Newfoundland Takes Home Top Prize at Westminster

I have this love/hate relationship with the American Kennel Club.

On one hand I love to look at all the breeds of dogs. On the other hand, I know that inbreeding to produce the "perfect dog" is adding more defects to each breed's gene pool. And it drives me simply insane when they point to the way a dog is bred or clipped and say "That's the breed standard."

Like the poodles. The classic show cut is always been what guys call that "sissy" look with the big puff around the head, the circlets around the "ankles," and the pompom on the tail. But if that wasn't indignity enough, today's poodles now have two balls of fluff on their backsides. It looks even more stupid, but they will tell you it's the "breed standard." Nope. Go look at the way poodles were clipped fifty years ago. The "breed standard" ain't supposed to change. It does--yet the American Kennel Club says they're preserving the standards of the breed.

For instance, even I can still remember when Yorkshire Terriers used to be members of the terrier group, not the toy group. A nice size Yorkie was about 15 pounds. Now they weigh in at half that. How is breeding the dog smaller preserving the breed standard? German Shepherds were nice sturdy, erect dogs; now they have bred in that sloping back so much that the dog shambles when he trots--but this is considered a good thing! Hey, and if hip dysplasia goes with it, that's just the breaks, right? ::snort::

And how about the cocker spaniel? A generation or two of kids grew up with Dick and Jane and their cocker spaniel Spot. He was a nice sturdy dog with enough feathering to make him pretty and a good-sized head to house a clever brain. What the AKC now calls an English cocker spaniel still preserves all this. The American cocker now has too small a head for his body and tons of fur down below. Yep, can really see this dog running beside some kids, having too little brain to catch a ball, let alone flush a woodcock, and his fur getting caught on every twig.

Not to mention the Pekingese. The Peke's always been a short little dog with a long coat. He was bred to be a lap dog way back and it shows. But even fat little Tricki-Woo of the James Herriott books seems more mobile than the "breed standard" Peke of Westminster, who resembles nothing more than an ambulatory tribble with a pug face.

James and I were not rooting for either the Peke or the standard poodle, even though the latter can't help how he's clipped--I know standard poodles are cool and smart, but the clip job just makes them look horrible. We really favored the little Norfolk Terrier, who had the most adorable manner, or the Pembroke Welsh Corgi, ditto, but we still cheered when "Josh" the Newfoundland won. He was a very personable dog, and, in my book, personality wins over looks always.

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 8:15:00 AM

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