As I said I have never shown a dog myself but I have attended several shows with friends and family. I did, in the past, show Himalayan cats. At that time the breed had a small nose but that was not good enough. People wanted a "small" nose so the breeders had to go to the extreme to an almost no nose look. The Siamese people decided they did not like the apple head look and decided to make the head so angled it was beyond freakish.
I have seen this sort of thing happen in the dog world as well. The Collie was once a beautiful dog but now they have make the head so extreme that it has caused some serious health issues. Anytime breeders decide to go for the extreme and judges go along with the trend there are going to be problems in the breed because so much line/in breeding has to be done to accomplish the changes.
Yes, there a lot of tricks going on. It is a very political and competitive world. Many of the dogs that you see in the Westminster dog show have been being show from one end of the country to the other for more than a year by professional handlers. If those dogs have a home they may not have seen it in a very long time. Dogs at that level are sometimes owned by several people and are a kind of sport for the owners. It takes a lot of money to get to that level. It's big financial investment and no one likes to lose on their investment. |