Dog Shows Explained - ignore at will
Welcome Back!! Congrats on your half Champion. You should still be very proud.
Karen
Thanks - this is the first dog I'm finishing myself. I've always hired professional handlers for the others. But, Taiko's a mama's boy and won't show for anyone but family. So, I am pretty pleased. it's taking us longer since I am less competent than a professional.
Hey, can you explain your post a little for me? I don't understand what "half a champion" means. I guess that's a good thing, but I know nothing about dog shows or how they work.
From my limited dog show knowledge. I'll try to simply. I'm sure Esteri will add anything i leave out.
AKC breeds have a designation for pure bred dogs as champions ( CH gets added after their full registered name) (Kinda like Dr. after a doctor's name)
The designation itself means that your breeder gets bragging rights and that this dog also would be a good representative to breed for future litters. (also, puppies of champions tend to cost more.)
In order to get this designation, you attend AKC dog shows all over the country sometime.
At each sanctioned AKC match the winners of each breed catagory (they are divided by breed, then by age, then by male/female). The winners of the category your dog is in (i think 1st place only) gets a certain amount of champion points. Points are determined by the amount of dogs entered in that class in that particular show.
(i'm not sure of exact numbers but let me give you an example: Say a first place will get you 3 pts. You will need to place 1st in ten shows for your dog to earn its champion title (then you actually can compete as a veteran "i think")
Clear as mud?
She means half a champion because she was hoping to gain enough points to "finish" (ie get enough points for) it's champion title. Guess her dog only has half the number it needs right now.
That's really, really close for a non-dog person. Well done!
Just a few minor corrections... Championships in all their flavors (Conformation, Field, Herding, Tracking, Agility, Obedience, etc.) are added before the dog's name. Titles (performance based events) are added after the dog's name.
Interestingly, there was a dog in Montana who was working on his Triple Championship. He has a Field Championship, and an Obedience Championship, and received one major win (see below) at this circuit - so that makes him 2 1/2 of a Triple Champion? He would be only the forth dog
of any breed to achieve this distinction. A single Championship is hard enough, much less three.
So for example, the dog in my avatar was Ch ArimarLisa Arkansa v Graenit, MH, SDX, RD, V.
Ch = Conformation Champion, MH = Master Hunter, SDX = Shooting Dog Excellent, RD = Retreiving Dog, V = Vertatile. SDX, RD, and V are Weimaraner only titles, not AKC titles. Typically, titles after the name are performance based titles where the dog is judged against a standard of performance, and if they meet the minimum standard they earn a "leg". After x number of legs (the number varies by the title) they earn the title. The Championships that go before the name are competative titles. That is - the dog is judged not only against a minimum standard, but also against all the other dogs entered. Usually only the best dog (and sometimes the second best) gets "points" towards their Championship. The number of points need vary by the kind of Championship.
While a Championship does give the breeder some bragging rights - a Show championship is certainly "worth less" than a performance championship, simply because there are so many more of them.
Puppies from Champions tend not to be any more expensive than pups from non-Champions. In some cases they are cheaper! I've been known to give away awesome dogs to the right home. It depends on the breed and your region - this is a generalization.
For the essay explaining shows - see below.
Boy, and people complain about the math posts.
That seems really complicated. I always just assumed you were a 'champion' if you won a show.
Yes, I'm afraid statistics does play a part... But the folks showing their dogs don't have to worry about that part - so I'm not going to put a MATH ALERT on this post.
Here's a quick primer on Conformation Shows. A Conformation (or Bench) Show is the "beauty contests" you see on TV. There are other, Performance Events such as Obedience, Agility, Field - but that's a different post.
A Conformation Show is basically an elimination contest. As long as you keep winning - you keep going, until at the end of the day only one dog stands undefeated - Best in Show. Taiko and I, however, are down in the lowly classes and do not aspire to those lofty heights. So starting at the bottom of the heap.... are the Class Dogs.
Class Dogs (and B****es) are dogs that have not finished their Championship. They are broken out by sex - males only show against males, and females against females. There are a number of different classes available to enter based on different characteristics such as age (Puppy 6-9 months, 9-12 months, 12-18 months), breeding (American Bred, or Bred-by-Exhibitor), experience (Novice) or nothing at all (Open). Taiko and I show in the Bred-by-Exhibitor class. Which means that the person sowing the dog both bred the dog and owns the dog.
