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- Jun 3, 2005
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- 3,659
There's lots of different sports. Lots, agility, jumping and games (this little black duck doesn't run so thats out!), back packing, endurance, carting, weight pull, dancing, herding, retrieving, tricks and on and on! Tricks you can even do on line. Most places you can register non pedigreed dogs for sporting comps.
The shows you're talking about are conformation shows which are judged on how closely each dog matches the breed standard. How his body is put together, how well he moves, the correctness of his coat etc. Most breeds were bred to do something, the breed standards were written over time to describe the ideal dog for the job. For example you don't want a dog used for hunting to have pricked ears, they sit next to the handler while they are shooting so if they have dropped ears it helps sheild their ears from the noise. Collies have white markings so they can be seen against the heather, but they are not white all over or they'd be difficult to see in the snow. Tipped ears are less likely to be damaged by the cold but drop ears make it harder for them to hear, so you get semi erect ears that combine both things. Most of the points in the standards have a practical purpose.
We do conformation shows too, Taisa is a Dual Champion as he is a conformation champion and a tracking champion (amoung other things) mind you I generally say all this proves is that he can sniff and that he convinced a few judges that he's a handsome smoothie! Miko is a Tracking championand very close to having two other performance champion titles as well as a few other titles. You're right though sports are heaps more fun!
The shows you're talking about are conformation shows which are judged on how closely each dog matches the breed standard. How his body is put together, how well he moves, the correctness of his coat etc. Most breeds were bred to do something, the breed standards were written over time to describe the ideal dog for the job. For example you don't want a dog used for hunting to have pricked ears, they sit next to the handler while they are shooting so if they have dropped ears it helps sheild their ears from the noise. Collies have white markings so they can be seen against the heather, but they are not white all over or they'd be difficult to see in the snow. Tipped ears are less likely to be damaged by the cold but drop ears make it harder for them to hear, so you get semi erect ears that combine both things. Most of the points in the standards have a practical purpose.
We do conformation shows too, Taisa is a Dual Champion as he is a conformation champion and a tracking champion (amoung other things) mind you I generally say all this proves is that he can sniff and that he convinced a few judges that he's a handsome smoothie! Miko is a Tracking championand very close to having two other performance champion titles as well as a few other titles. You're right though sports are heaps more fun!