Salukifan

Your No 1. is the Irish Setter. :) You might want to take a look at the Irish Red and White too!!

Personally, I think they are pretty ordinary at lounging.

Poodle - obedience, agility, flyball, canine freestyle. Two of mine will course!!! Whippet: There are obedience and agility whippets. Some will course a lure. Most will course a hare (but not allowed here) and of course, lounging. ;) Nothing lounges better than A Whippet.

I'll step outside sighthounds and other ectomorphic breeds. Bloodhound Bracco Italiano Redbone Coonhound Segugio Italiano Italian Spinone Bit of a theme there I reckon ;)

Oh for pity's sake... I was saying what I WASN'T doing. MY COMMENT WAS NOT DIRECTED AT YOU. Is that clear enough??? You two are kind of arguing on the same side, you know. I'm doing my level best not to be arguing at all. ;)

Oh for pity's sake... I was saying what I WASN'T doing. MY COMMENT WAS NOT DIRECTED AT YOU. Is that clear enough???

Did you read the next line? I was talking about myself.

.....breeding at the expense of health and for looks. Yep... see my edit. BTW, I'm not sitting here on the lofty perch of a breed fancier who's smug that THEIR breeds aren't under the microscope. There's a few breeding trends in Whippets that need to be kicked into touch ASAP IMO

Edited.. there is mention of "breeding for looks". Missed it the first time.

Of course they are. IMO no one breeds for more extreme types than them and its basically a professional show scene with a LOT of money involved. You've got to remember they also have yet to ban cropping and docking so the "animal welfare" side of purebred dogs isn't under the same kind of pressure .... yet. Livelihoods are at stake in the USA - not just reputations.

I agree that it all seems pretty haphazard but I do believe we aren't getting the full picture.... yet. No one held a gun to the head of any exhibitor to make them show at Crufts and they went in with their eyes wide open. Of course they're upset. I'd be devastated. But I will await the aftermath before judging the system of DQing as poor. And even if it is, by the looks of things UK exhibitors had better get used to it.

You don't have to be a vet to hear a dog that can't breathe quietly at rest, to know what obesity is, or ectropian or entropian or excessive skinfolds. You don't have to be a vet to see a dog that can't get out of the way of its own hocks to sit easily You can see it at almost any dog show and until now no one in a position to act for change has done a damn thing about it. Breeders and exhibitors and dog shows got us to where we are... do you HONESTLY think that those who have more invested in the current breed standards and judging are the ones to lead us out? The future of purebred dogs is ON THE LINE here. If we don't want to see entire breeds banned for health reasons and extinct soon after then drastic measures are called for. I will wait for the dust to settle but God knows someone had to do something and the KC has. All I can say is that the dog fancy has been a hothouse for these issues for a bloody long time and frankly if you don't see a problem with some breed standards then chances are you are part of it. The PR generated by breeding for dogs that can't live comfortable, healthy lives is a hell of a lot worse than the PR for dog shows. After all, they are supposed to be about show casing the best examples of breeds in order to choose breeding stock for future generations.

Aloysha, permit me to sing to you the praises of a particular product for wound healing. This was recommended to me by a fellow Whippet tragic (and lets face it, we Whippetfolk know about wounds on dogs) and I'd describe its healing/scar preventing qualities as not much short of miraculous. Stinks like fish but once he's got a closed wound,have at it. I didn't have huge issues with it being licked off but you might to need all your sumo nappy/muzzle/steel box on head gear to succeed.

but not for being "unworthy" as you put it.

I think "unworthy" is a somewhat value laden term. Unworthy of what? I also don't think for one moment that every individual in an entire breed would fail health tests. However it IS possible that a significant number of individuals might. I look foward to the results of the first dog DQ'd for obesity. There are plenty of very fat show dogs around. It is named as a health issue in a significant number of the 15 "high profile" breeds. I could probably add a few more with that as an issue.

Has life expectancy influened my breed choices? Yes So has the prevalence of certain life threatening diseases/or conditions in some breeds.

I sure hope so. I think published reasons will be very important. No, apparently they are not going to reveal the reasons. http://www.dogworld....hecks_at_crufts "The Kennel Club would not reveal why they failed the new checks – introduced to Crufts this year – and said it would not do so for any of the 15 high-profile breeds although the reasons will be given to the club by the vet involved. The owners have no recourse to appeal." But the owners are not gagged. If they wish to reveal the reasons given by the vet, they are at liberty to do so.

I don't think I'll speculate any further on the "whys" a particular dog might have got DQ'd. Its a bit like being in a pit full of jelly with blindfold on and both arms tied behind your back... hopeless when you have no information to base it on. I just really hope these DQs WERE the real deal because dogs and the dog fancy need for such action to be both decisive and fair. There's a lot of sound and fury at the moment but I suppose we have to wait for the dust to settle to evaluate whether this action has any impact on the breeds concerned.

If that's a case then it makes a mockery of the protocol. How did you find out?

The KC have left it to the exhibitor to publish that information if they chose to do so. But I reckon a fair proportion of Peke folk in the UK show scene could take an educated guess.... Bit like here really.. lame dogs win under the right judges and with the right handlers. If the KC protocol was in place here, I wonder if such dogs would be entered at all. I'll have to say this though - that vet is clearly made of very tough stuff. My guess is that a Committee process was involved in the decision and I take my hat off to each and every one of them.. not a job for the faint of heart.

Yes, at the premier dog show, Crufts. Based on some agreed upon schedule of targeted areas & process. To illustrate the best of the best on show. However, bear in mind that I'm sure those exhibitors think their dogs ARE healthy. And its the minds of exhibitors that need to be changed. I can see Peke breeders looking at pups now.... and hope they'll be thinking.. maybe "Nose not too short, broad, nostrils large and open" means that pup with the slightly longer muzzle that I would have petted out before might be my best bet for Crufts in a year or two after all. We need revolution not evolution in such thinking and if the big sticks are what it takes to get it then that's all to the good IMO. Dogs stand to benefit from this - in tangible ways.

So what's the message to be given? "Only a 'healthy' dog should be shown?" Or "just because a dog wins, doesn't mean its 'healthy'" I think its the second one that exhibitors need to grasp first. I hope the first message will be the conclusion exhibitors reach for themselves. Bear in mind that the KC hasn't implemented this just for Crufts - its now the rule for EVERY KC show. And as for vets to examine every entrant. Bags not be the exhibitor footing the entry fees to cover that contingency. Imagine how long it would take to vet every dog entered at a show prior to judging.. or how expensive it would be to have sufficient vets to do the exams in a timely manner.

Amen to that. The Dog Fancy has shown no inclination within its ranks until now to reverse the direction of breeding for exaggeration that has occured in some breeds. If this is what it takes to get heads out of the sand and thinking about these issues, then so be it.

Not even if boredom is the motivation Nekhie? That's disappointing.

I reckon the Army or Australia Post would jump at the chance to evaluate this dog!! ETA: I'd be adding TOT and NILIF to Eric's life pronto!! Just remember that you need to exercise his body AND his mind. Training does the latter.