s what is function that determines what is bred.

And determining that is really what separates a real dog person from a poseur.

As for these dog that have no function right now– like pugs, wolfhounds, and bulldogs. I’m okay with them.  What really ought to be the main focus on those breeds is breeding a nice dog with a wonderful temperament that also has a normal lifespan.  A dog with lots of health problems can’t be much of a pet, right?

So call me a spoilsport, but I find dog shows rather infuriating spectacles.