THANK YOU Sheri!! Well said......
I do not believe we on the List or any of us as 'older breeders' love
the Breed any less than a passionate young person
that is excited and new to the Breed. We are experienced......and we
know over the years what works for us and our dogs
and what we are doing at a show or training or breeding / whelping, or
paperwork....and the love we have for this Breed.
I think ALL reasonable suggestions are useful...but I don't believe we
MUST CHANGE for this awesome Breed to continue.
We who truly love the GSD will not be responsible for its demise no
matter how old or young we are. Most of us have put in
a whole other lifetime into this Breed...the
shows...breeding....training...working at shows...from set up to clean
up...meetings
and caring for and loving the GSD. Every single little result of
every single litter matters to us...from the decision to breed
all the way to placing them in what we think to be perfect homes.
Others involved in the Breed matter to us.
Our decisions and the venues may not appeal to every newcomer...but
often they do not always appeal to us either..
( think St. Louis )...<G>.....but BECAUSE of our love for the
Breed...we drive for miles...worry and stay up hours...spend more
than every single one of us should and know several Vets and many
other Breeders on a personal level. Most of us have looked
at and participated in and worked at Obedience, Herding, Rally...now
Barn Hunts...and opt to give ourselves over to Conformation.
We do what we can do.
I love a comment on one of Evan Ginsburg's posts..... "Listen to
others...be yourself....everyone else is taken".
Carolyn marhaven@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
www.marhaven.com
On Behalf Of Sheri ChambersSent: Thursday, January 05, 2017 10:06 AM
Subject: [ SHOWGSD-L ] Re: "Asking for opinions/ideas"
I've stayed out of the discussion because I find that most people with
strong convictions tend to not want to change them. For every
perspective there are others with a different one. I went to the
Northeast Futurity/Maturity last year. I drove 3 days to get to the
show, and the weather was unpredictible to say the least. I have been
showing for a while and thought the club did an outstanding job of
putting on a show weekend trying to please all exhibitors. They did
have an obedience trial in conjuction with the specialty. They had a
concession wagon selling food and also one day had a wine tasting
vendor selling local wines and offering a tasting table filled with
cheeses and fruit. The club also offered a hospitality night with a
catered meal all things to allow for socializing after the event.
Coming from out of state I knew no one, yet while sitting under the
canopy to avoid the rain and snow chatted with some wonderful people
and made new friends from the east. My "expensive" handler and his
wife spent every evening providing food and snacks and wonderful hot
coffee to their clients, all out of their own pocket. Without
exception I have found the handlers to be some of the nicest people in
the sport.
I appreciate your passion for the breed and you have some great ideas,
I encourage you to join your local club and plug in. What you don't
realize is it takes manpower to run multiple venues and most clubs
have a small nucleus of members that do all the work. One of the
requirements we ask of new members with our club is to volunteer 6
hours a year to club events. We have many people that are pet owners
that join the club and then do nothing to help, and drop their
memberships at the end of the year. We have always tried to have
multiple events on our show weekends, then found that we could not get
the help needed. Many clubs offer temperament tests during the
futurity weekends, but you have to have a certified evaluator, and
volunteers to run the tests. You have to fly the evaluator in, put
them up in a hotel and hope you can make enough money to cover the
costs. Same with a herding trial, etc...
The point I am trying to make is you have to be on the inside to see
the whole picture of how it all works, until you are involved with the
club you are only seeing things from an outside observer.
The GSDCA has offered amateur owner classes for the futurity for a
number of years with very little participation. If there are so many
owners that want to show their dogs where are they? I have great
admiration for those that do but I don't feel like the breed is
stopping anyone from showing their own dog. You say that UKC shows are
so wonderful because no professional is allowed, I went to look at
some of their shows and saw very few entries of German Shepherds. The
largest entry was 5 dogs so if owner handling is so popular why aren't
the entries larger? I suspect the reason is the same as the AKC shows,
it is an expensive hobby and many families have to budget their monies
for the many activities their children are involved in. I also believe
there has been a cultural movement perpetuated by the Animal Rights
groups that only rescue and shelter dogs are appropriate pets and that
owning a purebred dog is a thing of shame, let alone the cruelty of
showing dogs! I don't think it is fair to blame the breeder for the
lack of entries at shows or the lack of young people showing. There
are a number of breeders that have mentored many juniors, but it is up
to the individual to continue, if you don't enjoy the sport you won't
participate. You can't candy coat the work or commitment involved
with showing, by making it easier you won't increase entries. The
people that want something for nothing will eventually get bored and
move on to something else. There are kennel clubs out there that
offer quick championships and they appeal to those who want instant
gratification. I have participated in them and they are fun, but the
accomplishment of a hard fought AKC championship means so much more to
me.
In the end it takes a certain person to show dogs, people take offense
to how they are treated at shows not realizing they are trying to be
social during serious competition. Join the club, stay for hospitality
after and you will see the true personalities of exhibitors. The
friendships are made at club meetings, programs and parties. I hope
this doesn't discourage you but will encourage you to become involved
behind the scenes, hopefully you will come up with a new perspective.
Sheri Chambers
_____
Really, Kathy? I'm trying to contain myself! I drove almost 3 hours to
your club events just to volunteer. And, combine with my volunteering
at other GSDCA events that is a good amount.
And, the point isn't to say "look how great our club is and we are
doing well" but to get consistency in the Futurity program across the
breed.
Here is the last Northeast Futurity I went too which was in the last
few years. It was in a big field adjacent to the hotel. People spaced
themselves out around the field way far away from each other. I saw no
real socializing and I had to walk the entire perimeter of the field
and make my way to each person individually to ask them about their
dogs.
Most people brought their own food or they could buy sandwiches but I
saw nobody sitting together eating (except people running show).
There was no other event at all except the show. Thus, the only people
there were conformation people and really expensive handlers. There
were hardly any dogs there with most classes having none, 1, 2, or 3
dogs in them. It was a short day because there were hardly any dogs.
If you consider that a Futurity success than more power to you. I'm
happy that is what is considered a success in the conformation world.
I guess everything is A ok with the Futurity system and that there is
tremendous consistency across the country. Kudos to the breed!!
As usual, I can only take so much of this List before I need to take a
break. It is about that time....
I will depart with one last thought....too all you older breeders: How
much do you love the breed? Do you love the breed so much that you
have set the breed up to succeed when you die by ensuring that you
have supported a younger generation (not constantly chase them away);
that you have supported changes to try to help the breed membership
grow; that you have tried to be inclusive realizing that the era of
conformation being the sole draw for the breed is over? Conformation
will never be eliminated and will always be important so what is the
huge battle to also support performance so the club survives. Most
GSDs competing in performance are not owned by GSDCA members. How much
do you really love the breed?
Ok, I need to take my mandatory mental health break from the List.
It's so draining trying to get this List to realize changes need to be
made in our breed for the betterment of our breed and the future
success of our Club.
Carry on as usual.....
Sarah
