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What I Learned at the Dog Show
By Humane Watch
May 24 2010
 I
spent this weekend at the Myrtle Beach kennel Club’s
all-breed dog show in Florence, South Carolina. The club
invited me down to talk about the threats its members
are facing from the Humane Society of the United States
and the rest of the animal rights movement. Since I had
never been to a dog show, I said yes. (I grew up
thinking that “fancy” was an adjective. Silly me.)
I’m not a big fan of people who pooh-pooh things they’ve
never tried or seen up-close. If one of my children says
she “doesn’t like” something on the dinner table before
taking even a tiny bite—well, let’s just say that
doesn’t wash in my house.
And I’ve always thought the whole “dog show” community
was rather mysterious, a kind of benevolent secret
society with its own rules, customs, and vocabulary.
Sorta like Deadheads, but with a lot better grooming and
a lot less fleas.
Truth be told, the dog breeders I met this weekend do
have their own peculiar ways of saying and doing things.
But they’re really just ordinary people with a shared
hobby. They’re really into what they do. And they taught
me a lot in just a Saturday. Here’s some of what I
learned.
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1. When you go to a dog show, bring your own chair. But
don’t be surprised if someone offers to lend you theirs.
(I’m typing this in someone else’s customized,
embroidered lawn chair.)
2. Dog shows are competitive, but the people involved
are remarkably supportive of their human opponents. I
heard a steady stream of “congratulations!” offered to
blue-ribbon holders from handlers who were trotting away
empty-handed.
3. If you’re a first-timer who asks “what kind of dog is
that?” too loudly, somebody might look at you funny.
4. These people treat their dogs like royalty. It was 90
degrees in the shade on
Saturday, and the dogs had shade, electric fans, and
cold water—even if their owners didn’t.
5. Judging from this weekend, the typical show-dog
handler isn’t a stuffy Brit wearing Saville Row tweed.
She—yes, she—is an energetic 40-year-old married mom
whose husband packs up the kids and brings them along on
the trip.
6. Sometimes the kids strut the dogs around the ring.
The under-18 handlers even have their own judging
category in which their skills are being judged, not the
qualities of their dogs.
7. The name of the game is “conformation” (not
“confirmation,” as I used to think). Dog show breeders
are trying to breed animals that “conform” to a set
ideal of how a breed can look, “gait,” and behave if
they do everything right. (I read an article in Wired
this week about how Cheetos in the factory are checked
every 30 minutes against a “reference sample” from
Frito-Lay headquarters, just to make sure the ideal
color, texture, and crispiness is being matched. It’s
kinda like that, but it takes years for these folks to
make a single Cheeto. And Cheetos don’t pee on you.)
8. Watch where you step in the parking lot.
If this particular dog show is
any indication of what’s typical, the “dog fancy” is a
lot of fun for a lot of people who contribute a lot of
money to the economy—and aren’t hurting anyone. “If
we’re not having fun here,” one judge told me, very much
off-the-cuff, “we shouldn’t be doing this.”
For the life of me, I can’t figure out why the Humane
Society of the United States has such a visceral hatred
of everything they stand for.
I think what’s going on is that HSUS,
PETA, and other animal rights groups are conflating
breeders whose main goal is to sell puppies with those
who just happen to really love Pomeranians, Pinschers,
or Poodles. This latter clique of people (far larger
than the former) shows their favorite animals because
they’re proud of them, not because they believe it will
make their next litter worth more money.
It’s not hard to understand HSUS’s stated motivation for
attacking people who breed dogs. The group wants
everyone to believe that rampant pet overpopulation in
America is all their fault. But personally, I just don’t
see it.
I didn’t meet “puppy millers” this weekend. I met
hobbyists, just like if I were at a model railroad
convention, an antique fair, or a swim meet. They ask
after each others’ kids. They visit each other in the
hospital. They have knitting circles where the dogs
watch approvingly. They’re 50 percent garden club, 50
percent church pot-luck. Zero percent animal abusers.
I asked one breeder how much money she had spent raising
her champion dog, a mammoth Anatolian shepherd. “Who
knows?” she answered. “I never really added it up. If
you’re pinching pennies you probably aren’t treating the
dog right.” In addition to the two purebred dogs she was
showing, she had “two rescue mutts at home, and they
have the same food, supplements, and everything else my
show dogs get.”
And when I asked one of the veteran breeders how many of
her peers raise dogs so they can sell the litters
commercially, she looked at me like I was from Mars. “We
all sell dogs, son,” she told me. “But none of us make a
cent doing it. And I know where all my dogs live. If
anyone can’t provide for them, we take ‘em back.” And
then, almost as an afterthought: “I sure don’t want any
of mine going to the pound or a rescue.”
Everyone I asked about this had the same kind of answer.
If they found out that any of their puppies wound up in
a shelter, they’d sure do something about it.
So why all the hostility from the Humane Society of the
United States? Why did I hear from North and South
Carolinians
who had beaten back attempt after attempt from HSUS to
have them taxed, registered, regulated, raided, and
otherwise priced out of their hobby? What is it about
these men, women, and children, so passionate about
running up and down a concrete floor with their pets,
that demands intervention from activists who think they
know better?
Maybe it’s that HSUS thinks the only way to shut down
“puppy mills” is to paint every dog breeder with the
same broad brush. Maybe. I haven’t yet really wrapped my
mind around why HSUS is opposed to everything I saw this
weekend. I just know that it is.
As with pretty much every group of ranchers, dairymen,
biomedical research scientists, and chicken farmers I’ve
met, the breeders I spoke with this weekend had varying
levels of awareness about the looming political threat
from HSUS. Some of them can’t be bothered to be
bothered. Others are fired up at the mere mention of
Wayne Pacelle’s name.
“Somebody has to take that guy on,” one 50-ish man
barked when I brought up the name of HSUS's CEO. “That
whole movement is nuts. After I showed up to lobby
against HSUS’s last North Carolina breeder tax, I
started getting calls in the middle of the night,
untraceable phone calls, from these people saying they
were going to come on my property, take my dogs, and
burn my house down. I told ‘em my new rifle has an
awesome night scope. That pretty much ended it.”
I spoke to the crowd after the Best In Show was awarded,
in this case to a fluffy pekingese named “Noelle.” I
told them that their problem is the same as the one
faced by pork producers, egg farmers, dairymen, and even
cancer researchers. But it was up to them to reach
beyond their circle of friends—outside their comfort
zone—if their kids and grandkids were going to keep
being Junior Handlers and continue to raise the dog
breeds they’ve come to love.
At the end of the day, I have to be skeptical of HSUS's
blanket condemnation of pet breeders. I'm confident that
there are some horrible ones out there, as there are
with any group of people (including animal
activists...), but any legislative or cultural movement
that lumps the people I met this weekend in with the bad
actors is just plain wrong-headed.
Because the dogs I met in South Carolina were among the
best-cared-for animals I've ever seen. Anyone who's
truly interested in animal welfare would want to make
sure more dogs—not fewer—are treated this way. So how
'bout it, Wayne? Why aren't you promoting dog shows?
Probably because you've never been to one.
Humane Watch
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