On a recent holiday weekend, after the food and the football games had been consumed, I retired to the recliner and loosened my belt a couple of notches… OK, maybe three… alright, I may have changed into sweat pants. After surfing the limited number of channels available on my antenna-powered TV, I decided that the airing of the ‘National Dog Show’ was the least-worst of my viewing choices. Surprisingly, I really enjoyed the program… but I think I’ve come up with a couple of ideas that will really benefit the organization that sponsors the dog show while increasing viewer numbers at the same time.
There were more than 150 breeds of dogs represented at the show, broken down into different groups like working dogs, toys, terriers, etc., not unlike the beef cattle industry that has nearly a hundred different recognized breeds, itself. Until the 1960s, there were just three major breeds of beef cattle and the breed organizations made certain that they were kept pure. If a steer was to win one of the big shows like the American Royal, Chicago International, or the National Western, you could rest assured that the winner would be a purebred Angus, Hereford or Shorthorn. Then, someone had the great idea to allow crossbreds to participate and one nationally recognized livestock judge had the courage to make a mutt (crossbred) the winner at Chicago, and the cattle industry was changed forever. I can think of hardly any winners over the past 20 years that have been anything other than crossbreds… but back to the dog show ideas.
Now, I’m not saying that crossing a Great Dane with a Chihuahua would be anything close to a great idea, but I’m suggesting that maybe the dog show people ought to, at least, consider a crossbred class or classes to their competition. Instead of having the subgroups divided into bunches like hunting dogs and herding dogs, they could follow the lead of their cattle counterparts and simply sort them by size. I would suggest that they have three size divisions that could be called large, medium, and bait-sized. That way, your St. Bernard and German Shepherd crosses would be in the large-sized class while the Beagle-Labrador cross would fall into the medium class. The bait-sized would include the inevitable cross of the Shi-Tzu and Miniature Dachshund.
I’m sure that purebred dog breeders all across the country are becoming enraged as they read this, but just let me remind them that purebred cattle breeders were just as offended in the ‘60s when shows started opening up to livestock that couldn’t produce a pedigree. The result, however, has been the most phenomenal increase in the quality of beef cattle in the history of the world.
My second suggestion has to do with the judges for the dog shows. I’m accustomed to going to cattle shows and watching the judge place his class from first to last. After the ranking, he has to go to the microphone and orally defend his placing to the exhibitors and spectators. The judge at the dog show, however, simply has to place the class without defending his choice, and then congratulate the winner before handing out ribbons and trophies. So, when the kennel club finally accepts crossbred animals into their prestigious shows, I sincerely hope they’ll consider me to be a judge. I have a lot of experience with crossbreds and I can shake hands and pass out ribbons with the best of them.
