As I have already mentioned, I am not a fan of dog shows, and medals awarded because of appearance arouse my inner opposition.
We started selecting dogs for breeding long before the creation of kennel clubs and shows. Dogs have never needed and still do not need papers. They want to be loved, loved, and cooperate (more or less, depending on their predispositions). That is enough for them.
In the past, people did not need papers proving origin or compliance with the breed standard because they valued dogs for their usefulness, not their appearance. How effectively the dog exterminated rats / exhibited game or retrieved birds was important. It was the work that mattered, not the looks. It made sense.
Unfortunately, beautiful, or rather elegant, rich and probably a bit bored British women envied their husbands hunting, competing, talking about dogs, or something else. Unfortunately, they decided to diversify their reality by having dogs. Their four-legged friends were supposed to be, above all, cute and not troublesome.
Aristocrats did not necessarily feel like doing anything requiring more physical effort. It’s hardly surprising, given the fashion for corsets… Either way, the fashion for pets that are almost finished with the toilet has begun. Today’s companion dogs come from them.
The ladies have already competed with each other on many levels: beauty, wealth or influence. They carefully observed and judged which one had the most beautiful dress, the most expensive necklace, the highest hairstyle or the most original hat. Now, dogs have become a new field of competition: which one is the cutest? Which one is the most beautiful? Well, it’s a matter of taste. Therefore, an independent (more or less) judge was necessary. As we know, necessity is the mother of invention. There are plenty of enterprising and inventive people where there is money. This is how the first exhibitions were created, gaining popularity and becoming more and more formalized. Right up to the form in which we know them today ☹
The marketplace of human vanity continues and takes its toll in the form of dog suffering…
There are many reasons why I wouldn’t say I like exhibitions – too many for one entry. That is why I will write about various reasons one by one, 1, 2, or 3 in each entry.
1. Dogs that live to win medals for their owners (because here, the word “guardians” doesn’t really suit me) are often very unhappy. I’ll write later about their diseases, deformities, etc. Now, I would like to draw attention to the way they live. Well, they can’t entirely be dogs. I know how dogs rarely go for a walk because the garden is safer. (Who cares if the garden is dull?) In the park, for example, there is a risk that they will start playing with other pets to the detriment of their well-groomed coat. Just in case, they have NEVER let off the leash. They would still get dirty! A tragedy for the owner. A dog’s happiness is not worth broken hair or the need to comb it out, or worse, the risk of cutting the dry fruit of the Arctium Lappa out of the dog’s hair. The owner could not allow this to happen! How much stress, time, and maybe even money would it cost him? No, the luck of his trophy on four paws is not worth such a risk.
2. Boring life, a significant lack of contact with individuals of the same species, and no chance for free exploration (let me remind you: SNIFFING is a NEED, not idle entertainment!) are not everything. Let’s think for a moment how much (especially long-haired) show wonders must stress and suffer for people’s expectations to be met. What amount of time, stress, and often pain is paid for by a beautiful appearance… which the dog itself needs like a hare needs a bell 🙁
3. The dog’s stress.
We used to downplay it. Most “guardians” claim that the dog is doing well if the dog does not cower in terror. Few people can recognize the signs of stress, such as squinting, yawning, turning their heads, immobilizing, trying to walk away, etc. Dogs’ attempts to cope independently, like digging holes, trying to scare away strangers by barking, etc., are suppressed as undesirable behaviours. We see that the dog is stressed only when crouching, hides his tail under him, and does not want to leave the table or pees out of fear. The terrible thing is that in many people, even this extreme evidence of incredible stress evokes anger rather than empathy, compassion or understanding. Because they can hardly be called guardians, many owners try to force the dogs to be submissive and obedient. Some go so far as to scream, tug at these poor, frightened creatures, and even put echidnas on them or beat them…
Dogs feel uncomfortable in crowds. They need time and space to communicate comfortably. In a dog-human cluster, they have no chance for either of them. Most of the time, they are entirely incapacitated (leash or cage), and they feel intense stress from their owners, which further deteriorates their emotional state. How would you feel at a slave market as an object to be evaluated? If you can imagine it, know that this is how most dogs feel 🙁
And what is all this for?
Unfortunately, for money and the satisfaction of human vanity, 🙁 Only.
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