There is a fundamental difference in the way the majority of top dogs get

campaigned in the UK and the USA. Across the water, it is fairly commonplace to

bring out a promising puppy and finish its Championship title long before its first

birthday, then leave it home to mature or maybe in the case of a bitch, breed an

early litter from it before returning it to the ring as a fully mature adult.

Here in the UK there is a rather different attitude. Puppies are brought out and

once they start winning their owners are reluctant to take them out of the ring in case

they are forgotten. Remember this is a very small country, despite our vast numbers,

and the dogs that appear at the Championship shows tend to be the same set of

dogs, generally speaking, week in week out. If a winning dog is missing from the ring

for several months, there tends to be the inevitable speculation as to what has gone

wrong with it, rather than assuming its owners knows best and the dog is being left at

home until it is really ready for top honours.

It is true that today many of our dogs start winning Challenge Certificates at a

younger age than they did twenty years ago, when it was common practice to not

even show outstanding dogs as puppies, but wait until they were ready and then

bring them out in the Open class as a previously unseen “secret weapon”. As a

symptom of our “instant society” we expect dogs to be winning top honours in their

youth, and many exhibitors panic if their new star is not on the road to its title by the

time its second birthday comes round. Speaking as someone who regularly awards

top honours to youngsters – firmly believing that it is the quality which should be

assessed on not simply maturity per se – I obviously do not believe that dogs have to

reach a certain age before they start top winning, but it is true to say that when they

start competing in groups it is unlikely that they will be deserving of the ultimate

awards before completely mature.

There are of course exceptions, and sometimes a very raw youngster comes

into a group that totally eclipses the competition. I remember vividly judging a show

many years ago in Iceland. When I was judging my breeds in the morning I had

noticed outside the adjacent ring a very striking Papillon waiting to compete that

really caught my eye, but by the time I’d finished my particular breed Paps were over

and I had no idea how it fared. When I came to judge Group 9 in the big ring later I

was delighted to see it had won BOB. This was a locally-bred male of just ten

months and he really was a sensational puppy, so true to his Breed Standard in

every way. He was furthermore impeccably schooled and had relentless

showmanship, so he was for me an easy winner.

I then had to judge BIS and still the Pap was a comfortable winner for his

sheer star quality, presence and overall correctness, so sometimes even at the

highest levels the youngsters can come through.

I recall in an interview with Anne Rogers Clark a few years back she confided

that she was frequently accused of finding great ones “before they were perhaps

ready to be found” and I could easily identify with that. Sometimes the baby in the

ring has such exquisite type, quality and freshness that it makes the more mature

competition look dull and common, and then of course it has to win. I have always

said, the one thing that is guaranteed to change about a dog is its age!

A long time ago I was placed in an agonising situation which involved a lot of

soul-searching. I was judging a large entry of Yorkshire Terriers, many of which were

fully mature and dripping in coat of pleasing colour and texture. However so many

possessed constructional and type faults that bothered me. In the first class of the

day, the 6-9 months males, had come a self-confident 8 months puppy who radiated

quality, moved perfectly soundly, out, back and around, whose topline never faltered

and who, on the table, was remarkably well bodied for a baby. He had a perfect bite

and whilst his coat was as it should be at that age, it was far from being the finished

article. When he won his class the furthest thing from my mind was awarding him the

CC but as the classes wore on and the Dog Challenge was called, I realised that he

was a strong contender despite his age. What is a judge to do? Coat and colour are

major breed characteristics but should they take priority over conformation, balance

and movement? I have judged many outstanding Yorkshire Terriers around the world

so know it is not impossible to get the breed right, but I was sad to see that the breed

was at such a low ebb in its homeland. I thought long and hard before I awarded the

puppy the Dog CC (to total silence I might add!) but for me he was the best dog on

the day in so many respects. I later had a decent bitch for the CC (who turned out to

be bred by the breeder/owner of the precocious dog puppy) but when it came to

BOB she could not match the impeccable topline of the baby. Going through my

head was all that trivia that Nigel always taught me to get rid of … Would I kill the

puppy’s future for ever? Would there be arms thrown up in horror when this baby

appeared in the group ring? etc. etc. but I got on with the job and, hand on heart, the

puppy had to win the breed and so he did.