Oh my, look at that. The correct word for a female dog got blanked out. It's not an insult - its a correct usage of the word. OK, everywhere you see *****, please insert the word that starts with B and rhymes with "witch". I added the B back just to help a little.
The judge examines each dog in every class and judges that dog against the standard for the breed (the specifications for the "perfect" whatever). (How well does the dog "conform" to the standard?) Four placements are given. And the first place dog continues on to the Winners class. (They are still undefeated.)
The Winners class brings into the ring all the first place dogs from every class. From this group the Winners Dog/B**** (best dog) and Reserve Winners Dog/B**** (second best dog) are selected. Most Winners come from the Open class, and then the Bred by Exhibitor class.
(Let me see if I can find a picture on the AKC website... Nope - too bad they have a really good picture in their Beginner's Guide to Dog Shows, but it's not on the website.)
OK, then, continuing on. The Winners Dog/B**** are the only dogs who get points towards their Championships. More on that later.
Then the Breed class enters. These are dogs (of any sex) who are finished (already have their Championship) and the Winners Dog and the Winners B**** (they haven't been defeated yet - so they continue on).
From the Breed class up to three dogs are selected: Best of Breed, Best of Opposite Sex (to best of breed), and Best of Winners (from the Winners Dog and Winners B****). Best of Winners can also be combined with Best of Breed (BOB) or Best of Opposite Sex (BOS) - should the judge give the class dog BOB or BOS.
The Best of Breed dog still stands undefeated - and moves on to represent their breed in the Group ring. (This is where you ususally start watching on TV.) The breeds are divided into seven gropus by original function of the dog - Sporting (hunting), Hound, Herding, Toy, etc. All the Best of Breed winners enter the group ring with their group. (My dogs are part of the Sporting group, being pointers.) The judge examines each dog and compares them to their breed standard - not each other. And picks the dog who comes closest to meeting their standard. The dogs are placed 1st to 4th place.
The 1st place dogs from each of the seven groups, still being undefeated, then enter the Best in Show ring. Where one is selected - and is the only undefeated dog of the day.
Does a dog from the classes ever make it to Best in Show? Yeup. But not very often.
This is basically how it works in North America - the other two major registries, the United Kennel Club, and the Canadian Kennel Club work much the same - though the specifics may differ. Europe, the UK, Austraila, South America - work differently. But we won't go there.
Now, how to become a Champion...
The Winners Dog and B**** earn between 1 and 5 points depending on the number of dogs entered. (Here comes the math part.) Every year the AKC does a stastical analysis on the number of entries for each breed by the 12 or 13 different regions the US is divided into. Points are assigned based on the number of entries in the previous year. So, for example, in my breed - Weimaraners - it takes 8 males to make 3 points in CA, but only 5 males in Montana. (Hence the reason lots of folks go to Montana.) However next year - it might take 6 dogs in MT and only 7 in CA - depending on how many entries were made in the region in the previous year. Note that the number of points for males is only based on males, and the number for females only based on females. So, it might be 2 points in Dogs, but 4 points in B****es - at the same show.
To earn a Championship a dog must win 15 points. Two wins must be "majors", under two different judges. A "major" is a win of 3 or more points. The rest of the points can be made up of "minors" (1 or 2 point shows) or majors. Not surprisingly - the majors are the big deal as they are more difficult to find and win.
My dog, Taiko, had 7 minor points and no majors on the way to Montana. Technically that's 1/3 of a Championship - but it's the majors that really matter. We went Reserve Winners Dog (affectionally knows as "Best of Loosers") on the first day of the circuit and got dumped (3rd out of 3 or 4) every day after that until the last day when he went Winners Dog for a 3 point major. (Sadly, we were one dog short of 4 points.
)
Just to make things a bit more complicated - had he gone Best of Winners over the Winners B**** he would have earned the same number of points that she won - 5 points. (Since he defeated her.) But the judge liked the B**** better.
In any case - since it's the majors that really matter and he has one of the two that he needs - I call him 1/2 of a Champion.
Now that's probably more than you ever really wanted to know...
She wasn't too pleased at the thought of dumping him at the KidsQuest last trip out. That was until she saw the one at Red Rock and then saw how he didn't even give us a second glance and took off! 
They used to think it was horrible that we would stick him in the kids' programming on the Magic for 6-7 hours...until they saw how irrate he was when he had to leave the KidsQuest! :rofl:
