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Patti's
Show Puppy Guide
©
Patti Rasmussen, 2000, all rights reserved
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GETTING STARTED--GETTING INFORMATION
Congratulations! You have purchased
a show quality puppy and are about to begin a new hobby. Below
we are offering some suggestions to help you enjoy your new hobby
and to be successful at it.
Use your breeder as a source of information
and as a mentor. If you have a question about anything pertaining
to dogs shows or showing - ask!
Obtain from AKC (free) a copy of their "Rules
Applying to Dog Shows", read it, ask questions about what you
don't understand and study it. Since most of these rules pertain to
putting on a dog show, you may want to just click on it on the AKC page
and read Chapter
3, the section that defines the classes and eligible dogs. The AKC
also summarizes this information at another site.
The AKC also has a page dedicated to getting
started showing your dog.
If you plan to show in obedience, you will also
want to ask for a copy of the Obedience
Rules and Regulations. This is one you will want to order rather
than just reading on line. Appropriate technology in this case is a
paper pamphlet, not an internet hookup.
If you are interested in agility training and competition,
see the AKC's
page on what agility is all about.
Go to some local dog shows (without your puppy
- who is not allowed on show grounds unless entered, and who should
not be exposed to a lot of other dogs until he or she has had all shots
and time to develop immunities). Sit by the Samoyed ring and watch the
dogs and handlers. Try to develop your "eye" for a good dog
(try to find the good dogs, as opposed to picking out a fault or faults
to help eliminate dogs) and watch the handlers to see what seems to
work and what doesn't. You will find that the best handlers often seem
to be doing the least work. Their dogs are well-trained and they avoid
fussing with them if at all possible. Also study class order and ring
procedures so you will not be surprised when it is your turn.
Finally, visit this site where information on all
shows resides, InfoDog.
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ELIGIBILITY
TO SHOW
The stated purpose of dog shows is to display
and recognize the best breeding stock. Therefore, dogs that have been
neutered (or spayed bitches) are not eligible for showing in conformation
classes although they can be shown in obedience or any other activity.
Your breeder may have requested that you not neuter your dog until it
is determined that it is not going to be shown anymore. Dogs that are
shown must have registration papers that do not limit their breeding.
If your dog is on a limited registration, you cannot show it unless
the breeder writes AKC and changes the registration. For AKC rules applying
to limited registrations, click on: AKC
Limited. For details of comprehensive AKC showing eligibility rules,
click on: AKC
Rules.
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LEARNING
TO HANDLE
Enroll in a conformation handling class
if you can find one. Most instructors will not allow puppies
in the class, so check first if your puppy is still young. You
do not want to turn it off to dog shows by over-training it at
a young age. If you have an older dog, that would be the better
candidate for the handling class. Remember, YOU are there to
learn, not your dog.
Enter as many matches (small, "practice"
shows) as you can find. Remember, matches are practice for everyone
- dogs, handlers AND judges, so don't take the results too much
to heart whether you win or lose. You are there to get ring experience
for you and your puppy, not to win ribbons (although that is
always a nice bonus).
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GETTING
YOUR PUPPY READY
Always keep your puppy on good footing
to avoid damaging growing joints (no uncarpeted stairs, slippery
floors, etc.). Feed a good quality puppy food and keep your puppy
well-groomed and in good health. Keep nails trimmed and teeth
clean. (Frequent brushing and combing goes without saying).
Take your puppy to different places with
lots of distractions to practice your show training (after you
have mastered baiting and gaiting in the back yard). For great
socialization for your puppy, enroll in a local obedience club's
puppy kindergarten.
In
order to succeed in the show ring several things must come together:
- you must start with a competitive
dog (note: competitive does not mean "perfect", the
perfect dog has yet to be born);
- you must have your dog in
good condition - not too fat or too thin, coat well-groomed and
clean, teeth clean, feet trimmed, nails cut
- your dog must be able to
stand quietly (reasonable quietly, for a puppy) while the judge
examines it (including looking at the bite - get your puppy used
to having its mouth looked at )
- your dog must be able and
willing to gait at a trot on a loose leash in a straight line.
- you must be clean, well-groomed,
dressed nicely and be comfortable with ring procedures
- stacking (placing the dog
in a show stance that shows him to best advantage)
- baiting (using a treat to
get the puppy's ears up and tail wagging)
- gaiting (moving the dog at
a trot) a dog.
After you have handled all of
the above, you are ready to go in the ring and win! Right? Well,
maybe...
