10 days before a show closes a dog finishes that we hoped would make a major. One friend says "they broke the major". I say "the major we hoped for isn't going to happen". Is it breaking the major if none of the dogs were even entered yet?

Technically it’s her second show, but her first show she only did BPUP — she took Group 1 and Group 2 at that show!

I am SOO proud of her!

Hi y’all!! I’m looking to find a breed and start researching breeders and getting into a breed community before i get a puppy for conformation and scent work in the next few years! So I have some criteria below and I’d love some help finding the best breed for me and my partner!

- Im not worried about doing super “well” in conformation. my dog will mostly be a companion and scent work dog and we’ll do conformation when possible. I don’t know if I’ll be able to handle my own dog since I am a wheelchair user so idk if that effects anything. When we show and compete in scent work will always be dependent on my health

-We don’t want a curly coat. Short haired breeds and breeds with feathering are preferred! No wire haired breeds or breeds that require hand stripping please! Shedding is okay though! I’m happy to maintain a show coat when we’re showing but i’d like the option to shave my dog down or keep it in a shorter cut when I’m not showing

- We want something medium size. About 25-45 pounds would be amazing! Something spaniel or Aussie/border collie sized

-health wise, we’re willing to accept and handle orthopedic issues, eye and skin issues, special diets, and allergies. Things like DCM, cancer, and kidney issues scare me a bit

-We need something lower energy. I’m sometimes bed bound from my disabilities and my girlfriend isn’t as experienced with high energy dogs as I am since she grew up mostly with toy breeds and rescue mutts. We want a dog she can fully care for and handle when I’m not able to do much. We can make sure our dogs get daily walks and off leash time in open space with things like flirt poles once a week even when I’m not doing well. We also want something with a good off switch

- Me and my girlfriend both love Velcro dogs! Her childhood dog is extremely clingy and I’ve always loved clingy dogs too!

- We don’t mind high mental stimulation needs! We’re happy to do enrichment, lickmats, and breed specific indoor games whenever possible, even if that’s every day!

- we want a smart and biddable dog! We want a dog that’s eager to learn and please and we really want training to a high level to be as easy as possible!

-We don’t want an overly friendly dog. My service dog in training is a show-line lab from a program and his trainer says one of his biggest struggles was over friendliness and that that’s something that labs and goldens tend to struggle with. He’s really friendly even after training and that’s just not my preference for a dog who doesn’t necessarily need to be friendly to do the work I’d like to do with it. it’s great for service work but not for what we want in a second dog. We don’t by any means want an aloof dog and do want something on the friendlier end but less than a lab or golden

- we don’t want crazy high prey drive. It’s not necessary for us and we don’t want the risk of reactivity. Something with medium drive would be great! We also have cats who need to be safe around our dogs!!

- We LOVE goofy dogs!!

- We live on the southern east coast so it is hot and humid here. But we do live near the beach and have tons of opportunities for swimming so we’d love a dog that enjoys the water!

- To make training easy, we want a dog who’s pretty food motivated! However I don’t like how Labs love to put objects in their mouths. A retrieving breed would only work if this want to have everything in their mouths was less than a lab!

- We HAVE to have a very quiet dog. Absolutely NO baying or howling so scent hounds and huskies are out of the question. Barking should be as minimal as possible too. I am audio sensitive due to my disabilities and a dog barking can be physically painful. we’re willing to train for this but we’d like to start with a low barking level

- kids arent a problem right now. There’s literally no one under 18 in our lives and if we have kids it will be decades down the line

- We live in a two bedroom apartment and the second bedroom is dedicated to the pets but we will likely be renting townhomes for the foreseeable future (a whole house is just to much to keep clean and usually hard to maneuver a wheelchair around) so we may not necessarily have a yard and we won’t be able to have any commonly restricted breeds

- We can handle risks of resource guarding or destructive behaviors like chewing but we want to avoid risk of any kind of aggression. My girlfriend had a family dog who ended up needing behavioral euthanasia as a young teen and that’s not something she wants to experience again

- I don’t want a breed that needs to be cropped. I’m in no way against cropping but I just don’t want to deal with posting. Docking is perfectly fine though!

- if it comes between multiple breeds that fit our lifestyle, I’m very drawn to long hair breeds with lots of different in standard colors and/or patterns. My girlfriend also loves fluffy and unique looking breeds!

