Watching Westminster
Feb. 10th, 2009 01:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
summer_jackelI own my geekdom. I love the Westminster dog show. Purebred dogs are both a living art form and practical necessity which put us in a dialog with previous generations, in a few cases back to antiquity. More than any other animal, they reflect the complexity of the human behaviors, needs and personalities which shaped them, and to watch the different breeds move and compete is to appreciate how diverse we are. The domestication process fascinates me, and it's rarely presented so nicely and on such a grand scale as here.
EDIT: A really fun thing to do while watching this is to count how many of the handlers' clothes and hair color compliment or match their dogs.
Oh, and
.
Last year was really dissapointing; hardly any of the breed judging was available on the web. This year it's much more satisfying to watch because of longer clips, but I wish they would show photos of the Best Opposite dogs. I watch with a hint of anxiety, too...I'm planning on signing Coba up for his first show next month, so the moment I need to start gaining handling skills has come. Thankfully, we'll be in a puppy class, so we'll have an excuse to look like we have no idea what we're doing.
(Incidentally, if you watch Sheltie breed judging---and you all will because how could anyone possibly not want to oooh over Shetland Sheepdogs, right?---, my favorite is the pale blue being handled by the blonde in the gray dress. Yeah, you always root for the one in the class who looks the most like your dog, right...?)
My favorites, btw, are the Sheltie and Collie (preference to blues), Malamute, Siberian Husky and all the sighthounds, preference to Borzoi, Saluki and Afghan.
Here's the Best in Group competition for the herding breeds. I am grateful that they highlighted exactly how the sheltie is handled on the table. /Takes notes and casts speculative eye on Coba/.
Permit me a rant here, though. Look at the German Shepherd---his hips are so down that the poor thing has to pause before he moves out of stacked position. Watch for it; his hips actually wobble when he starts moving. GSD people, why the FUCK are you breeding for this?
Dog lovers often see this sort of irresponsibility happening and conclude that purebred breeding as an institution or concept is unethical and senseless, which is quite untrue. A more complex and more accurate explanation is that, in each breed, we are selecting for an extreme of type which best supports the breed's function. These extremes often come with an attendant disadvantage, which has to be weighed against the dog's utility. For instance, a Bassett hound's stumpy legs come with all sorts of health disadvantages, but its low profile helps it stay close to the scent it's tracking and lets it go down animal holes. So you try and breed the healthiest ones you have which are still low enough.
This process is complicated by lots of things: disagreements over desirable type, multiple desirable traits, the conflicting forces of improving a breed and keeping it stable over time, (especially in breeds whose original function may be obsolete), and the conflicting forces of rewarding perfect type (once you've decided what that is) and maintaining genetic diversity in a pool which will be limited to begin with.
And then, there's just being dumb.
Hips with a slight downward slant help a GSD launch itself quickly, giving it the force to intimidate an escaping sheep back into the flock or to knock down a person. It may be impossible to have that conformation without accepting that such hips will give out younger than those of other comparably sized breeds---I would accept 9-10 years rather than 12-15, say. But there is no excuse for the animal who is supposedly the finest example of its breed alive in the country to walk like its hips are giving out in the show ring. I mean, if an angry ram butted this dog, I bet its hips would shatter like china. A hint: when the showing and working lines of a breed almost never intersect, and look different enough that you might mistake them for different breeds, you have a problem.
EDIT: A really fun thing to do while watching this is to count how many of the handlers' clothes and hair color compliment or match their dogs.
Oh, and
.Last year was really dissapointing; hardly any of the breed judging was available on the web. This year it's much more satisfying to watch because of longer clips, but I wish they would show photos of the Best Opposite dogs. I watch with a hint of anxiety, too...I'm planning on signing Coba up for his first show next month, so the moment I need to start gaining handling skills has come. Thankfully, we'll be in a puppy class, so we'll have an excuse to look like we have no idea what we're doing.
(Incidentally, if you watch Sheltie breed judging---and you all will because how could anyone possibly not want to oooh over Shetland Sheepdogs, right?---, my favorite is the pale blue being handled by the blonde in the gray dress. Yeah, you always root for the one in the class who looks the most like your dog, right...?)
My favorites, btw, are the Sheltie and Collie (preference to blues), Malamute, Siberian Husky and all the sighthounds, preference to Borzoi, Saluki and Afghan.