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LOSING
Which brings us to the big problem
with dog shows - only one dog and one bitch can win on any given
day. Sometimes it will be your turn; sometimes it will not. If
you cannot handle losing without taking it as a personal rejection
of you or your much-loved dog, you have picked the wrong hobby.
You must learn to be a gracious winner and a good loser. Always
congratulate the handler of the winning dog. It may be your turn
to win the next day.
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WHAT
IF YOU AREN'T WINNING
What to do if you are not winning?
How do you decide if you are pursuing an unobtainable objective?
If you are always in the ribbons, but never the winner you will
probably need to get outside advice. Hopefully your breeder will
be very honest with you and tell you if the dog is just not quite
good enough to be competitive, if you are not presenting it properly
(try to be grateful, rather than offended so that you can learn
where you need to improve), or if there just happens to be really
stiff competition at that particular time. Occasionally a dog
or bitch comes along that is truly superior to most of the others
in the ring at that time and all the other exhibitors can do
is hope it finishes quickly and gets out of the way. If you are
constantly finishing second or third behind the same one or two
dogs, chances are you will be first in line when they are no
longer showing.
If you are not sure whether it is you
or the dog, you could try hiring a handler for a few shows and
see if he or she has more success. If the handler wins every
time, you then have a decision to make - do you pay the handler
to finish the dog quickly or do you pay lots of entry fees while
you are getting ring experience? Your decision will have to be
based on your ultimate goal. If your goal is to show your dog
yourself to its championship (or, if you simply enjoy going to
dog shows and like to show) then you will want to continue to
enter as many shows as possible and hope you can improve before
your dog gets too old to show. Or, if your goal is to have a
finished champion as soon as possible, it would probably be easier
and cheaper to hire the handler to do it. Which you chose might
also depend on what sort of arrangement you have with the dog's
breeder. All breeders will want their stock finished as soon
as possible and may put pressure on you to do it the fastest
way. In most cases, the breeder will offer to handle a dog that
he or she feels could be more competitive with a different handler.
This can be an economical compromise between paying many, many
$20.00 entry fees and paying fewer but higher handler's fees.
AND
IF YOUR DOG STILL ISN'T WINNING...
If you and your dog are always last in line, only get ribbons
in 4-dog classes, and your breeder cringes every time you show
up by the ring, you need to take a cold hard look at your dog
and your handling and decide if you might be better off doing
some other competitive activity with your dog. Picking a show
puppy is an educated guess on everyone's part and sometimes the
nicest puppies just do not grow into the potential they seemed
to have at 8 weeks. (And sometimes the "pet" puppy
grows into a spectacular dog) Major faults like bad fronts, choppy
gaits, cow-hocked rears, etc. do not generally improve over time,
but bad footing, obesity, injury, etc. can turn a promising puppy
into an also-ran.
If that has happened to you, you can take
your dog home and love it, (which is really why you bought it,
right?) or you can look into some other form of competing that
doesn't require exterior beauty. After all, the Samoyed
is a working dog, so if it is competition you want there is obedience,
agility, herding, pulling and racing still open to you and your
dog. There is a working dog certificate that you and your pal
can earn that includes back-packing. All of these are very fulfilling
activities for both of you. The Samoyed Club of America has a
page
devoted to the range of Sammy activities.
And you can also do these activities while pursuing
a conformation title. For more information on what else Sammies can
do, see the Organization
for the Working Samoyed's web site.
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EARNING
CHAMPIONSHIP POINTS
To finish a dog to its championship you must put 15 points on
the dog. Points are awarded to the winners dog and winners bitch
at each show (the first place winners of each class come back
into the ring to compete for "winners"). The number
of points earned is based on the number of dogs shown that day
(not the number entered, but those actually in the ring) and
varies from one part of the country to another. You can earn
as little as 1 point for a small entry (2 or more dogs) and up
to 5 points for a large entry . Shows worth 3 or more points
are called "majors" and a dog must win two majors under
two different judges in order to finish a championship no matter
how many "little" points it has earned. This is to
prevent someone from finishing a mediocre dog by dragging it
around to enough 1 and 2 dog shows to accumulate 15 points.
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THE
STRUCTURE OF DOG SHOWS
Classes (separated by sex) offered at most shows are:
- Puppy (6 mo to 12 mo of age)
- 12 to 18 Months
- Novice (for dogs with fewer
than 3 first place ribbons - rarely used except at specialties)
- Bred-by-exhibitor (dog must
have been bred by the owner/handler)
- American bred (used rarely,
usually for young dogs - may be replaced by "jr")
- Open (the most competitive
class, open to anybody from puppies to dogs with 1 point to go)
At Samoyed specialty shows (such as the
two a year sponsored by the Potomac Valley Samoyed Club) there
will usually be separate classes for:
- Puppies (Sweepstakes)
- Jr dog or bitch class for
dogs 12-18 months
- Junior handler (where the
person handling the dog is judged)
- Veterans class (dogs over
7 years of age)
- Stud dog and brood bitch
(dogs are shown with several offspring and are judged on the
quality of the offspring).