I hoped he would blossom and the breeder judges who were clearly so

horrified at such a young CC winner would, with full maturity, judge him fairly and

without bias, but for me on the day he was – what is says on the can – BEST OF

BREED. Thankfully he did and became a very worthy Champion.

But let’s get back to the question of breeding; a young bitch gets on a roll and

starts picking up Challenge Certificates. What happens? In many cases, bitches get

put on the pill to stop seasons as it might interfere with a few dog shows. They win

some more CCs, and possibly when they around two or three years of age they are

very much at the top of the breed and proving hard to get past. Breed records come

into sight and the priority becomes winning everything at all costs, the thought of

breeding something better from an outstanding bitch being put very much on the

back burner.

The dog show was developed as the breeder’s shop window. In the old days,

when communication and travel was limited, it was at the shows that breeders came

to see what kind of stock their competitors were producing. This is where they saw

the different types and looks that were coming from other kennels, and based on

what they encountered at shows breeders made decisions as to what bloodlines they

wanted to take advantage of. The raison d’etre of the dog show was to assess

breeding stock.

Nowadays all that has changed. We no longer have the numbers of large

kennels where the great breeders ran quantities of breeding stock, having the

facilities to experiment with different bloodlines and to run on whole litters until they

could be properly assessed. Today the majority of people – in Britain if not the USA

– go to a dog show for a day out, to show their dogs and meet up with friends. They

maybe breed a litter once every year or so, and every single puppy has to be placed

in a “show home”. The whole emphasis has changed, and winning has become

paramount amongst the higher profile exhibitors.

A friend of mine in a Working breed is typical of the older-fashioned thinkers,

however. He tends to take bitches out of the ring for a first litter when they are

around 18 months of age, regardless of what they are winning, breeds from them

and returns them to the ring looking more finished and fitter than when they left. He

finds that healthy young bitches tend to retain their shape easily and just generally fill

out. He experiences few whelping problems with young, fit bitches, and most of his

winners have never won so much as a Reserve CC before being put on maternity

leave. It works for him, but his thinking is not widespread.

Far more common is the exhibitor who shows a bitch hard till she’s four or five

years old, and then when they start thinking about breeding it’s too late. Either they

abandon the idea, in case of trouble, or they take a first litter and there are problems.

As a consequence we have many top winning bitches in a variety of breeds,

beautiful examples of their breeds, that have never had the chance to reproduce.

I have spoken to some people who own such bitches who openly admit they

were just too worried that something might happen to their precious bitch, so they

chose not to breed from her. No one could have been fonder of a dog than myself

and my beloved Beagle bitch, Ada, who was for many years the top CC winner in her

breed having won forty-two. She and I were joined at the hip for sixteen years, yet

when she was winning everything in sight I chose to take her out of the ring at two

years of age for her first litter. She was brought back to the ring and later taken out

for her second and last litter, still looking great. Indeed she won CCs over a period of

seven consecutive years. However, her contribution to the breed was not winning 42

CCs, it was producing thirteen puppies, some of which had a great influence on the

breed world-wide. Today most of the top winners in the UK are line-bred to her. She

contributed something to the breed, and surely that should be our hope for all our top

dogs.

We have become so obsessed with Top This, Top That and Top The Other,

that I feel some of our breeders and exhibitors may have lost sight of what dog

shows are all about. One of our greatest breeders of all time once said to me “When

I breed a really great puppy, I feel elated, but then I feel downhearted … because I

know I won’t rest until I breed a better one from it.”

That thinking is rare these days, more is the pity.

© ANDREW H. BRACE

(This article may not be reproduced in any form without the author’s

permission)