Here's the Best in Group competition for the herding breeds. I am grateful that they highlighted exactly how the sheltie is handled on the table. /Takes notes and casts speculative eye on Coba/.
Permit me a rant here, though. Look at the German Shepherd---his hips are so down that the poor thing has to pause before he moves out of stacked position. Watch for it; his hips actually wobble when he starts moving. GSD people, why the FUCK are you breeding for this?
Dog lovers often see this sort of irresponsibility happening and conclude that purebred breeding as an institution or concept is unethical and senseless, which is quite untrue. A more complex and more accurate explanation is that, in each breed, we are selecting for an extreme of type which best supports the breed's function. These extremes often come with an attendant disadvantage, which has to be weighed against the dog's utility. For instance, a Bassett hound's stumpy legs come with all sorts of health disadvantages, but its low profile helps it stay close to the scent it's tracking and lets it go down animal holes. So you try and breed the healthiest ones you have which are still low enough.
This process is complicated by lots of things: disagreements over desirable type, multiple desirable traits, the conflicting forces of improving a breed and keeping it stable over time, (especially in breeds whose original function may be obsolete), and the conflicting forces of rewarding perfect type (once you've decided what that is) and maintaining genetic diversity in a pool which will be limited to begin with.
And then, there's just being dumb.
Hips with a slight downward slant help a GSD launch itself quickly, giving it the force to intimidate an escaping sheep back into the flock or to knock down a person. It may be impossible to have that conformation without accepting that such hips will give out younger than those of other comparably sized breeds---I would accept 9-10 years rather than 12-15, say. But there is no excuse for the animal who is supposedly the finest example of its breed alive in the country to walk like its hips are giving out in the show ring. I mean, if an angry ram butted this dog, I bet its hips would shatter like china. A hint: when the showing and working lines of a breed almost never intersect, and look different enough that you might mistake them for different breeds, you have a problem.
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no subject
Date: 2009-02-10 11:08 pm (UTC)Also the poodles. That topiary is just ridiculous.
However, the best in breed doberman is relatively closely related to Noire, which always amuses me. Granted, the dobie show tree is more of a bush, if you know what I mean. :)
Dobermans don't seem to have the GSD issues yet though -- Noire's from show lines, but she's built right and is a really sharp, really possible working dog, so.
no subject
Date: 2009-02-10 11:40 pm (UTC)Why the 'do on the poodle? I know that the silly thing is trying to show both the quality of coat and body type, but was it just fashion that pushed it to this extreme?
no subject
Date: 2009-02-10 11:45 pm (UTC)(OW BABY MACAW ON HEAD.)
There's a breeder here in Canada who's working on showing her dogs in the historical continental clip, which is much more likely what the dogs looked like --
http://tudorosestandardpoodles.com/heritage.cfm -- the comment about the HCC clip.
(And yes, if I get another poodle, I'm pretty sure it'd be from them, I LOVE their breeding philosophy. :))
no subject
Date: 2009-02-10 11:56 pm (UTC)Also, I would imagine that having a baby macaw land unexpectedly on one's head is significantly more startling than a poicephalus-mutt doing the same thing. Still pretty startling when it happens, though...
no subject
Date: 2009-02-11 12:12 am (UTC)Babycaw on head cannot be unexpected, alas. He's too loud in flight. :) It does hurt though, particularly when he's trying to adjust his balance.
no subject
Date: 2009-02-11 12:09 am (UTC)This made me giggle, remembering when Sunshine climbed down onto your forehead. :D
I had read that about the poodle 'do, but I'm glad my parents don't do that with their toy poodles.
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Date: 2009-02-11 12:12 am (UTC)Unlike babycaw, who thinks heads are FUN. And who is very heavy.
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Date: 2009-02-11 04:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-11 05:37 pm (UTC)Kaya's head landing is usually reserved for moments when I have done something unspeakably rude, such as begin to eat something without first giving her a bit of it. I translate this as "HEY, remember me? You have a PARROT." Otherwise, she tends to land on a shoulder or the back of a chair, or just coquette at me until I pick her up.
no subject
Date: 2009-02-11 12:37 am (UTC)Poor doggies. :(
no subject
Date: 2009-02-11 02:52 am (UTC)I admire the British dog club for finally growing a couple and moving away from the extreme breed attributes that have been to the detriment of the dogs. Takes guts to do something like that, whatever the underlying reason.