- and, at Samoyed Club of America's
annual National Specialty, Sled dog
The most important class at any show is
the Best of Breed class. This is the class for finished champions
competing to see who goes into the group ring. Winners dog and
winners bitch also go into this class.
The progression for winning, from class
to best of breed, is:
- First place in class--competes
for...
- Winners dog and bitch--competes
in best of breed class for...
- Best of breed--competes in
the group for...
- Group I--competes with all
other group I winners for...
- Best in show
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HELPFUL
ORGANIZATIONS
There are many organizations to which Sammy owners can belong. First,
you may have a Samoyed club near you. To locate the nearest club, go
to the SCA's Local
Clubs and Rescue page.
As an example of what you will find, the Potomac
Valley Samoyed Club is our local breed club. We have two shows and
one match a year , meetings regularly, an annual information fair, and
other activities as they occur to us. The Samoyed
Club of America is the "guardian" of the AKC standard
for the breed. The SCA holds a National
Specialty Show each year in different parts of the country so that
everyone can attend at least one National Specialty at some time. (In
the year 2000, the SCA National will be held in Frederick, MD) SCA publishes
an award-winning magazine that comes out 4 times a year and contains
club business, articles about showing, agility, obedience, etc. and
many pages of advertising showing pictures of dogs from around the country.
Many of the SCA's members are breeders who have signed the SCA's Code
of Ethics, pledging to abide by them. You can identify who these
breeders are on the SCA's Breeder
Referral pages. Just look to see who has 'e' in the codes under
their contact information.
The SCA also publishes and sells much information
about the breed.
There are obedience training clubs for
dog owners who want to compete in obedience trials (or just train
their dogs to a high level), all-breed kennel clubs for people
who are interested in more "doggy" activities, sled
racing organizations, weight pulling, herding, agility, etc,
etc. Of course, it is also possible to belong to none of these
and just enjoy your family pet. TOP
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OBEDIENCE
TRAINING
We strongly recommend that you enroll in an obedience class at the club
nearest you. We also recommend a training club over classes given
at a local community center, since training clubs tend to do more to
monitor the quality of their instructors. If you can find a training
club that offers puppy classes that would be ideal. You and your puppy
will both benefit greatly from a good puppy class and it will help you
get off on the right foot (actually the left, since that is the one
used to begin heeling). It may also open up the fun of showing in obedience
to both you and your dog.
We do not recommend paying a professional trainer to train your dog
for you. This does not teach the dog to obey YOU, nor does it provide
the quality time and bonding that working in a class together can. It
also does very little to increase your own skill in working with your
new dog. The best professional trainers insist on training
you to train your dog. For more information about obedience, go to the
top of the page and click on the 'obedience' button.
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ORGANIZED
DOGGY EVENTS
Information about matches (informal training
shows), tattoo clinics (heartily recommended-a tattooed dog is much
easier to find if lost, readily identified, and harder to steal and
sell for animal experiments), and dog shows can usually be found in
the classified sections of your newspaper, particularly those sections
that feature weekend activities. For those in the DC metropolitan area,
check out the Friday, Saturday and Sunday Washington Post and The Post's
online edition, WashingtonPost.com.
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USEFUL
BOOKS AND LINKS
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DOG TRAINING FOR KIDS by A. Carol Lea
Benjamin (Simon and Schuster). An excellent book for any age.
Available in paperback and hardcover. Actually, any of her books
are recommended.
THE ART OF RAISING A PUPPY by the Monks
of New Skeete (Little, Brown & Co.) This is a must read.
It will give you just about everything you need to understand
and know about bringing up a well adjusted puppy.
THE NEW COMPLETE SAMOYED by Robert and
Dolly Ward (Howell Book House). A good all-round book on the
Samoyed in the United States.
UNDERSTANDING YOUR DOG by Dr.. Michael
W. Fox. A study of behavior patterns in dogs.
HOW TO BE YOUR DOG'S BEST FRIEND by the
Monks of New Skeete (Little, Brown & Co.)
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© Patti
Rasmussen, 2004-2005, all rights reserved. Not to be copied, downloaded,
published or copied onto web pages without author's permission.
Page design and construction by Stirling Rasmussen.
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