- my girlfriend grew up with a Shih Tzu, a chihuahua mix, and pit/staffy mixes. She also spent a lot of time around her friends Bull mastiff and loves him (despite him being well over 100 pounds)

- I had a mutt who was mostly border collie and sheltie growing up as well a rescue yorkie. my grandparents also had dachshunds and yorkies. I personally didn’t like the temperments of dachshunds and yorkies but our herding dog was amazing, though weirdly low energy for being mostly border collie. I trained reactive lab poodle mix for an ex and also spent a lot of time volunteering At shelters. My brother also has boykins and theyre amazing dogs, just a bit high energy and at least my brothers current boykin doesn’t have a great off switch. Of course I also have my lab who is amazing for service work but i’d like something a bit different for conformation and scent work

- so far we’ve been considering english cocker and springer spaniels and my girlfriend loves the idea of a toller but I don’t think I could handle how vocal they can be

I know that’s a TON of criteria but I wanted to be as specific as possible! Please give any suggestions you have for breeds to look in to!!

We had a bad show weekend but at least we had a good time.

Now we take a month off for her to mature and get out of her fear period and then back on the grind in September!

I got to help hold dogs and get to know the Cardigan Welsh Corgi a little better and took lots of pictures of the various dogs. ​The biggest show I've ever attended. ❤️ 12 year old me would have been so proud. Even got to meet a Cardigan pup at the Meet the Breeds event. I like the meet the breeds events. I wish more shows did them.

I have really been wanting to get into conformation. I've been doing a lot of research on breeds that I think would be a good fit for me and my lifestyle. Yesterday, I went to my first dog show. It was an amazing experience - so fun to see so many breeds I've never seen in real life before and to meet lots of people in the dog community. I met a breeder who I really liked as a person; she came off as very established and reputable, and later internet searches seemed to prove that. She told me about one of her dogs she was trying to find a home for. The dog is already a champion, and she wants to find a home that will continue showing for a grand champion title. She told me about the dog and her temperament, and she sounds like she could be a really good fit. I was initially planning on getting a puppy, but I think there could be a lot of advantages to bringing home an adult dog. I have never raised a puppy, and although I want to experience the puppy stage, what's more important to me is making sure the dog fits my life and lifestyle.

I have no showing experience, but it's something I really want to learn. Is getting an already established champion a good idea for me? I'll probably end up at a handling class, and the dog will be the one teaching me, haha. Of course, I want to talk to the breeder more and hopefully, if it's a good fit, she'll help mentor me a bit, but I wanted to hear some of your thoughts and experiences.

This is the temperature range of my indoor grooming spot at an indoor show this weekend. I activity feel like I am melting.

The club even brought in mulriple swamp coolers to help try and keep the building cool, spoiler the swamp coolers are flipping the breaker so there is all but no airflow. The handlers in my area are passing fans and icepacks around to help keep dogs cool. I can only imagine what the heat intolerant dogs are feeling.

I wish I had an RV to stick my dog into to keep him comfortable.

Before someone asks - The expiry and writing on the thermometer are an in house expiry from work as we only use them for 6 months at a time.

I've never been and I don't really know what to expect. It was hard to find the schedule that said when each breed would be showing, but we have a friend who's an exhibitor who shared it with us.

I'm excited to go because I'm interested in getting a dog soon (maybe January or February 2027). I want to meet the breeds I'm excited about and hopefully get some connections with reputable breeders. I love the idea of doing conformation myself and want to experience what its like to see if its something I'm actually interested in.

What is spectating like? What should I expect? Also, I know not to interrupt anyone when they are about to go into the ring. When is a good time to talk and meet people and their dogs?

I'll be taking my pup to her 1st show in September. This weekend I'm going to a show in St. Joseph Mo to watch. I want to see the BPUP class, which I understand is usually first. The premium says the show goes from 6 pm to 8 pm. I assume that means the building opens at 6? What time does judging usually start? Any tips for things I should pay attention to?

My Cavalier pup (8 mos) is showing moderately well in spite of his handler, but there are a couple of issues I would like suggestions about: 1) He tends to want to smell all the smells going around the ring, and/or pull. He's trying to be a little hunting dog. We're working on this, but more suggestions are welcome. 2) He absolutely cannot focus in handling classes if there are small females around. (He thinks he's Romeo for a very young Biewer terrier. May not help that she thinks she's Juliet.) How to maintain show focus around the girls?

My girl finished her Championship this weekend with back-to-back 5 pt majors (Thursday and Friday). Thursday, she went WB, BOW and BOS. On Friday, she was WB, BOW, BOS and OH BOB. I moved her up, and she went Select on Saturday for 5 pts toward her grand championship. On Sunday, she went BOS and OH BOB for another 5 pts toward her grand championship. In four days she walked away with 20 pts and her championship. They were also doing CGCA testing, so we stopped by and grabbed that title for her, too. I could not be more proud! It was an RRCUS supported show, so she also brought home tons of loot. lol

My girl has never had an issue standing properly, but recently she’s putting her back end too far forward making her look so odd. The first two photos are old, the third is most recent showing how she’s gone from showing good angulation to very poor.

Being a Labrador, she needs to be free stacked so hand placing her rear isn’t an option… I had wondered if it would benefit from some muscle tone so I’ve been doing cavalletti pole exercises alongside her usual swimming/ retrieving (she’s a working Gundog) for the last month. She’s heading down to her next champ show in a couple weeks and ringcraft here is off during summer so this is bad timing 🤣 thankfully already has her crufts qualification, but between her standing like a wally and being very out of coat I’m thinking it’ll be a trip wasted.

Any tips would be greatly appreciated!

Dino finished his championship (pending AKC approval) at 14 months old with four majors and two best of breed wins. I couldn’t be more proud of my sweet boy. Here he is with his ribbons from this weekend.

Hi!

I have an almost 5 month old Pembroke corgi puppy. The one thing she struggles with is being comfortable on the table and standing. I can get her to stand for like 2 seconds and then she just sits. She also won’t take food on the table sometimes.

I’ve tried all the tricks! Using high value treats, keeping sessions short, and we’re going to handling classes (which helps but still a struggle). I can get her to stand if I hold string cheese for her. Before our first bpup show, I had friends try it out and she did ok by the third or so practice. A friend of mine is making stacking blocks so hopefully that will help.

I should add she is teething pretty bad right now so she’s not as interested in her normal treats but been trying really high value ones lately.

Any advice to get my girl more comfortable and confident on the table? She is SUCH a confident puppy otherwise and picks up things so quickly.

Does anyone know if Houston is gonna have health testing clinics??

I took some pictures and while I am trying to save up for my own dog, I am putting myself out there to hold dogs, step in the ring. While my local kennel club doesn't offer handling classes, I am still gonna learn and come back to the sport. My next plan is to attend the Houston Dog Show Friday to Sunday and hopefully help with the Cardigan Corgis and maybe a few others too. Ive been hanging around Herding breeds and Hounds a lot (since I started with a beagle). :)

Always wanted to put my basset hound in a dog show but I know nothing about them it’s more of a joke then anything but I have all his papers and he’s pure bread anyone got any advice on where to start

Give it a try if you want to learn them too. I find it helpful at shows.

https://cards.study/course/american-kennel-club-dog-breeds

Way to go Benny! You're stepping into six months old strong!

Thanks for all the encouragement! I was a total hot & sweaty mess and realize I was holding the lead wrong, but wanted to share a pic of my beautiful boy. We were soo tired, but I think he still shines in spite of me. I’m going to try to learn and help us improve.

Hi again everyone! 

I've been regularly posting silly questions on here for the last few months as I started my conformation adventure with my 3-year-old dog. Originally I was worried 3 years old was too late to start, but we got lots of great advice and encouragement from the Reddit community!

We recently had our first show ever with IABCA, and it was a blast! The environment was WONDERFUL for a nervous newbie! Everyone was very kind and supportive, especially the judges. They told me what I needed to work on as a handler and how to help my dog get more comfortable in outdoor rings (he hates pokey grass LOL). My biggest worry has always been my guy's lack of coat, but the judges (all were AKC judges) encouraged me to try out AKC. Each thought he could finish, even the judge who is in my breed, which was very exciting. 

I went with a small group of friends and ended up connecting with even more people, including a few people in my breed who were also kind and encouraging! It was an overall wonderful experience, and my guy even walked out with a Group 3! :) While there weren't that many dogs in the group, I will still treasure the moment (and silly medal) forever!!

We have officially entered our first AKC show for the end of August that just happens to be a breed specialty! I can't wait to see how it goes! And my dog can't wait to find more strangers to give him treats and pets!

Our little “win photo” for tax!

I’m just getting back into showing after 48(!!!) Years. I have zero desire to year panty hose - it’s just too hot and humid here for them. What are alternative dress options that I can get away with? I’m very new to conformation showing of my breed. I’m attending my first BPUP show with my baby this weekend.